I didn’t take statistics in college, so maybe I’m missing something. But this article makes me think. If you don’t want to bother to click through, the article cites a Web source containing odds for teams to reach the 2008 World Series. What I don’t get is that five out of the top six teams are American League teams. The Mets are the only NL representative among those top six.
Now, only one AL team and one NL team makes it to the World Series. So how can you have five different AL teams at 7:2, 5:1 and 10:1 odds, but only one NL team at better than 12:1 odds? If the Mets were big-time favorites, I guess it would make sense, but they’re 4:1.
I’m usually good at math, so someone please explain this to me.