Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 59: Does the 2-3 Playoff Format Affect Home Field Advantage?/Can the A’s Defeat Detroit?

Episode Date: October 10, 2012

Ben and Sam bring on Jason Wojciechowski to discuss whether the 2-3 playoff format is the abomination he makes it out to be, then talk about how the A’s Game Three victory changes (or doesn’t change) their odds of beating the Tigers.

Hello and welcome to Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. Today we are celebrating episode 59. It is Wednesday, October 10th. I'm with Ben Lindberg in New York, New York. I'm Sam Miller, and today we're also joined by special guest Jason Vujakovsky. Jason, how are you doing? I'm doing better than I was doing three hours ago. a well-known expert on the Oakland Athletics. But I think really we have you on here because yesterday you infuriated me with a series of tweets. And there's a certain amount of risk in addressing this topic because the reason that I was infuriated by your tweets is that I did not care about your pet issue. And yet now I'm going to force it on everybody else.

Because your issue yesterday, which you were quite upset with, was the 2-3 playoff format in which the Oakland A's had to, despite being the superior team, superior record, and in a position of privilege, two games on the road, which, as the case had it, left them down two games to none, facing three consecutive elimination games without ever being at home yet. So it seems fairly obvious to me that this is actually no disadvantage at all, or if it is a disadvantage, it is probably minor and it is not something that we can actually conclude is there and yet you seemed to think that this is the reason the A's are going to lose do you care to explain your crazy scenario well it's certainly not the reason the A's are going to lose the reason the A's are going to lose is because of Justin Verlander and and the bullpen in game two, the A's bullpen in game two. So, you know, it's Verlander probably would have won game one, whether it was in Oakland or

not. And I mean, the question is game two. You know, the Tigers walked off and you can't do that on the road. So that's always, that's, you know, dubious. But, you know, just to assure the listeners that I'm not completely out of my mind. I mean, my main problem comes down to like, if this weren't that big a deal, we would do it every year. Well, first of all, I think that that actually begs the question. But second of all, there are all sorts of things that we didn't do and then we decided to do them. And that doesn't mean that the old way is always better. I can't imagine that you would argue that consistently. We have, I mean, baseball has used this format before. I think it was from like 69 to 84 they used it, from 95 to 98 I think they used it.

And my understanding is that the current incarnation is just a one-year thing, right? because it requires fewer travel days. And this new playoff format that MLB came up with sort of right before the season only would have worked if they had scheduled it like this and that there hadn't been an extra travel day per series. And that this is something that's either going to change next year or be re-evaluated at least. something that's either going to change next year or be re-evaluated at least um and i guess the only objection that i see to it is that it doesn't give both teams a chance of having a final game at home um which is at least fun for the fans i suppose uh but i don't know that it, I don't know that I see the competitive advantage or disadvantage. I'm not sure that there is necessarily a competitive advantage. I mean,

I think that you're right about, I mean, the A's, if they had lost tonight would have won 94 games and gotten one home playoff game, you know, for the fans who granted didn't show up, but still for the fans who did show up. And that that bugs me. And it's not about so much the past versus the present. It's about the present versus the future. And, you know, my understanding is that they are just going back next year. I don't maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it is just a reevaluation. Maybe they'll decide that 2-3 is fine and run with it. But my understanding is that they're going back. And that bugs me because it's an acknowledgement that they have a system they like and they didn't want to do it this year because they were in such a rush to get the second wild card out. So wait a minute, though, just to clarify, are you saying that your objection to this is not on competitive grounds at all? It is only about fan experience?

No, it's certainly partially on competitive grounds. But it's something that on the one hand, I can't prove and the burden is on me because I'm the one bitching about it. And yeah, it's partially on fan experience. It's partially on competitive possibilities, I guess. And the problem that I have with the statistical way of looking at this is that it assumes independent events um and generally we do treat baseball games as independent events but i'm not sure that elimination one side of elimination games are independent from each other um and and that's that's the difficulty that i have um now like i i certainly would not be if somebody were to find a way to study this, I would not be surprised, given that these are major league players who are selected on psychological strength and on emotional, you know, level-headedness outside of Grant Balfour, that I would not be surprised if we found that it was a relatively small effect.

