from Amazon
Monday, August 18, 2008
What happens when contending teams play out-of-it teams in September?
The ever-resourceful Ubi tells us:
From 2002 to 2005 there were 257 games played by teams in contention against teams out of it*. The contending team won 170 of those games for a .661 winning %. The contending teams record before the trial period was .553 and the out of it teas winning % was .394. Now then if I did Log5 correctly we should expect the contending team to win 65.5% of the time so according to Log5 contending teams over a 4 year period won 2 more games then expected.
*: Contending teams were defined as teams that were within 5 games of the division lead or wild card provided that they were over .500. Also division leaders or wild card teams that had big leads were not counted as contending teams. The out of it teams were the bottom dwelling teams of each league. The winnning percentages provided were based on standings at the end of play on Aug 31.
So, the idea that the contenders have it better against non-contenders because non-contenders are putting out “trial” lineups is almost certainly not true. Even if they are trial lineups, those trial lineups might have been the better option to begin with!