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Sunday, August 14, 2011
The extra playoff team
In an otherwise balanced article (where his obvious opinion is countered by good arguments by players and officials he quotes), Chass makes a glaring math problem:
Players, he said, think that adding teams to the playoffs would reduce a wild card’s chances of getting to and winning the World Series.
...
But there’s another way to look at it. Under the existing format, 25 percent of the post-season teams (two of eight) are wild cards. If another wild card is added to each league’s playoff, 40 percent of the post-season teams (four of ten) would be wild cards.In other words, despite the obvious pitching problems, would the addition of wild cards enhance the chances of the World Series winner being a wild card based on simple math?
Murray: no! That’s because after you get through the bye round, you are still left with the 3 division winners and one wild card team. You could put all 11 or 14 non-division winners in a knockout competition such that one team from each league comes out as the official wild card team, and the chances of that team winning (rest, fatigue, or chance of a crappy team winning the spot notwithstanding) will remain exactly the same.
I also like how Selig comes off looking good, though Chass intended to show he was a flip-flopper:
The commissioner at one time assured us that the number of wild-card teams would stay at one in each league and would not be increased.
“We kept expanding and eventually you have to add some playoff teams,” Selig said, explaining his change in thinking. And of the wild card itself, he added, “It’s worked out tremendously, better than I thought it would.”
Basically, Selig changed his opinion based on new facts. Selig’s original opinion is that he couldn’t see how he could possibly go beyond 4 teams in the playoffs per league. And, after 15 years, now that he sees how it actually work, he has empirical evidence. He changed his opinion. This is actually a good thing: people changing their preconceived notions based on data in the real-world.
There’s a million ways to make the playoffs good. There’s practically no way to make a crappy playoff system, unless you go out of your way to try. All playoff systems have their merit, and it then becomes a question of what world you prefer to live in. Paris, Rome, New York, Green Bay. There’s a world for everyone.
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