SWC75
Bored Historian
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On Friday I was listening to the Orange Nation show on the radio with Steve Infante and Paulie Scibilia. They were discussing the baseball playoff format and thinking about alternatives. The bad record of teams that got the byes and had to wait for most of a week was a big subject. Paulie suggested they add more teams to the playoff. Steve wanted to go back to the one game wild card playoff instead of three. I decided to call in and give them my several opinions on the baseball playoff format.
First I said that baseball is the sport in which an inferior team has the most likely chance of beating a superior team because A) the basic skill set of the game – hitting a moving ball with a round bat - is inherently unpredictable B) the game is played in rotation: your best batter isn’t always at the plate, your best pitcher is not always on the mound and if you used your best relief pitcher last night, you can’t use him tonight and C) there’s virtually no physical contact between the teams - you can’t overpower your opposition and make them lose. This was never responded to so I assume it was agreed with.
Then I said I liked it better when we had four divisions and went right to league championship series. This summer sport would decide its championship in mid-October when the weather is still decent. We would have real pennant races which used to dominate the headlines for weeks through August and September. And the teams would be teams who had proven themselves to be elite teams over 6 months and 162 games, twice as many as basketball and hockey and 10 times as many as football. What we have now pushes us into November baseball with players and fans shivering as the championship of this summer sport was being decided. And it opens things up for teams that had been mediocre for much of the season to get into the playoffs, get hot and beat better teams for the title.
Two years ago, the Mets and Braves tied for the NL East title at 101-61. They watched the Phillies, who had finished 14 games behind them, in the World Series. The Phillies beat the Dodgers, who had finished 111-51 in a best of 5 series, then beat the Braves in a best of 7 series to get into the series where they lost to the 106-56 Astros. I would rather have seen the Astros take on the Dodgers or maybe the Braves or Mets. The year before that the 107-55 Giants beat out the 106-56 Dodgers, only to see the 88-73 Braves win the World Series. Last year the 104-56 Braves, the 100-62 Dodgers and the 101-61 Orioles watched the 90-72 Rangers and 84-78 Diamondbacks play in the World Series.
Upsets can be fun but I think the credibility of a sport depends on the credibility of their champions. Playoffs should be a meeting of teams that have proven themselves to be elite teams over the course of the regular season – especially a 162 game season. You do that by having them win pennants. Paulie declared that “baseball was dying before the wild card”. I never had that impression. The owners tried to kill it with the strike but Ripken, McGwire and Sosa saved it. For 60 years, baseball had two 8 team leagues and the pennant winners went right to the World Series. It survived two world wars, a depression, its own apartheid, being restricted to the northeastern quadrant of the country and the coming of radio and television and nobody went out of business. We could expand to 32 and have four pennant races, just like the ones in the National League in 1951 and 1964 and the American League in 1967 and 1978.
My final point was that it makes little sense to have a best of 3 series determine who deserves to be in a best of 5 series to determine who deserves to be in a best of 7 series. If it requires 7 games to determine who the best team is, then the previous series are invalid. If 3 games are enough to determine who gets into the 5 game series, why should it be a 3 game series. And if 5 games are enough to determine who should be in a 7 game series, why isn’t that a 5 game series?
I revealed the results of a study I did on his five years ago, (with information through the 2018 season). There had been 173 best of 7 series and 116 best of 5 series, a pretty good database. Five of the best of 7 series and one of the best of 5 series were between teams with the same record. Of the other 168 best of 7 winners, 89 of them have been won by the team with the better record (53.0%). Of the other 115 best of 5 series 69 have been won by the team with the superior record, (60.0%). So the team with the better record actually does better in best of 5 series than a best of 7 series! I looked at series where one team was at least 10 games better than the other and the team with the better record won 72% of the series in each case. [I’ve since updates these numbers through the divisional series this year: The team with the better record has won best of 7 series 101 of 192 times: still 53% The team with the better record has now won 78 of 129 best of 5 series: still 60%. Teams with records better by 10 games have now won 28 of 44 best of 7 series (64%) and 30 of 44 best of 5 series (68%), so that’s tightened up a bit again, the teams with the better record are doing better in 5 game series]
What’s more, there have been 29 seven game series in which the first team to lose a third game came back to win the series. Two of those teams had the same record as their opponent. Of the 27 other series, 12 were won by the team with the superior regular season record, (44%). [I’ve now updated this to 13 of 30: 43%] The team with the worst record is more likely to use those last two games to make a comeback to win a best of 7 series.
