Statistical Odds: Lets say I believe a pitcher will get 7 strikeouts in a game. What are the odds he gets more than 5.5?

josephrandall

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Lets say I believe a pitcher will get 7 strikeouts in a game.
What are the odds he gets more than 5.5?

I have a few equations in mind. Not sure which is the correct one.
A - 7/(7+5.5) = 56%
B - 7^2/(7^2+5.5^2) = 62%
C - 7/5/2 = 70%
 
Clearly none of the choices you listed are correct. You were asked for odds but your choices are percentages!

Before we can help you can you please explain how you got each of your choices or were they given to you?
 
Yes, your right. So, I am looking for my chances of the pitcher exceeding 5.5 strikeouts.
I have a model which believes he will accumulate 7 strikeouts. I do not have a reliability number for my model.
The 5.5 strikeouts is someone else projection, I want to know my odds of beating it, in percentage)
 
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Lets say I believe a pitcher will get 7 strikeouts in a game.
What are the odds he gets more than 5.5?

I have a few equations in mind. Not sure which is the correct one.
A - 7/(7+5.5) = 56%
B - 7^2/(7^2+5.5^2) = 62%
C - 7/5/2 = 70%
It seems to me that there is not nearly enough information. The answer depends on your model, in particular on your assumed probability distribution.

Now, if you truly believe that he will get 7 strikeouts, then (if you are right) the probability that he will get more than 5.5 is 100%! On the other hand, if you really believe only that 7 will be the mean number of strikeouts, then you have to tell us a lot more.

At any rate, I see no reason to believe any of your answers is more than a guess. What is your rationale for each of them?
 
Yes, I believe 7 is the mean number.
All my equations are guesses.

I did not build the model myself, but I may be able to gather more info on it.
What info is necessary?
 
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Well, no.

A probability distribution isn't a number at all. It's something more like, say, "B(20,0.4)", which is short for "the binomial distribution with n=20 and p=0.4". We would either need to know the name of the distribution and its appropriate parameters, or all the details about whatever you think determines how many strikeouts a pitcher will get, from which one could determine the probability of each possible result.
 
Not quite. It would mean facing 20 batters, with a 40% chance for each of them to strike out, from which you would find the probability of any number of strikeouts from 0 through 20. In this case, the mean would be 40% of 20, which is 8.
 
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