Thorn: Home-field advantage in the World Series
From SABR member John Thorn at Our Game on November 6, 2013:
Clinching a World Championship at home is more exciting for victorious players and their fans. And since 1980, there has been much cause for celebration, as teams with home-field advantage have won 25 of the 32 World Series played [including 2013, now 26 of 33]. But that is a deceptive statistic because in most of these years the winner wrapped up the Series in fewer than seven games—indeed, the losing club in a five-game Series that commenced in the opponents’ city will have had three games at home.
The ultimate World Series thrill has to be winning at home in a seventh game. And in a seeming repeal of the rules of probability, the home team has won Game 7 in each of the last nine World Series that went the distance (the first in 1982, the most recent in 2011).
What’s going on here? Some have laid responsibility at the Commissioner’s feet, for rewarding the All-Star Game winner with home-field advantage, but that decision came in 2003 so clearly is not the answer. The long-established home-field advantage in any one game is 54-46—in other words, the host club may be expected to win any particular game 54 percent of the time. Yet when the home-field advantage is distributed across four games, it diminishes to 51 percent. So what are we to make of the fact that—again, since 1980—the home team in the World Series has won 109 of 175 contests, a winning percentage of .623?
Read the full article here: http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2013/11/06/home-field-advantage-in-the-world-series/
Originally published: November 7, 2013. Last Updated: November 7, 2013.