With the two dramatic wild card games out of the way, MLB's postseason is about to ramp up. 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 American 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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Rangers vs. Blue Jays
The bad blood between the Blue Jays and Rangers is likely to be a factor this year, but OOTP just looks at the ratings of players when simming out games. The Rangers won the first series sim in five games but Toronto took the rest of the sims — twice in five games and twice in sweeps.
The Blue Jays' offense was too powerful — across the five different series simulations, the team averaged more than a run better per game than the Rangers. In their two sweeps, they outscored Texas 43-22. There was an outlier, with the Rangers actually outscoring Toronto in one that the Blue Jays won; otherwise that difference in run scoring across the series would have been even greater.
"MLB The Show 16" concurs with the most common result: a Blue Jays victory in a fifth and deciding game.
Indians vs. Red Sox
The other ALDS series looks likely to be lower-scoring despite some big bats in both lineups. The Indians are the narrow winner in "OOTP," having won three of the five series. They finished off Boston twice in five games and once in a sweep. Cleveland's pitching staff could be the difference, as the team showed consistency across the various simulations from both their starting rotation and the bullpen.
Here, the two video games diverge as "MLB The Show 16" trends toward the Red Sox advancing in four games.
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.