Likelihood of Making the Final Four Tournament with an Eight Team League

In an earlier post, I predicted the chances of team G making the four team final weekend tournament based on the 7 team playoff format. The probability that I estimated for team G was 45%.

This probability would change in the 8 team league. The first round playoff format could have 1st play 8th, 2nd play 7th, 3rd play 6th and 4th play 5th.  The opposition for team G plays in the first round will depend on how the new team performs.

Teams A, B, C and D will be in the North Division.  Teams E, F, G and H will be in South Division.

I will assume the new team is team A.  I used the Pythagorean Formula to determine the runs for and against for team A based on various values of their winning percentage.  Then I adjusted the runs for and against for from the 2012 season for the other teams based on the results for team A.  I then calculated the winning percentage for the other teams in the league.

Then I found the final standings based on the winning percentage of each team.

The final standings would be as shown below based on the performance of team A.

Team A Percent	0.400	0.450	0.500	0.550	0.600	0.650	0.700	0.750
Standings
1	E	E	E	E	E	E	E	A
2	B	B	B	B	A	A	A	E
3	C	C	C	A	B	B	B	B
4	G	G	A	C	C	C	C	C
5	F	F	G	G	G	G	G	G
6	H	A	F	F	F	F	F	F
7	A	H	H	H	H	H	H	H
8	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D

So if team A has a winning percentage between a 0.400 or 0.450, team G plays team F in the first round.  Based on team G's head-to-head winning percentage versus team F, the probability of winning the first round of the playoffs would be 0.500.

If team A has a 0.500 winning percentage, then team G would play team A in the first round.  Team G's head-to-head winning percentage versus team A is in this case expected to be 0.452.  Thus, the probability of team G winning the first round would be 0.411.

For all of the other cases, team G would play team C in the first round.  Team G's head-to-head winning percentage versus team C is expected to be 0.435.  Thus the probability of winning the first round of the playoffs would be 0.380.