Read the opposing argument from Babe Ruthless.
The current Major League Baseball postseason format is perfect. Do not change a thing!
In posing the question about whether or not MLB should expand the first round of its playoff series from five games to seven, Loyal Homer raises several very interesting points. The first of which being that expansion of the League Division Series (LDS) from five to seven games would extend the season into November.
I have news for everyone – the MLB postseason ALREADY extends into November!
Last year, the final game of the World Series was played on November 4, with a seventh game that was scheduled after that if needed, and that was in a season where none of the Division Series reached game five, and no game sevens were played in the championship or World Series. Just imagine how late the season would have run if there had been full-length series. If you REALLY want to play baseball later into November, then a better solution is to delay the start of baseball so the league is not contending with April snowstorms in much of the northern United States.
A second, and much more important point raised in the introduction, though, is that a five-game series gives a potential advantage to the “underdog.”
This statement completely misrepresents the REALITY that is a five-game series.
The premise behind this argument is that the “better” team is at a disadvantage because they have fewer opportunities to win games. There is a flaw in that logic. The “better” team is not the one that statistically SHOULD win the game. The “better” team is actually the one that DOES win the game. If a team can only win a series because of how they play in games six and seven, are they REALLY a better team?
In 2006, the St. Louis Cardinals (who BARELY reached the postseason with a record of 83-78) faced off against the San Diego Padres (88-74), New York Mets (97-65), and Detroit Tigers (95-67) during their World Series championship run. CLEARLY the Cardinals were the underdog in EVERY series they played, yet it was the Cardinals who went on to claim the World Championship.
I do not care how well the Padres, Mets, and Tigers played during the regular season, the Cardinals were UNDOUBTEDLY the better team when it mattered most – ON THE FIELD! Not only did the Cardinals win a five-game series against a slight favorite, they managed to defeat two HEAVY favorites in full seven-game series. It is impossible to argue that the Padres were a better team than the Cardinals, and that they would have won the series if it had gone to seven games… but they could not even make it to FIVE games!
As further proof that the “better” team will win in a five-game series just as often as in a seven-game series, look no further than the last 20 years of baseball postseason history.
Since 1990, Major League Baseball has seen a total of 120 different playoff series take place. Half of those series were scheduled for only five games (four different five-game series each year since the inception of the LDS in 1995), and the other 60 series were scheduled for seven games (two different LCS’s and a World Series each year). Here are some statistics from those series:
League Division Series
- Out of 60 possible five-game series, there have only been 13 Game Fives. That means that 78% of the time, the series ends by a 3-1 or 3-0 margin.
- Out of 60 possible series, nearly half have ended in 3-0 sweeps (25 total)
- Out of 20 possible series since 2005, there has only been ONE Game Five (Angels vs Yankees in 2005)
League Championship Series/World Series
- Out of 60 possible series, there have been only been 14 Game Sevens.
- Out of 60 possible series, the first team in the series to win three games (the ‘would-be’ winner of a five-game series) went on to win the seven-game series 51 times.
Analysis of those facts leads to two key conclusions.
First, because it is extremely unlikely for a team to come from behind in a seven-game series when trailing by a margin of 0-3 or 1-3, and 47 of the first 60 five-game series ended either 0-3 or 1-3, it is highly unlikely that a team which lost in each of those series would have come back to win, had they been scheduled for seven games.
Second, in all of the seven-game series in Major League Baseball that have played out over the last 20 years, 85 percent of them ended in exactly the same manner they would have if the series had only played out over five games.
These statistics all prove the exact same thing – whether five games or seven, the same (better) team would win nearly ALL of the time.
In fact, based on the information above, it looks like Major League Baseball could actually SHORTEN all of their current seven-game series to only five games, because of the statistical irrelevance that games six and seven usually have.
Are there ways to improve baseball? Definitely. Expanding the LDS from five games to seven is not the answer, though.
