Why We Count 5-run Wins as "Sweeps" in Our Standings: Brewers Sweep 3 of 10

 Since 1961 a total of 27% of 3-game series end in sweeps according to MLB Sweeps.  To better simulate a short season in Statis-Pro baseball, we treat every game as a 3-game series, and count each game as a 3-game sweep if the winner is ahead by 5 runs after 8 innings without using its closer. This combined the fact that a team with a better win differential than their record indicates typically sees their record improve when more games are played and vice versa.

We track all results here.

If we wanted to really duplicate the sweep chance exactly we would make it any game won by 4 runs or more - which is almost 27% of all games just like sweeps are 27% of all series sweeps, so we make it a little tougher to record a sweep by requiring a 5-run margin - which happens in 21.6% of all MLB games and so far has happened in 21.2% of our games this season (14 of 66 games).

This means that on average in 10 games a team would:

Sweep 1 of 10 games to get credit for a 3 games to 0 sweep.

Win 4 of 10 games by 4 or fewer to get credit for a 2 games to 1 series.

Lose 4 of 10 games by 4 or fewer to get "blame" or winning 1 game and losing 2 games.

Be "swept" in 1 of 10 games to be blamed for 0 wins and 3 losses.

That means a team would be 5-5 in actual results and we would credit them with a 15-15 mark in our Statis-Pro season.

However, the Milwaukee Brewers split with the St. Louis Cardinals tonight to make them 5-5 in our games this season. 

However, they beat St. Louis 13-1 in the opener which is their 3rd SWEEP in our season, and they lost 1-3 in the nightcap - meaning they have still not been beaten by 5 runs in any of their 5 losses.

When you do the math, that means the Brewers are 18-12 in our season to be first in our Statis-Pro NL East."

The Cardinals are also 5-5 in actual results, but it was the second time they have been "swept" in 10 games to only "sweeping" the other team once, therefore they are now 14-16 in our season stats.

The reason we like this math is that run differential indicates that if two teams split the first two games of a 6-game series, but one scores a total of 12 runs (like the Brewers did) while the other scores 9 runs, there is a good chance the Brewers win the series 4 games to 2 so in essence we score things that way. 

Here are the standings and the scoresheet for the two game series.

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