Congrats to the Dodgers, Guardians, Phillies and Yankees, who carried out effectively sufficient for six months this season to earn a first-round bye previous the Wild Card spherical. That gave them time to relaxation and reset their rotations – all whereas solely avoiding the chance that their seasons would possibly come to a fast finish within the first spherical’s best-of-three sequence, as occurred to the 99-win Rays final fall.
On the similar time, although: Gained’t you spare a thought for the poor, doomed Dodgers, Guardians, Phillies and Yankees? The layoff they will face whereas ready for the Division Collection will value all of them their momentum and break the timing of their hitters, since they’ll be compelled to take a seat idle whereas the Wild Card groups get to maintain their abilities sharp in must-win video games.
In any case, final yr, three of the 4 groups that received the bye then misplaced within the Division Collection. Due to this fact, the bye is dangerous. Proper?
Not precisely. Maybe under no circumstances.
It’s not arduous to see why the bye is considered as being a detriment, in fact. Within the first two years of this playoff system, have a look at what’s occurred.
In 2023, the bye groups misplaced three of the 4 Division Collection matchups.
In 2022, it was a 50-50 cut up: the bye staff misplaced two of 4 matchups.
That’s a mere 3-5 file for the rested groups, and it’s notably comprehensible why Braves followers would possibly really feel just like the bye is not the benefit they’d prefer it to be; they’ve, in spite of everything, misplaced to a Wild Card staff in their very own division, the rival Phillies, after a bye in two consecutive Octobers.
Then again, the game is wildly totally different in a brief October sequence; when the Braves’ hitters struggled towards Philadelphia pitching final yr, they needed to cope with the highest Philadelphia quartet of Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suárez and José Alvarado throwing 66% of the innings within the NLDS – after throwing solely 38% of Philadelphia’s regular-season innings. If hitters do not hit within the playoffs, look to their opposition, not their calendar.
Plus, the rested Astros not solely gained each their Division Collection, they gained six out of seven video games whereas doing so. In 2022, that they had breaks of 5, three and 4 days between their varied postseason sequence on their method to a title, and the 2013 and ’18 champion Purple Sox had gaps of no less than three days earlier than each spherical – so perhaps there’s not fairly as a lot of a development right here as you would possibly like.
Actually, we’re making an attempt to reply 4 questions right here.
1) Is there sufficient proof to say there’s any sort of impression?
It’s eight head-to-head best-of-five matchups between groups all adequate to get to the playoffs, making most of them one thing like 54/46 propositions. It is 30 complete Division Collection video games throughout these eight sequence. One latest research advised {that a} single head-to-head baseball sequence would have to be best-of-75 (!) to easily match the “greatest staff advances” charge of the NBA playoffs.
Baseball, in small samples, may be unpredictable, and a best-of-three or a best-of-five format simply is not sufficient to let you know which staff is healthier – look no additional than this yr’s White Sox, with 120 losses on the time, finishing a three-game sweep within the season’s remaining week.
2) What number of groups that received the bye had their season finish within the first spherical?
Groups who received the bye within the first spherical have an ideal 100% “did you advance to the second spherical” charge. It’s the one totally predictable factor in baseball. We’re being extraordinarily tongue-in-cheek right here, nevertheless it’s vital. If you happen to’re simply “did the rested staff lose within the Division Collection,” you may’t ignore that completely none of them misplaced within the Wild Card Collection, too.
3) Have been the upsets … really upsets?
This half is the difficult one, as a result of “extra wins and the next seed” ought to let you know that one staff is healthier than the opposite – besides these accolades had been collected over six months. We’re speaking about perhaps 4 days right here.
Bear in mind again in 2022, when the Phillies (87 wins) and Padres (89) made for a shocking NLCS. On the time, we seemed into their rosters and the way a lot they’d modified, as a result of between them, they’d added stars like Josh Hader and Juan Soto, whereas bidding farewell to unproductive veterans like Didi Gregorius and Eric Hosmer. Common-season win totals don’t let you know a ton concerning the rosters which might be out there in October.
