It’s hard enough to win the lottery as it is, but when it swells to $1.5 billion, more folks start giving it a shot. There are so many other things that are likely to happen to you, like getting struck by lightning, or hit by a car.
So Cut4 from MLB.com decided to compare the odds of unlikely baseball feats to winning the lottery and the results they came up with were interesting.
What they came up with were the odds of Miguel Cabrera getting a 57-game hit streak, Bryce Harper hitting five homers in a single game, and Bartolo Colon getting an inside-the-park home run, all of which are more likely than you winning the Powerball tonight.
This chart from Cut4 acts as a great visual just so you can see how slim the odds really are of winning the lottery, along with baseball feats that are likely to never happen.
Cut4 took Cabrera’s 2013 season, when he hit .348/.442/.636, while assuming he would get four at-bats per game. And he would still have just a 1:4,400 chance at breaking Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.
Bryce Harper had a good 2015 – good enough to win him the National League MVP in unanimous fashion. He played in 153 games, and had five plate appearances in just 30 percent of the games he played in. But Cut4 gives Harper the odds based on 162 games, and a chance in any randomly selected game, giving him a 1:16,376 chance to go yard five times in a single game.
Wouldn’t you know it, Bartolo Colon getting an inside-the-park home run is the least likely thing to happen on this list. That’s saying something, considering what he is up against. I mean, Miguel Cabrera’s odds of a 57-game hitting streak are much higher than his, and that’s one of the most untouchable records in sports.
Bartolo’s odds of accomplishing this feat are 1:96,000,000, but considering his career plate appearances, his odds become 1:39,662. So get excited, this could be the year we see Bartolo carry himself across the diamond.
[Cut4]
