THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Glad you found the article interesting.  You are right that in the first two scenarios, I recommend playing one additional game, so there is a case for keeping it the way it is.  However, the other 6 scenarios have the same number of games played so they should be no-brainer changes.  It’s surprising that in a billion dollar industry they don’t have people to get this stuff done right.

I have to disagree with Sky that it’s surprising they don’t have a logical policy on tiebreakers.  Things like this tend not to be thought through particularly well until they actually occur, and then all hell breaks loose.  Since there has never been a multi-way tie in MLB, I would personally be surprised if they had a sensible policy in place.

There are examples elsewhere in MLB (see the fact that there was no policy in place to deal with a rain-shortened World Series game, forcing Bud to unilaterally declare that Game 5 last year would have to be played to completion--the obvious and right call, but one that should have already been codified).  But it happens elsewhere in sports too (see the Big XII and their divisional tiebreaker procedure which ended up deciding which team would play for the BCS Title last year), and it surely happens in government too, where the stakes are higher (there are all sorts of crazy Presidential election hypotheticals that people think up).

What was weird about the non-policy of MLB (rain?  in autumn?  at non-domed stadiums?  IMPOSSIBLE!) is that the Bruins/Oilers had a Stanley Cup game called after 2 periods when power went out:

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/26/sports/boston-blackout-brings-disbelief.html?pagewanted=all

After more than an hour of talks among Ziegler and representatives from both clubs, it was decided that the best reaction to the blackout was a nullification of the game. Ziegler went to his league’s bylaws and produced a ruling that mandates that Tuesday’s game, since it could not be completed, will be replayed at the end of this series, if necessary. Reliance on what was deemed an objective, if somewhat bizarre solution, was obviated by the fact that the Garden was unavailable for a replay for the next several evenings because of the basketball playoffs and a college graduation.

Now, this is clearly a less likelihood scenario than MLB faced.  But, also a scenario that presented itself 20 years ago, long enough for every league to catch-up.

It was lucky that the game was 3-3 when it was called.

As a minor alteration which would improve the “fairness” without requiring extra games, why not just alter the way the A B C teams are chosen from random choice to being ranked according to run scored/conceded ratio. From the Pythagarous formula a team with a higher run scored/conceded ratio should have a better record so it is only fair that they have the edge in the tiebreaker games.

Also did the original article include HFA?

James