Baseball by the crunchy numbers

[scooterbird]

First off, a happy, happy and slightly belated birthday to eibii! (She is exempt from reading the griping below, and gets only sweetness and light and stuff.) Would have wished it earlier, but it's also my mother's birthday.

Secondly, in the words of crazieabby, "Congratulations to the 1986 Boston Red Sox!"

Comments

[kouaidou]

You forgot to mention that the number of games played in a season increased by 8 in 1961 -- making it easier to get to a hard number of wins like 90.

Thanks for the stats though. Interesting stuff, I'll have to think on it.

[kouaidou]

Actually, have you considered doing another table of stats that's the inverse of the second one you have there? Compare the number of teams who went over a certain number of wins and didn't get to the playoffs before and after the wild card race?

Because I mean, supposedly, the logical tradeoff with the wild card is that while some teams who are less deserving will get into the playoffs, it also allows more deserving teams that just happen to be in tougher divisions a chance that they have rightfully earned and wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

[scooterbird]

I would imagine that yes, more 100-win teams are now in the playoffs.

It's an interesting conundrum overall, because you have to define what it is that you're doing with a playoff. Earlier in baseball, the "Major Leagues" were really two different entities who had a few agreements in place because they played the same sport; one of those agreements was that their respective winners would play each other in the World Series. So the pennant was the championship, there was no "playoff", and the Series was more for "bragging rights". That's clearly changed, but how much should it change?

[kouaidou]

I'm not really sure "should" has anything to do with anything, when it comes to cultural trends like this. The progress of technology and social mindset is always going to make certain social orders obsolete. It has nothing to do with whether or not the old way is still worthy, it's just the way things end up

[debboamerik]

Yum, baseball stats! *chews*