Sports: A Game Of Inches

We are four humble men who love sports, but hate sports commentary. Peter Gammons is our hero and John Madden is our enemy. If you were to ask us our purpose, our answer would be simple: "We are forever locked in Mortal Kombat for the souls of sports fans everywhere. Statistics are our science and 'the immeasurable character of men' is the obsolete religion of blind faith. Our job is to prove that God doesn't exist and that athletes are merely cold, metal machines with no hearts or souls."

A Pointless Look At The 2008 Cubs

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...Bill James invented the Pythagorean Expectation Theorem (PET), a formula designed to estimate how many games a baseball team should, in theory, score based on their runs scored-allowed differential.

This theorem is calculated by the following formula:

In 2008, the Chicago Cubs led the major leagues with a 184 runs differential. They scored 855 and only allowed 671. Their PET calculated Win% was .619. Though the Cubs won 97 regular season games in 2008, their PET-predicted wins total was 100.25, meaning the Cubs "underperformed" by 3 wins.

Using the Cubs 2008 PET-based Win%, just how unlikely would it have been for the Cubs to win all 162 games? 1.725 x 10^-32% or 1 to 5.798 x 10³³.