Therefore, I submitted, a best of 7 game series is not more likely to have been won by the better team. In fact, best of 3, 5, and 7 are all to short to ensure that the best team will win. You might need best of 15 or 21 games for that. So why have a best of 7 series? There’s nothing magical about it. There’s nothing golden about world series records set in a 7 game series: can you quote one? Let’s make them all 5 game series. If they were all played out to the limit, a winning team would play 20 games. With the 3-5-7-7 format, that would be 22 games. You could get it over earlier. You could add in a couple more playoff teams in each league to eliminate the byes and difficulties the team that have them have, which is what they’d bene talking about. [Or you could limit it to one wild card per league and eliminate the first round, as we used to have it.]
Steve was dismissive, saying “I’m SURE that the better team has a better chance to win a best of 7 series. I asked him how he knew this. He thought for a minute and said that he believed that that the winners of post season series are the teams that have become the best teams, not necessarily the ones with the best overall records. That assumes that the winners of all post season series are the best teams, as opposed to team that played the best in that series. It also doesn’t really answer the question. If it takes 7 games to prove who the best team was, then how do you know the winners of the best of 3 and 5 game series had become the best team? He might have suggested that you can’t always tell who is the better team by their record: divisions or leagues may have been weaker in particular years. But I don’t know how to quantify that: what else have got besides looking at the won-loss records over 162 games to determine who was the better team?
I didn’t pursue the matter with Steve and Paulie because I like them and their show and didn’t want to create any ill feeling. But I’ve been thinking about this all weekend and decided to record my thoughts here instead. Maybe I should just accept the current format because my Mets became the best team in baseball over the last four months, (although they didn’t look it tonight). But I’m talking here as a baseball fan, not a Mets fan.
First I said that baseball is the sport in which an inferior team has the most likely chance of beating a superior team because A) the basic skill set of the game – hitting a moving ball with a round bat - is inherently unpredictable B) the game is played in rotation: your best batter isn’t always at the plate, your best pitcher is not always on the mound and if you used your best relief pitcher last night, you can’t use him tonight and C) there’s virtually no physical contact between the teams - you can’t overpower your opposition and make them lose. This was never responded to so I assume it was agreed with.
Then I said I liked it better when we had four divisions and went right to league championship series. This summer sport would decide its championship in mid-October when the weather is still decent. We would have real pennant races which used to dominate the headlines for weeks through August and September. And the teams would be teams who had proven themselves to be elite teams over 6 months and 162 games, twice as many as basketball and hockey and 10 times as many as football. What we have now pushes us into November baseball with players and fans shivering as the championship of this summer sport was being decided. And it opens things up for teams that had been mediocre for much of the season to get into the playoffs, get hot and beat better teams for the title.
Two years ago, the Mets and Braves tied for the NL East title at 101-61. They watched the Phillies, who had finished 14 games behind them, in the World Series. The Phillies beat the Dodgers, who had finished 111-51 in a best of 5 series, then beat the Braves in a best of 7 series to get into the series where they lost to the 106-56 Astros. I would rather have seen the Astros take on the Dodgers or maybe the Braves or Mets. The year before that the 107-55 Giants beat out the 106-56 Dodgers, only to see the 88-73 Braves win the World Series. Last year the 104-56 Braves, the 100-62 Dodgers and the 101-61 Orioles watched the 90-72 Rangers and 84-78 Diamondbacks play in the World Series.
