from Amazon
Monday, November 21, 2011
Play-In game, retro-history
Clay notes:
In seven of the 24 leagues between 2000-2011, the second wild card actually had the fourth-best record in the league, beating out at least one of the division winners. In two more seasons the WC2 was tied with one of the division winners – so that quite often the “fifth” team has as good a claim to the playoffs as one of the division winners.
So, 9 times out of 24, the play-in team was as good or better than one of the division winners. Remember, a division is simply some artificial construct.
He notes however:
In eight of the last 12 years [in the AL], the new card winner (assuming things played out as before) would have trailed the real winner by 5 or more games, with the 2001 Twins finishing a whopping 17 games behind the “102 win but still just a wild card” A’s.
In order to give that statement some value, I’d like to know what the corresponding number is between the best and worst division winners in each year. Presumably, we’ve had plenty of 99-win teams and 87-win teams being the division winners. Somebody want to do that work?