With the two dramatic wild card games complete and the ALDS underway, MLB's postseason is going full steam ahead with the NLDS beginning Friday. The two premier baseball simulators on the market, "Out of the Park Baseball 17" and "MLB The Show 16," are ready to call their shots on who will advance out of the National League.
Painstaking efforts were made to ensure that accurate rotations and lineups were utilized for each game to make the simulations as close to real life as possible. Multiple simulations were run with both video games to find the teams truly favored by both.
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Giants vs. Cubs
The Giants' even-year magic has continued, complete with heroics from an unheralded player, but "OOTP 17" says their spell will be broken by the best team from the regular season. The Cubs came up short in the NLCS to the Mets last year, but this could be their season to finally end decades of futility, especially when looking at the results of the sims.
Chicago won four of five, sweeping the Giants twice and dispatching them in four games twice. The only hope for the Giants was a five-game series in which both teams scored 25 runs each. In that one, the Giants got the best of the Cubs' pitching, including the bullpen and flamethrower Aroldis Chapman. Otherwise, the Cubs got the best of San Francisco's pitchers and rode a high-powered offense to victory.
"The Show" actually leans toward the upset in the series. Maybe the game recognizes the Giants having won the World Series in their last three postseason appearances (2010, 2012, 2014). "The Show" most often predicted a 3-1 series victory for San Francisco.
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Dodgers vs. Nationals
The Dodgers took three out of five sims in "OOTP," winning them every way possible — once in a sweep, once in four and once in five. The Nationals' two victories were each in four games. One of those featured one of the most anemic offensive series of all time with a total of only 14 runs scored across four games. Every one of those games was a pitching duel and featured a recorded save.
Twice the Dodgers averaged more than four runs per game in a series while the Nationals never achieved that feat. In the end, it looks like LA will ride their pitching staff to yet another playoff win for a storied franchise while Washington will continue decades of frustration that started in Montreal. If "OOTP" is correct, the only question is how many games the Dodgers will need to finish them off.
Over in "The Show," the Dodgers were found to be favored as well. Starting pitching for LA dominated in the majority of the simulations with the game frequently predicting the series to end 3-0 or 3-1 in their favor.Bryan Wiedey posts sports gaming news and analysis daily at Pastapadre.com, is co-founder of the sports gaming site HitThePass.com, hosts the Press Row Podcast, and be reached on Twitter @Pastapadre.