Upsets can be fun but I think the credibility of a sport depends on the credibility of their champions. Playoffs should be a meeting of teams that have proven themselves to be elite teams over the course of the regular season – especially a 162 game season. You do that by having them win pennants. Paulie declared that “baseball was dying before the wild card”. I never had that impression. The owners tried to kill it with the strike but Ripken, McGwire and Sosa saved it. For 60 years, baseball had two 8 team leagues and the pennant winners went right to the World Series. It survived two world wars, a depression, its own apartheid, being restricted to the northeastern quadrant of the country and the coming of radio and television and nobody went out of business. We could expand to 32 and have four pennant races, just like the ones in the National League in 1951 and 1964 and the American League in 1967 and 1978.
My final point was that it makes little sense to have a best of 3 series determine who deserves to be in a best of 5 series to determine who deserves to be in a best of 7 series. If it requires 7 games to determine who the best team is, then the previous series are invalid. If 3 games are enough to determine who gets into the 5 game series, why should it be a 3 game series. And if 5 games are enough to determine who should be in a 7 game series, why isn’t that a 5 game series?
I revealed the results of a study I did on his five years ago, (with information through the 2018 season). There had been 173 best of 7 series and 116 best of 5 series, a pretty good database. Five of the best of 7 series and one of the best of 5 series were between teams with the same record. Of the other 168 best of 7 winners, 89 of them have been won by the team with the better record (53.0%). Of the other 115 best of 5 series 69 have been won by the team with the superior record, (60.0%). So the team with the better record actually does better in best of 5 series than a best of 7 series! I looked at series where one team was at least 10 games better than the other and the team with the better record won 72% of the series in each case. [I’ve since updates these numbers through the divisional series this year: The team with the better record has won best of 7 series 101 of 192 times: still 53% The team with the better record has now won 78 of 129 best of 5 series: still 60%. Teams with records better by 10 games have now won 28 of 44 best of 7 series (64%) and 30 of 44 best of 5 series (68%), so that’s tightened up a bit again, the teams with the better record are doing better in 5 game series]
What’s more, there have been 29 seven game series in which the first team to lose a third game came back to win the series. Two of those teams had the same record as their opponent. Of the 27 other series, 12 were won by the team with the superior regular season record, (44%). [I’ve now updated this to 13 of 30: 43%] The team with the worst record is more likely to use those last two games to make a comeback to win a best of 7 series.
Therefore, I submitted, a best of 7 game series is not more likely to have been won by the better team. In fact, best of 3, 5, and 7 are all to short to ensure that the best team will win. You might need best of 15 or 21 games for that. So why have a best of 7 series? There’s nothing magical about it. There’s nothing golden about world series records set in a 7 game series: can you quote one? Let’s make them all 5 game series. If they were all played out to the limit, a winning team would play 20 games. With the 3-5-7-7 format, that would be 22 games. You could get it over earlier. You could add in a couple more playoff teams in each league to eliminate the byes and difficulties the team that have them have, which is what they’d bene talking about. [Or you could limit it to one wild card per league and eliminate the first round, as we used to have it.]
Steve was dismissive, saying “I’m SURE that the better team has a better chance to win a best of 7 series. I asked him how he knew this. He thought for a minute and said that he believed that that the winners of post season series are the teams that have become the best teams, not necessarily the ones with the best overall records. That assumes that the winners of all post season series are the best teams, as opposed to team that played the best in that series. It also doesn’t really answer the question. If it takes 7 games to prove who the best team was, then how do you know the winners of the best of 3 and 5 game series had become the best team? He might have suggested that you can’t always tell who is the better team by their record: divisions or leagues may have been weaker in particular years. But I don’t know how to quantify that: what else have got besides looking at the won-loss records over 162 games to determine who was the better team?
I didn’t pursue the matter with Steve and Paulie because I like them and their show and didn’t want to create any ill feeling. But I’ve been thinking about this all weekend and decided to record my thoughts here instead. Maybe I should just accept the current format because my Mets became the best team in baseball over the last four months, (although they didn’t look it tonight). But I’m talking here as a baseball fan, not a Mets fan.
