Baseball Musings: The Best Teams

October 13, 2006

The Best Teams

There are two posts today that look at changing the wild card format. The first is by Bruce Regal at Baseball Analysts, and proposes going back to four divisions and creating a challenge round:

I propose that instead of going directly to a four-team tournament, each of the four divisions first have a "Challenge Round" in which the second place team in each division would have an opportunity to catch the first place team in a series of head-to-head games. In effect, the regular season would be extended for up to another 6 games between the first and second place teams, until one or the other clinches the division. If they end up tied at the end of 6 games, they play a seventh game in the form of a one-game playoff. To provide a few examples of how this system would work, suppose divisions ended as they did in 2006. In a Challenge Round, Anaheim (second place, four games behind) would play Oakland needing six wins in seven games; Minnesota (first place) and Detroit (one game behind) would play, with the Tigers needing four wins in six games; and LA and San Diego (who tied for first) would play a full best of seven game Challenge Round series.

I'm actually more in agreement with the commenters to that post:

There is little evidence that the team with the better record is categorically the "better" team so it seems counterproductive to jury-rig a system designed to produce outcomes more identical to the standings. No rational argument is made as to why this is an end we should be striving for. The 2003 Atlanta Braves had the best record in the NL but were 9th in the NL in ERA, 11th in strikeouts, etc. Why should we engineer an overly elaborate system that basically tries to rig the playoffs so the team with the best record wins? There is no good reason.
It's a petulant reaction to people angered that their flawed teams have been shown up in the playoffs.

Basically, 162 games is not a big enough sample size to tell us which teams are the best. Instead of thinking as the playoffs as a way to determine the best team, think of it as an exciting tournament among the likely best teams in the league. That's a more accurate description.

Ennuipundit modifies this proposal a bit with a play-in game. But, like the first proposal, you're trying to fix something that's not broken.

I'd rather see division winners rather than wild cards in the playoffs, but that would require expanding to 32 teams and going to four team divisions. But I also wouldn't mind going to five six-team divisions and having schedules similar to the ones when the leagues contained 12 teams, and awarding three wild cards.

Basically, if you are defining the best team as the team with the best record, you're not going to achieve a system where that team wins most of the championships. The season is too short to say for sure that the team with the best record is the best team, and the playoff series are too short to say that one team is truly better (as opposed to luckier) than another.

Posted by David Pinto at 11:33 AM | Post Season | TrackBack (0)

Comments

There is no perfect playoff system. As David said, none of them actually determine the "best team," and three's no point in tweaking the system to try to achieve that end. (While a 162-game schedule doesn't necessarily prove who's the best, it comes a lot closer than a 5- or 7-game series.)

My #1 priority: no expansion of the playoffs, unless there's a corresponding reduction in the regular season. I'm not hot to make any changes, but if I were to suggest one, I'd say go back to two divisions in each league. Two champions and two wild cards make the playoffs. That way, there's a lot less chance of a mediocre team winning a weak division.

But once again: I don't think the current system is particularly bad, and I'd just as soon stick with it.

Posted by: johnw at October 13, 2006 12:36 PM

How is a 162-game season that takes six months too short?

Posted by: Robb at October 13, 2006 12:41 PM

i agree with Robb. isn't it the longest season in professional sports worldwide?

stats are nice, but as herm edwards said " you play to win the game"

Posted by: Tim at October 13, 2006 12:49 PM

I agree that there is no way to indisputably determine the best team, short of just making the team with the best record the champion, and that would take away all excitement and drama surrounding a series.

What I would like to see is to add a wild-card to each league, and let what is now the last weekend of the regular-season be devoted to a wild-card "play-in" round.

This would give real meaning to a division race with two playoff-bound teams. The NL West and AL Central would have been infinitely more exciting, with the losers of those races knowing they faced an extra 2-of-3 knockout round, plus the probability of having a scrambled pitching rotation against a well-rested opponent around the corner.

It is a paradox of the three-division format, that two wild-cards, as opposed to one, can enhance the value of the regular season, rather then diminish it. And on the last "wild-card weekend" the fans of the eliminated teams are probably watching football anyway.

Posted by: Dan Flaherty at October 13, 2006 01:08 PM

Call me crazy, but I also think the current playoff format is preety good. The wild-card system makes sure that second-place teams in a strong division aren't excluded and keeps games for the good teams meaningful until fairly late in the season. The playoff series format is plenty long enough already. The only thing I might change would be to make the division series seven games, too.

Posted by: TomP at October 13, 2006 01:34 PM

I understand the point, but do disagree that the season is too short to allow the conclusion that the team with the best record is the better team. I thing the divergence is at least as likely due to the length of the season -- players get injured, players get traded or called up, other things happen which mean, in essence, that the team at the end of the season is not the same team that complied the season-long record.

The bigger point is that any playoff system is going to be subject to a great deal of random luck, in which I include hot steaks at the right time. I agree that the best answer is to reconceptualize the post-season as a separate tournament. My understanding is that in English football, one team wins a Cup for winning the season, and a different cup is awarded to the winner of the post-season tournament. That makes good sense to me, whether or not it is actually what is done in England.

Posted by: Capybara at October 13, 2006 03:07 PM

Just an aside, David is right, my proposal is fixing somethign that isn't broke. I found Bruce Regal's argument unconvincing. And so I offered a coutner proposal, as sort of a if you want to tweak it, here's how I would.

My idea trends more towards the marketing of the game, than establishing that the best team wins.

As for why the season is too short, 162 games doesn't provide enough results to make the action statisitcally valid. It is the longest season,b y far, but to really see if the best team wins, there is almost no seasont hat would be long enough to determine who the best team is, and computer models, while improving, won't do the trick either.

So they are flawed systems, but it has been great baseball.

Posted by: Ennuipundit at October 13, 2006 03:50 PM

I think when we argue that 162 games aren't enough to determine who the best team is, we have an example where math is coming up against the limits of language and time. Yes, 162 games is not enough to eliminate the noise from the results. But it can't be more, because humans, unlike computer simulations, exist in time and six minths later a team is not the same team as it was at the beginning of the season. What this means is we have to be more precise when we understand the word "best." In the real world of sports, best cannot mean the team that would win more times were an infintee number of games played. It has to mean somthing like, best team of the 2006 season. Or best team in the 2006 post-season. "Best" always needs to be further defined.

Posted by: Capybara at October 15, 2006 11:46 AM