So, then, let’s evaluate the three sequence the place a staff that needed to battle via the Wild Card spherical gained over a rested staff in 2023, to see what these matchups really seemed like on the time.
Was it an upset? Probably not. Braves followers will say sure, however the seasonal win totals had been loads deceptive right here, given how a lot had modified on each side. The Phillies returned Bryce Harper from damage and significantly improved their protection to play at a 100-win tempo for the ultimate 4 months of the yr; the Braves, beset by late accidents to Charlie Morton, Max Fried, and Kyle Wright, in addition to Bryce Elder’s second-half slide, had a 5.61 ERA in September.
When 11 MLB.com writers made playoff predictions, six selected the Phillies on this matchup. Once we did a deeper breakdown between the 2 sides, we completed the analysis with “we have now sufficient considerations about Atlanta’s pitching and we like what the Phillies have performed on the mound sufficient that we expect they’re going to squeak this one out. The very best staff within the common season isn’t at all times the one which wins a brief season in October.” Precisely. Not an upset.
Was it an upset? Perhaps, however perhaps not. For all of the discuss concerning the bats going chilly because of a layoff, it’s value remembering that Baltimore pitching allowed 21 runs and 18 walks in simply 26 innings, and the Rangers did have a far superior regular-season run differential than the Orioles did. An enormous a part of Baltimore’s win benefit was its nice bullpen fueling it to one-run victories, nevertheless it misplaced nearer Félix Bautista to an elbow damage simply earlier than the playoffs started. Is it that beautiful {that a} staff with six All-Stars and a Corridor of Fame-worthy supervisor may win three video games in a row? Not a lot of an upset.
4) So, how typically ought to the upper seed be favored to win?
That is an attention-grabbing philosophical query, as a result of the upper seed ought to lose typically, proper?
We wish drama, and we would like upsets, as a result of in any other case, why trouble taking part in the video games? Simply advance the upper seeds all the way in which to the World Collection, then. You clearly don’t need a 0% higher-seed-advances charge. You most likely don’t need it to be 100%, both.
So let’s discover out what’s really occurred. Going again to 2012, and excluding Wild Card Video games, we’ve had precisely 102 totally different postseason sequence. Two of these got here between two groups who had equivalent regular-season information, so let’s set these apart and give attention to a pleasant, spherical 100 multiple-game postseason sequence since 2012.
The staff with the higher regular-season file is all of … 52-48. Which, for the file, is strictly what the home-team benefit has been within the common season this yr: 52-48. So, in no less than one sense, it is working as anticipated.
Typically, that’s 6-1, prefer it was in 2018. Typically, it’s 1-6, prefer it was in 2014, or 3-8, prefer it was in 2023.
Bear in mind, too, that final yr Arizona and Texas made all of it the way in which to the World Collection – beating higher-seeded foes of their respective League Championship Collection – and their supposedly superior opponents weren’t coming off any roughly relaxation after the Division Collection. Typically, groups get scorching. Typically, baseball simply occurs.
None of which is to say that the system is ideal and can’t be modified. You would possibly, in spite of everything, wish to tweak issues to offer the upper seed an excellent bigger benefit than “relaxation” and “house subject,” or to reseed after the primary spherical, or to attempt to have the next seed win greater than 52% of the time. Neither is it simple to show that the layoff doesn’t have an effect on hitters – or no less than to show that it does so greater than “dealing with a postseason’s staff’s greatest pitchers” does.
However think about a state of affairs, if you’ll, the place the highest two seeds in every league got the selection between taking part in within the first spherical or advancing proper to the second – i.e., taking the bye, or avoiding the rust. It’s fairly protected to guess how each single considered one of them would select. It wouldn’t be to threat their season ending within the Wild Card spherical. There’s nothing extra worthwhile than a assured sequence win.
