Sunday, May 29, 2005 |
Interleague Play And The 2002 Postseason
But did he really show that? What he doesn't show is that the relative strength-of-schedule for each team was appreciably altered. Just because you have a bad record in interleague play doesn't mean you had an uneven chance to beat those teams. After all, this is baseball, and even the Devil Rays occaisionally stumble upon a sweep. Using Retrosheet data, I come up with the following data:
| Average Opponent | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Opponents | WPCT | Pyth. WPCT |
| Angels | Brewers (3), Dodgers (6), Cardinals (3), Pirates (3), Reds (3) | .534 | .507 |
| Red Sox | Braves (6), Diamondbacks (3), Dodgers (3), Padres (3), Rockies (3) | .564 | .543 |
So you might say, well, the Red Sox sure had a tougher schedule. See? Well, not so fast. The Angels played the Dodgers for six games, and three games each with the Reds, Pirates, Cardinals, and Brewers. Pull the double dose of the Braves for a three-game set with the then-struggling Phillies, who would have been 48-55 at the start of June 27, the day of the last Braves set. Furthermore, assume the Sox took two of three from the Phillies. Now, in real life, the Red Sox were 1-5 against the Braves; but eliminating those three games brings down their opponent's average WPCT to .518, which is actually an easier schedule than the Angels opponents' .534. Assuming the pythagorean numbers were to remain the same, it would have been comparable (.507 for the Angels vs. .519 for the hypothetical Phillies). At the end of the year, the Sox would have been 7-11 in interleague play, and 87-75 on the year -- which still wouldn't have gotten them past the Angels. As much as I dislike the uneven schedule, it looks like Carminati has exaggerated the meaning of his data a bit.
Angels opponents in the AL West had a combined record of 268-218 (.551), while Boston's AL East opponents played to 303-343 (.469). In fact, drop all the games against Tampa Bay so as to compare two four team divisions, and the Red Sox divisional opponents were a combined 248-237 (.511). So even with that benefit of the doubt, the Angels still played in a much tougher division.
So to argue that your team got screwed* by inter-league play, when all along they already had a huge built in schedule advantage, would be a seriously weak argument. I don't know how you can make one argument and ignore the other.
*Not to say that he's doing this for the Angels and Red Sox, but this would some hypothetical person making this argument.
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