Phils will contend: So says the math man

The Phillies will be in the thick of the playoff race again this year.

That's no mere baseball expert talking. The prediction comes from a mathematician: Bruce Bukiet, of the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

According to a statistical model that Bukiet has been refining for more than a decade, the Phils will wind up in a three-way tie in the National League East, with the Mets and the Braves.

Bukiet, an associate math professor at the Newark school, says each team should win about 88 games, give or take six. During the season, he also will pick the outcome of each individual game, adjusting his numbers to reflect which pitchers are starting, injuries, and other factors.

The method, which has been published in an academic journal, takes into account each player's last three years of performance, with more recent years weighted more heavily.

Bukiet stresses that he does this "for educational purposes only," at the Web site www.egrandslam.com. But he says that if someone had tried to exploit his picks for, ahem, financial gain, he would have enjoyed modest success - coming out ahead in six of the last eight years.

He admits the method is imperfect. Last year he had the Phillies winning 84 regular-season games, and they actually won 92. And like most people, he didn't see the Tampa Bay Rays as a contender.

"Making predictions is pretty hard," he jokes, "especially about the future."

Bukiet's more serious efforts have included analyzing data to help physicians predict which patients are likely to lose their balance, and helping to train math and science teachers in urban areas.

The baseball stuff is mainly for fun. Except when it's not.

"I am a Mets fan," he says. "So I'm used to heartbreak."

- Tom Avril