if we found that it was a relatively small effect. But, you know, when your team loses the second game of a playoff series in which they have the home field advantage on a walk-off sacrifice fly, one tends to feel more emotional about these kinds of things. As soon as you started that sentence, I started looking forward to finding out whose name you were going to use as a punchline. as you started that sentence, I started looking forward to finding out whose name you were going to use as a punchline. Um, so, so, um, basically, uh, if, if I'm, if I'm understanding it correctly, um, there are three ways that, that there are, there are three possible things that you think

this would cause to happen. Um, one is, uh, that a, uh, that a, um, a superior team that loses two on the road would be so beaten down by the stress of having to play an elimination game that they would win fewer games after that, right? That is one theory, that they would go back home and that they would somehow be whooped mentally and they would win fewer games. Is that the idea? It's one possibility, yeah. Okay, and then a counterpossibility, which would be the opposite, would be that a team that fails to win one of their two games at home would be so defeated by the loss of their home field that they would maybe lose more or perhaps somehow, conversely,

win more on the road. But I don't think that's what we're talking about. And, and the third presumption is that, um, that the home team is going to win both of these games. And to me, that is a giant leap because the home field advantage in baseball is so small that the majority of the time, uh, you're not going to have a team that wins both those games. The idea that home field is destiny and that the A's had no choice but to lose two games on the road and that the Giants had no choice or the Reds had no choice but to lose two games in San Francisco, which they didn't do because it's on the road, seems wrong to me. Most of the time,

we're going to get a plurality of the time. There's going to be a split in those two games, and it's going to be almost as frequent that the visiting team wins both games as that the home team does. It's just not the case that the home field advantage is such a shifting variable in baseball. To me, if we're talking about the fan experience, that's totally different. And I'm trying to limit this to the competitive aspect of it.

But if, I mean, if you're going to assume that those two games are going to go the home team's way, that seems to me like the entire premise falls off. Well, it's certainly not an assumption that you'll lose the first two games it's you you couldn't assume that even before the playoffs started and you certainly can't stand with that now that you know with the other three series um it but it's about the sort of shifting probabilities um and it's about yeah i I mean, however small the home field advantage is, it exists. And it exists. I never figured out whether it exists for structural reasons, whether batting last actually provides some of that percentage

or whether it's all the same home field advantage as you get in football and basketball where there is no structural advantage. I don't remember what the research says on that, if there is no structural advantage um i don't remember what the the research says on that if there is any but um but shifting those probabilities um and increasing the chance that a team could face elimination without having played at home it it seems it and a lot of that's the thing a lot of this comes from feel A lot of this comes from pretty much all of the baseball I've ever known. The home team starts out at home or the better team starts out at home or at least the team with the better record. And changing that. I did mention at one point a sort of reliance interest um to to the extent that none of these players

have ever been the road team except when they are the lesser the lower seed um there's something shifting about that as well that it seems um i get i mean i can i can go to unfair it seems unfair to just sort of change that without there being rationale beyond, again, we wanted to do this now instead of waiting until next year. Again, if they said, if the baseball decided we just have to cut this travel day and teams are just going to have to deal from here on out, I feel like that would be different. They'd be owning it. They'd be saying this is just how home field advantage is going to have to deal from here on out, I feel like that would be different. They'd be owning it. They'd be saying this is just how home field advantage is going to work.

There's a different kind of advantage in playing the last three at home. As Ben said, that might be unfair. That might be more unfair in certain ways to the road team. But they're not owning it. It's an expedient way to do the playoffs this year that, again, as far as I know, they're going to immediately abandon. So there were a couple articles in the Wall Street Journal over the last day or so that looked at this issue.

One of them was by Carl Bialik, and it was sort of the more theoretical approach, which, as you said and as he acknowledged, maybe doesn't capture certain elements of how these series work. He found there was essentially no difference, that I think that one team was more likely to sweep, but the other was more likely to go four games or something, and so it balanced out. And then Jared Diamond looked, he took a more empirical approach, and he looked at those 20 seasons or so that I mentioned earlier

when baseball did use the 2-3 format. And he found that in those years, the team with home field advantage went 27-25, while the team with home field advantage in the 2-2-1 format went 26-26. Of course, that is a fairly small sample and not necessarily something that would show it if there was a slight edge either way. But those are people who actually looked at this and did some work. So that's fascinating.

