From: jjd@TEAK.CRAY.COM (Jeff Drummond)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Why bother to watch the World Series?
Date: 2 Oct 92 20:52:56 GMT

Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Keywords: Conspiracy Unmasked! 

In article <1992Oct2.175240.14804@leland.Stanford.EDU> daveshao@leland.stanford.edu (David Shao) writes:
>Of all the major sports in the United States, major league baseball
>has the most illogical and capricious system of determining home
>field advantage in the playoffs.  Since 1987, starting with the
>Twins, the team with both the home field advantage in the LCS and
>the World Series has won the championship.  
>
>The home field advantage is assigned in the following fixed order:

[ mostly correct table of home field advantages deleted ]

>Without even noticing what the teams did this season, all I have to
>know is that the Braves won their division in order for me to predict
>with confidence that they will win the World Series.  

Amazing.  Proceed immediately to Las Vegas and bet every cent that you
can get your hands on based on this revelation.  Do it NOW before this
gets out.  Be sure to sell all your possessions and borrow as much
money as you can in order to maximize your winnings.  Drop us a line
from your Caribbean estate telling us how much you won.

>In fact, under the current system, at the beginning of the season
>I can dismiss three-quarters of the teams from consideration.  And
>one half of major league baseball teams (the eastern divisions) have
>no realistic expectation of ever winning another World Series.

And the Cubs sued to stay in the NL East.  I guess the joke's on
them!

>How was the decision made to implement the current rotation?  I find
>it hard to believe that at least one of the owners of an eastern
>division team didn't notice the disparity and alert the others.

Well, we all know what dummies those owners are.  Everyone here on
Usenet has been aware of this for years; but we're trying to keep it
under wraps.

>I'm also surprised that teams don't seem to be taking the rotation
>into consideration when making decisions such as whether to pursue
>expensive free agents or whether to rebuild with youth.  One
>example is the A's trade with the Cardinals two years ago of
>Felix Jose for Willie McGee.  Since the National League West had
>the home field advantage that year in the World Series, the A's
>should have given up on the season and played Jose, hoping that
>he could contribute the NEXT season when they had a chance.
>Another example is the A's trade this year of Canseco for Sierra.
>Since the A's will not be able to both retain McGwire and Sierra,
>in effect they will enter next season with one less superstar. 

More proof of owner idiocy!

>As next season can be predicted to be the year of the AL West,
>it would be very foolish for the Twins to let Puckett go.  I
>think they should pay him some astronomical amount for one season,
>say $7-8 million, and then make a decision whether the current team
>can win in 1995 or whether they should dump the older players and
>rebuild.  Similarly, next year is the year for the White Sox to
>pursue through free agency a player who can put them over the top.

Seriously though (I trust a smiley isn't necessary for the above),
five years of play-offs are hardly enough to establish whether or
not home-field advantage is necessary and sufficient to win the LCS
and WS.  Besides, home-field advantage wasn't invented in 1987.
Before then, you still had teams that had the home-field advantage
going into the LCS or WS, and that advantage didn't lead to automatic
victories to the home team (e.g., Twins had home field advantage in
1965 and lost to the Dodgers).

I believe that the only thing that changed in 1987 was that they
stopped alternating the use of the DH between odd/even years and
instead alternated it based on home-team league affiliation.

-Jeff    jjd@cray.com
--
"If the powerful owners
could remain centered in the Tao,
all things would be in harmony.
The league would become a paradise.
All teams would have a shot at the pennant,
and fans would cheer both sides."
-Lao "Lefty" Tzu in _The_Tao_of_Baseball_, Chapter 32.
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball