Presented by Steve Fall
January 15, 2011
SABR Regional Meeting
1
What is a True Champion?

A True Champion wins the World Series
and has a great regular season
2
Does the New Playoff Structure
Benefit Teams that are Merely Good,
but not Great?

Percentage of clubs with 92 or fewer
regular season victories winning WS:
Old Format: 25 percent (6 times in 24
postseasons)
Current Format: 50 percent (8 of 16)
3
Advantages of the Current
Playoff Structure
Keeps more teams in the playoff races
 Eliminates the possibility of great 100win teams missing the postseason due
to a tough division
 More playoff baseball!

But it falls short in one area…
4
Identifying Dominant Teams
100-Win Teams – in most cases – are
Major League’s best and most dominant
 Usually only one or two clubs reach this
elite level each season
 Such regular season dominance should
lead to postseason success, but has it?

5
First a Look Back
From 1969 through 1993, under the
four-team postseason structure, 25
playoff teams won 100 games during the
regular season
 Eight prevailed as World Series
Champions, or 32.0 percent

6
But Everything Changed in 1994
The new postseason structure debuted
in 1995 with the extra round of playoffs
 Since then, dominant regular season
teams have faced a tough challenge
each October
 Under the new format, 20 teams have
won 100 games since 1995
 Just two prevailed as WS Champs, or
10 percent (1998 and 2009 Yankees)

7
Percentage of 100-Win Teams
Prevailing as World Champions
Old Format: 32.0 percent (8 of 25)
Current Format: 10.0 percent (2 of 20)
Adding the 1995 Braves (90-54) boosts
the latter figure to 14.3 percent (3 of 21)
 Still considerably lower than the
previous percentage

8
How Can This Happen?
Even if a dramatically superior team
defeats an inferior club 65 percent of the
time in a playoff series, the new PS is no
cakewalk
 .65 x .65 x .65 = 27.5 percent
 So their odds of winning it all are just
over one in four despite having a
decisive edge in all three confrontations
 And teams are almost never
dramatically superior in all three rounds

9
What about Projected or
Pythagorean Records?
Run differential and the Pythagorean
Theorem of Winning Percentage do a
better job of identifying elite teams than
regular winning percentage
 Does this change the results?

10
Percentage of Projected 100-Win
Teams Prevailing as WS Champs
Old Format: 27.3 percent (9 of 33)
Current Format: 15.8 percent (3 of 19)
The three teams with a 100-win projected
record to prevail: 1998 Yankees, 2002
Angels and 2007 Red Sox
 Though not as extreme a difference, we
get similar results as when using actual
won-lost records

11
Comparing Teams with the Best
Record Each Postseason
How have the teams with the best wonlost record fared in the postseason?
 This method works well in seasons with
multiple 100-win teams (such as
expansion seasons like 1998)

12
Percentage of Teams with the Best RS
Record Prevailing as WS Champions
Old Format: 29.2 percent (7 of 24)
Current Format: 15.8 percent (3 of 19)*
* Teams shared the best record in three different postseasons
The three teams with the best RS record
that prevailed were the 1998 Yankees,
2007 Red Sox and 2009 Yankees
 The results follow the previous methods

13
The Plight of the Atlanta Braves
From 1995 through 2005, the Braves
won 11 straight Division Titles, won 100+
games 5 times and averaged 98.1 wins
 Yet they won only 1 World Series
 Went 48-44 in PS games
 Went 10-10 in PS series
 A .500 record in PS series projects to
win 1 in 8 times now vs. 1 in 4 before

14
Summary of Research
In the expanded postseason, dominant
regular season teams have won the
World Series roughly half as often as
before (from 1969-93)
 Is the new format solely to blame?

15
Other Possible Theories
Finishing Strong
2) The Secret Sauce
3) Super Divisions
4) Flipping the Switch
5) A Drop in Quality
1)
16
Finishing Strong
Some teams – often fortified by deadline
trades – can be better than 100-win
teams without having as good a record
 For example, the 92-70 Giants and 9072 Rangers from 2010
 Both strengthened their clubs at the
trade deadline and thereafter

17
The Secret Sauce
Baseball Prospectus has developed a
formula that summarizes the team
attributes that enhance the odds of
postseason success
 Are some teams built for the
postseason?
 In general, teams with top heavy
rotations tend to fare well
 The ability to generate offense without
power also appears key

18
The Super Division
AL East teams in recent seasons face
such fierce competition all season that
they are much better clubs than their
records indicate
 For example, the 2007 Red Sox had a
96-66 record but steamrolled PS
competition

19
Flipping the Switch
Some great teams may sleepwalk
through the regular season and win just
enough to reach playoffs
 The 2000 Yankees went just 87-74 and
won the World Series
 Had winning in 1998 and 1999 made
them complacent?
 If so, this impacts their regular season
record

20
A Drop in Quality
Perhaps 100-win teams just aren’t as
good
 Has division realignment and/or
expansion made it easier to win 100
regular season games since 1995?
 The number of 100-win teams has
increased under the new format: 1.31
per postseason versus 1.13 under the
old structure

21
Postseason Record of 100Win Regular Season Teams
Seasons
1969-1993
1995-2010
Won
113
103
Lost
86
88
Pct.
.568
.539
22
Postseason Record of Teams with
the Best Regular Season Record
Seasons
1969-1993
1995-2010
Won
112
103
Lost
86
83
Pct.
.566
.554
23
Conclusion

While other factors have had some
impact on the results, the most
successful regular season teams have a
much tougher time prevailing as World
Series Champions due to the extra
round of playoffs they must survive
24