Expanding baseball's playoffs

Today, Joe Posnanski (who you might suspect I have a lot of respect for, at least when it comes to baseball reporting, and you would be correct) wrote about what seems like an inevitable shift towards more teams in the playoffs. It’s a horn that’s been tooted a lot recently, mostly on ESPN, where Jason Stark and Steve Berthiaume in particular have taken to the idea as if it has no possible downsides. But it has died down recently, as reports surface that there will definitely not be an extra team this year and possibly won’t be next year either. So while the subject was perhaps the main one that I began this blog wanting to cover, it has slipped from my mind of late.[1]

In any case, Posnanski concluded that it probably isn’t as much of a boon as everyone makes it out to be, but that we’ll get used to it. I’d go farther on that first point—probably a lot farther—but Posnanski’s stance seems like the sole voice of reason so far, the one person who questions whether gunning the engine while approaching a curve is really the right course of action (ok… so that analogy was a stretch). In fairness, Jonah Keri at Grantland has expressed reservations in the past (I believe it was in a podcast with Simmons), and GM’s and players—at least according to what Stark reports—are not necessarily as on board than commentators seem to be.

As you might have guessed, I think the idea—at least as it is being expressed so far—is a terrible one. (I also think that more playoff teams are inevitable, since more teams in the playoffs and more playoff games = more money.) Let’s go through the advantages:

1.  More teams in the playoffs = more high-stakes baseball = more money for everyone but the fans, but more enjoyment for the fans.

In my mind, this is unquestionably the best part of the whole suggestion. I love the idea of more baseball, especially more playoff baseball, in which games are typically longer and more hard-fought, often going up above four hours of play and late into the night (wait…). Plus, February and November are really the best months to enjoy baseball, because there is nothing else on (um…) and the atmosphere at the game is really nice in places like Boston and Toronto.

I kid. I really like the idea of more playoff baseball and more playoff teams, because it does mean more sports on major networks and more chances for a player to turn into David Ortiz circa 2004 or David Price in 2008, and that is always a good thing.

2.  More exciting races in-season and more competition and weight to winning the division.

This is the place where Posnanski really shines, noting that a lot of the second wild-card races would really seem like consolation prizes more than races, and would frequently go to teams that had won fewer than 90 games (which would mean they would play teams that had won 95ish; I’ll return to this later).

But I think that there are some points that should be added to Joe’s analysis: everyone mentions how much more excitement more playoff teams would add, but a quick glance at other sports tells you how much excitement there is for those teams that squeak into seventh or eighth place (often it is clear who will be in the 1-3 and 4-6 groups by halfway through the season… just like it is frequently clear in baseball who will win the division by that point).

But the point, supporters will insist, is that it adds more spice because we’re adding a bonus for division winners, which means that it will mean something when the Red Sox beat the Yankees and vice-versa so there will be excitement there. Alright, so we’re rewarding division winners. Which is totally a good idea because the Tigers are one of the best three teams in the AL, right? Right now, the Tigers rank eighth in the AL in run differential. They have exactly the same record as the Angels, a worse record (by a fair amount) than Rays, and are all of two games above Toronto. The Tigers have feasted on the Central, and you have to imagine that the Rays or Jays, in the same situation, would quite possibly be running away with the division.

The same isn’t true in the NL, and you have to go all the way back to 2008 (man, who even remembers that long ago?) when the Dodgers finished eighth in wins in the NL with the sixth overall run differential but won their division. So, yeah, rewarding division winners is not really “rewarding”; it’s more like picking a random ream based on location. It doesn’t work in other sports either: until the last couple years, the difference between third place and 10th in Hockey’s Eastern Conference was winning the Southeast Division.

I don’t think rewarding division winners has any ground to stand on; in reality, I don’t think it would even raise excitement (and by excitement, let’s be honest, we mean fans through the gate and revenue). Fans show up when tickets are cheap and the players on their team are good and when their team is headed to the playoffs (or an interesting team is in town); increasing the number of teams in the playoffs will add a bonus in that last category, but we’re pretending if we think seeding, even if it is really important, matters to all but the most devoted fans.

Finally, as Stark and others have reported, at least some teams are demanding realignment before any move of this sort is made—and, frankly, that’s the only sort of thing that makes sense: teams should have (roughly) even schedules now, let alone if we start to put more importance on them. More equitable, really would be to simply make it so that the five or six best teams in each league made the playoffs. So yes, right now that might mean that no one from the AL Central got in. It might mean three teams from the AL East. But that would mean better baseball in the postseason and that there was actually a reward for playing at a high level, the alleged goals of expanding to a new format.

3. Teams would really like those days off that they would get because that helps them win.

Let’s ask a few teams about how nice days off are. These will be some good teams: the 2011 Pats, the 2011 Celtics, the 2007 Rockies, the 2007 Senators, the 2006 Tigers. I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten even in just the last five years, and I’m sure there are counter-examples. But rest (as people have acknowledged) doesn’t always help; sometimes it can really hurt—which is why, of course, the first playoff round can only be one game.

And this is where we really get into problems. Because for all the glitches that I’ve already mentioned—the lack of fairness to teams in good divisions, the lack of schedule balance, the imaginariness (clearly not a word) of the benefits—nothing comes anywhere close to matching how bad of an idea it is to base the fate of two teams that do not necessarily have the same record on one game. Let’s go back ten years and look at the wild card team and the theoretical second wild card with their records (2011 numbers based on w% so far), with the AL first:

	WC	Wins	Loss	W%	WC 2	Win	Loss	W%
11 AL	BOS	99	63	0.611	TAM	88	74	0.541
10 AL	NYY	95	67	0.586	CWS	88	74	0.543
09 AL	BOS	95	67	0.586	TEX	87	75	0.537
08 AL	BOS	95	67	0.586	NYY	89	73	0.549
07 AL	NYY	94	68	0.58	DET	88	74	0.543
06 AL	DET	95	67	0.586	CWS	90	72	0.556
05 AL	BOS	95	67	0.586	CLE	93	69	0.574
04 AL	BOS	98	64	0.605	OAK	91	71	0.564
03 AL	BOS	95	67	0.586	SEA	93	68	0.578
02 AL	LAA	99	63	0.611	BOS	93	69	0.574
AVG		96	66	0.592		90	72	0.556

Other than the fact that Boston owns the AL Wild Card to the point that the league probably give it to them on accident, there’s an important point here: wild card one averaged six wins better than the theoretical wild card two. That might not seem like a lot, but let’s put it this way: in four out the ten years on this list, wild card one was (or will be) at least twice as many wins above .500 as wild card two. In only two years (’05 and ’03), were the two teams within two wins of each other; in every other year at least five separated the two. As for the NL:

	WC	Wins	Loss	W%	WC 2	Win	Loss	W%
11 NL	ATL	95	67	0.584	SFG	87	75	0.536
10 NL	ATL	91	71	0.562	SDP	90	72	0.556
09 NL	COL	92	70	0.568	FLA	87	75	0.537
08 NL	MIL	90	72	0.556	NYM	89	73	0.549
07 NL	COL	90	73	0.552	SDP	89	74	0.546
06 NL	LAD	88	74	0.543	PHI	85	77	0.525
05 NL	HOU	89	73	0.549	PHI	88	74	0.543
04 NL	HOU	92	70	0.568	SFG	91	71	0.562
03 NL	FLA	91	71	0.562	HOU	87	75	0.537
02 NL	SFG	95	66	0.59	LAD	92	70	0.568
AVG		91	71	0.563		88	74	0.546

The NL is closer, with a average win difference of three instead of six (and, you’ll notice, a much lower win total overall), with five years in which the two teams are separated by only one run. Nevertheless, when we combine the two, about fifty percent of the time the two teams would be separated by five wins. In any case, let’s look at how the average wild-card (93.5-68.5, .577)  team from the last decade would fare in a single game (assuming that there is no strategy involved) against teams with various records:[2]

	Record	Win %	Single-elimination win percentage
vs. 1962 Mets	40-120	0.250	82.7%
vs. 2006 KCR	62-100	0.383	69.4%
vs. 2010 DET	81-81	0.500	57.7%
vs. WC 2 AVG	89-73	0.549	52.8%
vs. WC 1 AVG	93.5-68.5	0.577	50.0%

In other words, assuming that everything is equal in the records, a team that records five more wins during the season only will only beat the lesser team in a single game 53% of the time. At this point, you’re saying that 1. there’s strategy (which doesn’t necessarily reward the better team, just the team with the better ace and better luck) and 2. five wins isn’t that much anyway; if they’re that close in a single game then what does it matter? It matters because five wins is the average distance. You can maybe tell a team (and a fan base) that they were a game or two different in the standings, or that they were equal, and so that one game was justified. But this year, for example, the Red Sox will likely finish much closer to the Yankees than five games, and, if things hold, about ten games better than the Rays. They would have about a 56% probability of beating the Rays in a single game.[3] Forcing a one-game playoff between teams that different in record with so many consequences on the line isn’t just not fair; it truly degrades the selection process of the 162-game season, making records virtually meaningless—except, of course, if you happen to be lucky enough have the geographical location that allows you to win the division. If you want proof of why this is a bad idea, watch the way that so many basketball stars seem to mail it in, especially of defense, for almost the entirety of the regular season: they just don’t care because they know that conference standing isn’t really that important when it comes to the playoffs.

But, the doubters say, it works for football, and football is popular. Ergo, baseball should act like football so it can be popular. (This isn’t as much of straw man as you might think. Go read the reasoning for a one-game playoff and the excitement it will add.) Here’s why it works for football. Last year’s team with the best record—the Patriots—would have a probability, based solely on record, of beating a 9-7 team (about comparable to where the Rays are this year) of about 82%. They can afford to play one-game playoff because each game of the sixteen game season makes that much more difference in the standings, and because they know that the best teams will beat the teams that sneak in—even in one-game playoffs—the vast majority of the time.

Look, I’m all in favor of expanding the playoffs. I think we should add another team or two or four after evening out the schedules because underdogs are interesting and because it means more baseball on national tv and more chances for heroics and moments for small market teams. But if that is going to happen without diluting the sport, it needs to be done with a full playoff series. And, in all likelihood, that will mean a shorter season.

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[1] Which is a bit odd, considering that I’ve been watching D-Backs and Giants games a lot recently, which seems like the prime place to mention that there could be another wildcard.

[2] I know, I know, the calculations are based on first-order wins, which really isn’t indicative of true talent level, etc etc. But I couldn’t find a Pythagorean table on line for each year of the last decade and was too lazy to make one up myself.

[3] In other words, there is barely a statistically significant different between deciding who goes into the playoffs in a one-game series and deciding it by flipping a coin.