BBMI Division Series Review: Three Favorites Advanced, the Yankees Fell Short
The Dodgers, Brewers and Guardians advanced. Tampa Bay swept our fourth favorite, the Yankees. Across four MLB pick products, BBMI finished the first two rounds 14–3.
Guardians 54%
Dodgers 67%
Yankees 55%
Brewers 55%
Three correct series picks, one miss, and several pitching plans that changed after the preview. That is where BBMI stands after the Division Series.
Our original forecast made Los Angeles the clear favorite. Milwaukee, Cleveland and New York had much smaller edges.
White Sox vs. Guardians
Braves vs. Dodgers
Yankees vs. Rays
Padres vs. Brewers
Cleveland’s forecast was computed before first pitch from pregame inputs, then posted to the site after Game 1 had begun.
Including the Wild Card round, six of our eight series favorites advanced. Adding those eight published probabilities gives 4.65 expected favorite wins. Six is a good result, but eight series tell us little about whether the probabilities are calibrated.
✓ advanced
✕ out
✓ advanced
✓ advanced
✓ advanced
✓ advanced
✕ out
✓ advanced
Dodgers over Braves: the biggest favorite advanced
We gave Los Angeles a 67% chance despite Atlanta winning five of their six regular-season meetings. The Dodgers’ rotation was the main reason for that edge.
Game by game: preview lean vs. resultDodgers 69%Dodgers wonDodgers 56%Braves 3–2Dodgers 56%Dodgers wonDodgers 58%Dodgers wonLos Angeles won in four games, but Atlanta used a different pitching plan from the one in our preview. The Braves held Chris Sale for Game 3 and won their only game, 3–2 in Game 2, with Ray Kerr opening and the bullpen carrying the rest. Sale then lost to Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 3. Tyler Mahle started Game 4, which the preview had assigned to Grant Holmes on short rest.
That changes the review considerably. Atlanta did not win Sale’s projected start, and the Dodgers did not clinch against the short-rest Holmes matchup we had described. We got the series winner right. The projected rotation needs to be judged against the rotation that actually took the mound.
Brewers over Padres: close games, big catches
Milwaukee won the first two at home. San Diego took Game 3 behind Nick Pivetta, then the Brewers finished the series with a 3–1 win in Game 4.
Game by game: preview lean vs. resultBrewers 56%Brewers wonBrewers 58%Brewers wonPadres 58%Padres wonPadres 51%Brewers 3–1The preview gave San Diego its strongest chance in Game 3, at 58%, and that was the Padres’ only win. But the opening three games were all decided by one run. Milwaukee needed Jackson Chourio’s walk-off single in Game 2 and, in the clincher, Garrett Mitchell’s catch at the center-field wall to take away a potential tying two-run homer from Manny Machado.
Those are the kinds of good and bad breaks worth keeping in a review of a 55% series favorite.
Here, too, the later pitching matchups changed. Milwaukee started Dustin May in Game 3 and Robert Gasser in Game 4, reversing our projected order. Walker Buehler returned to start Game 4 for San Diego instead of Randy Vásquez. The original game probabilities belonged to the matchups listed in the preview; they should not be presented as forecasts of those replacement matchups.
Robert GasserNick PivettaDustin MayRandy VásquezDustin MayswappedNick PivettaRobert GasserswappedWalker BuehlerreturnedGuardians over White Sox: a correct series call after four game misses
Cleveland was our narrowest favorite, at 54%. Chicago had won the regular-season series 7–6, with seven of the thirteen games decided by one run.
The Guardians lost both home games to open the ALDS, won twice in Chicago, then finished the comeback with a 2–0 Game 5 victory. Their pitchers struck out 21 in the clincher, a record for a nine-inning MLB game.
Game by game: preview lean vs. resultGuardians 51%White Sox wonGuardians 56%White Sox wonWhite Sox 51%Guardians wonWhite Sox 51%Guardians wonGuardians 56%Guardians 2–0The series call held up. The original game-by-game table had a much rougher round: its favored side lost Games 1 through 4 before Cleveland won Game 5. Several projected pitching matchups changed, including Chicago starting Sean Burke in Game 5 rather than Hagen Smith.
Cleveland did get two starts apiece from Parker Messick and Gavin Williams, as the preview anticipated. But a correct series winner does not make those first four game leans correct. Both results belong in the review.
Rays over Yankees: our miss
New York was our only lower-seeded favorite, at 55%. Tampa Bay swept the series, winning 1–0, 5–2 and 4–3.
Game by game: preview lean vs. resultRays 56%Rays 1–0Yankees 52%Rays 5–2Yankees 61%Rays 4–3Yankees 58%The preview favored the Rays in Game 1, then leaned toward New York in Games 2 and 3. Neither Yankee lean held up. New York’s 58% lean in Game 4 never got a chance to matter.
A 55% forecast leaves plenty of room for the other team to win. That is still a miss on the series winner, and Tampa Bay never let it become a long series.
The pick record: 14–3 through the Division Series
The public picks log shows the following records from September 29 through October 10:
The six First-5 moneyline winners were the Yankees twice, the Padres in Wild Card Game 2, the Braves in Wild Card Game 3, the Padres in NLDS Game 3 and the White Sox in ALDS Game 4. At the logged prices, staking one unit per pick returned +80.0%.
Full-game moneyline returned +19.6% on the same staking basis. Its two losses were Houston and Cleveland against the White Sox.
The run-line loss was Philadelphia +1.5 on September 29. The winners were Atlanta +1.5 in Wild Card Games 2 and 3, then Tampa Bay +1.5 in ALDS Game 2. The lone First-5 spread winner came in Atlanta’s Wild Card clincher, when the Braves led 5–0 through five.
Fourteen wins in seventeen tickets is 82.4%. Some tickets covered the same games, so they are not seventeen independent results. The products also carry different prices. Keep their returns separate rather than treating the combined win rate as a profitability measure.
For context, the season-to-date record is much larger:
Pushes are excluded from those win rates. The First-5 moneyline’s season ROI is +2.9% at posted prices; the First-5 spread’s is +6.4% using −110 juice. Both moneyline products remain labeled in calibration on the picks log.
It has been a strong start to October. The longer record, the prices and the calibration checks will tell us more than this stretch alone.
What we take from the round
The Dodgers justified the largest series edge. Milwaukee survived a close series. Cleveland made the comeback it needed, and Tampa Bay swept our other favorite. Changes to the pitching plans also exposed the limits of the original game tables.
That gives us wins to report and assumptions to revisit. The Prediction Record keeps the results available as the postseason continues.
- Forecasts and projected starters: BBMI Division Series preview and Wild Card preview.
- Final scores and actual starters: MLB schedule data, October 3–10.
- Atlanta’s Game 2 pitching plan: Battery Power game report.
- Sale’s Game 3 loss: True Blue LA game report.
- Milwaukee’s Game 2 walk-off: MLB highlights. Mitchell’s Game 4 catch: Associated Press report.
- Cleveland’s strikeout record: MLB’s Game 5 statistical review.
- Pick records and prices: BBMI picks log and MLB model performance, checked October 11, 2026. Moneyline returns above use one unit staked per ticket.
- Cleveland forecast timing: clarified by BBMI’s owner during this review.
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