The last time that I talked about playoff chances in a happy way, things got ugly in a hurry, so I'm going to tread a little more lightly this time. For those unfamiliar with the work of the very smart folks (specifically Clay Davenport) over at baseballprospectus.com, they have assembled several different ways of keeping tabs of the playoff odds of teams as the season progresses.

The most basic is the simple playoff odds report, where they take the data accumulated from all of the games played up to that point, feed it into a simulator that runs 1 million simulations, and then they mark how many times a team wins the division, the wildcard and the playoffs in general. As of the close of baseball business on Friday May 22nd, the Milwaukee Brewers were simulated to win the division almost exactly 38 percent of the time, win the wildcard 14.47 percent of the time and make the playoffs 52.47 of the time. At this point in the season, those numbers are pretty volatile, as simply losing to the Twins on Friday night dropped the Brewers playoff odds significantly (something in the neighborhood of 5 percent). Nothing earth shattering there.

What is interesting, though, is that when they start using the projections system, PECOTA, to filter the results, things change fairly significantly. PECOTA was developed by Nate Silver as a player projection system. It takes mountains of data on a player's history, compares it to past data, and then projects what the player is likely to do in the future. Click on the link above for a basic breakdown of the system. Once run through PECOTA, the Brewers chances of making the playoffs brighten quite a bit. Their chances of winning the division jumps a lot to 46.07 percent, the wildcard percent jumps slightly to 16.47 percent and the overall odds of making the playoffs climb to 62.53 percent.

Apparently, PECOTA thinks very highly of the Brewers, especially in comparison to their division rivals. To what can this be attributed specifically? I haven't the faintest idea. Assuming that PECOTA is constantly updating it's player projections based on injury and such, it may be that the system is projecting that the Cubs and Cardinals will have trouble keeping their guys on the field going forward, based on the fact that they already have both suffered multiple impact injuries. Of course, the Brewers being without Rickie Weeks would also be factored in if that is the case. It could also be that PECOTA is sold on  the improvements the Brewers have made in plate discipline this season, that they are going to sustain themselves and that the pitching staff will continue to do what it has done. Without detailed information about PECOTA's process, it's hard to say for sure. The fact that most of their bump comes from within the division, as opposed to the wildcard, may well mean that this is more a case of PECOTA being down on the Cubs and Cards than it is up on the Brewers.

Either way, take heart Brewer fans. Though ESPN's analysts may not have taken notice, the computers apparently love our team.