I'm glad that you read that because it would have been awful if we had had this conversation and none of us had read or mentioned that. Well, it's not our fault. Everything's behind the paywall at the journal. Yes, we hate paywall sites. Yeah, what kind of ethical publication would put content behind a paywall it's 2012 guys no jason as you uh i just have one last question you as you noted um your objection came uh really sort of from a particular uh place which was that this was about four seconds after the a's had

fallen behind two to nothing two games games to nothing. And so I just want to ask both of you, um, in, in an instant, in an, in occasion where, uh, you knew that you were going to lose both road games as the A's have, uh, if, if I told you on October 1st, you know, your team was going to lose both road games. That's just a fact. Okay. Would you knowing that choose a two, three or a two to one, or would you think that it a two three or a two to one? Or would you think that it probably wouldn't make a difference? I'd choose it. I mean. Well, it's kind of an unfortunate question, because if you know you lose. Well, so you're not you're not assuming anything about the victory.

I mean, you know, you win at least one at home because you can't lose two on the road if you win. I'm just telling you that if you play two road games, you'll lose two road games. We're not assuming anything about the home games. I'm just wondering if you think that there's a competitive edge. I don't know. I haven't – I'm having a hard time thinking through that because there's two ways to lose the series that way under 2-2-1, which is that you split your home games. And then there's playing a game five in which both teams are sort of under the gun in a certain sense. Under 2-3, you know you're just going to play three at home down oh

two there's no other configuration um i don't know all right ben do you know uh i would probably just uh rail against the cruelty of the universe and my lack of free will and flip a coin or something. Yeah. So we have had Jason on to berate him about his beliefs about home field advantage and the playoff format. So now we'd like to give him an opportunity to talk about something else. Jason, how are you feeling about the A's after they staved off elimination and salvaged game three? What do you think of their chances? I think they're about the same. You know, I mean, obviously they're a little better because they won the game, but they still have A.J. Griffin going tomorrow after he sort of blew up in his last start. And then they have to face Justin Verlander in a potential game five. So this was the one that, I mean, every game they have to win,

but this was the one that looked the best. This was Anibal Sanchez, who's a good pitcher, but not Justin Verlander. Anibal Sanchez, you mean? I'm sorry, Anibal. Yes, you're right. Anibal Sanchez, our darling Annabelle Sanchez. And then Brett Anderson. Inside joke for people who watched the game. His name was being pronounced that way by, I don't know who, but someone.

Either Ursula or whoever the color guy was. I was listening to music most of the game. It was a thing on Twitter. Yeah, but yeah, I don't necessarily think that they're – I mean, obviously, you're down 2-1. Your odds are not good. But I'm still not feeling terribly confident. This doesn't make me feel any more confident, particularly given that they only scored two runs against Sanchez

uh doesn't make me think that they're going to suddenly explode against Verlander in game five well and it's sort of cruel to just save Scherzer until the fourth game like just kind of taunting you with it well he he what what's the status of his what was it his ankle his something he hurt his ankle celebrating or something yeah he did but he says he's uh he says he's 100 he had a he had a throwing session no pain everything good theoretically okay well that's that's i guess that's better that's better than brett anderson felt who's specifically acknowledged that he's not 100 with with his oblique yet. Wow. I believe that qualifies him for a gutsy performance talk.

Was that a Twitter thing? No, I was going to say in the past, there's been a little more gut to his gutsiness, but he lost a lot of weight in his rehab. All right. We're done here? All right. I feel like i'm done okay i'm done jason you done no i'm not done i i'm gonna i'm gonna come up with reasons why jared diamond and this other guy are completely wrong and uh i mean it's already it's all i'm already thinking about the fact about how many wildcard teams had better records than the road team or than the hosting team in these 2-2-1 series because the wildcard didn't exist sort of the time before that, you know, with the last time 2-3 was played, right?

What were the years the last time 2-3 was played? 95 through 98 were the last years. That's what Ben claims, but I just looked at 95 and it did not look like that was the case. But it's what it says. We're talking about... Right, that is what he says. But, of course, he thinks there's no difference

between 2-3 and 2-2-1, so he's not a credible source, really. Well, Jason, fortunately for you, you have a piece due in 23 1⁄2 hours, and this might just be the topic for you. Yeah, no, I don't think that's going to happen, actually. I'm pretty much talked out about this. I'm done.

Fair enough. Good. All right. Well, good. We wore out a worn-out topic. All right. Let's end this, and we'll be back tomorrow without Jason. Enjoy your baseball.