A lot of people have been asking me what I think the Indians' chances are of making it to the World Series. They've probably been asking you this too (it's just what you talk about).

Well, Vegas has the Yankees as something like 67% favorites, but that doesn't reflect the odds of either team winning the ALDS; it reflects the public's feelings about the Yankees. The truth is that the Indians' chances of winning the ALDS are about 50%. If they advance, their chances of winning the pennant will be about 50%. And if they reach the World Series, their chances of winning it all will be about 50%.

I look at it like this: say you're the best team in baseball. In a given year, you're probably about a .600 team—meaning, against MLB-average competition, you're about 60% likely to win any given game. Against a playoff opponent—even if they're only the 4th or 5th best team in your league—you're probably not facing MLB-average competition; you're facing slightly tougher competition. So your chances of winning will come down from 60%—they won't dip below 50%, because you're still the better team, but they'll come down. Now your chances of winning a given game are probably something like 55%. And that's if you're the best team in baseball, which the Indians are not. For a team like the Indians, the chances of beating the Yankees in a given playoff game are probably somewhere between 48% and 52%. Stretch that out over a laughably small sample size like a 5- or 7-game series, and basically, you're going to see the "better" team, whoever it is, win about as often as the "worse" team. Trust me when I say that history bears this out.

Now, you can talk about how a specific team matches up against another specific team (in fact, I believe Alex may be preparing a post of that nature). But the differences are always going to be marginal. The Indians have the better starting pitching—it's slightly better than the Yankees'. The Yankees have the better offense, to be sure—it's slightly better than the Indians'. I just don't see the point in making a prediction.

As I hinted, Alex and I hope to bring you some more postseason coverage before the week is out. Our lack of Indians content lately has not been for a lack of interest or enthusiasm. I'm as psyched about the Tribe now as I've been in years. It's just that our goal (and the thing that keeps us interested in blogging) is to provide content that's unique in some way. When it comes to Browns content (as you've seen), this is pretty easy for us, because there just aren't any other blogs out there discussing the Browns with the same style of analysis as ours. But the multitude of great baseball websites has grown so quickly, that's it's hard to come up with something smart to say about the Indians that hasn't already been said—more articulately—on 12 other sites.

(Here's a good example, from Vegas Watch, the same blog I linked above: An Open Letter To Eric Wedge. After reading this, I think, "I couldn't have said it better myself." So why should I try?)

Sorry to rant. My point is that yes, we do hope to publish some more Indians posts soon, but we make no promises. In the meantime, enjoy Game 1, and GO INDIANS!!!