Yeah, it might make for an interesting quandry for the management of a team right at the .500 mark as that date approached, but I really don’t think anybody would lose even one game on purpose (especially since you’d be asking very competitive individual players to “throw” a game for a benefit that doesn’t mean much to them personally no matter how much it might help the team as a whole).

If anyone knows another reason the owners wanted to lengthen the season, I’d love to hear an explanation.

You’re kidding, right? Four additional home gates every year is what, another ~$2.5M of revenue every year just from ticket sales. Less than that back when they instituted the longer schedule, of course, but in relative terms worth at least as much. Plus concessions, etc.

I do like the symmetry of two 81 game season halves, each in turn a square of squares involving those particularly and peculiarly baseballish numbers of “3″ and “9″….

Baseball has the biggest home field advantage. It is the only sport that has different sized fields of play, which a home team can use to their roster advantage, i.e. Safeco being friendly to Lefthanded hitters and Pitchers, Yankee and New Yankee Stadium being the same. Colorado needs to have great defensive outfielders because they have such a huge outfield and they plan their roster according. Every field plays different than every other.

The home vs. road winning percentage differentials, both league-wide and for individual teams don’t show anybody taking much advantage of this, though it may be that roster-tuning to one’s home park and getting a big effect from it is possible. The biggest thing that home parks seem to do is hurt or help the health of pitchers. Since it is easier to keep position players healthy and rested than to keep pitchers healthy and rested, playing in a low-scoring home park confers a durability advantage over time. Safeco Field helps the Mariners relative to other teams, while the weather (and inexplicably sadistic day games on the schedule) in Arlington melts the Ranger pitching staff every July and August. At a day game in the Ball Park at Arlington’s outfield bleachers, fans can experience everything a 200+ degree heat index has to offer. Don’t be concerned that the players are too busy to enjoy such a nice day, though–the temperature is usually much higher on the field.

I wonder: why does it have to be 162 games?

It doesn’t. We could have a 1-game schedule, and resolve ties in the standings with run differential, followed by total runs scored, followed by (if necessary) penalty kicks…

Seriously, however, the 162 is an artifact of the 1961 AL expansion. This ended the 1903-1960 period when the schedule was 154 games and there were two 8-team leagues. Each team would play 22 games against each of the other 7 teams in their league (and indeed, 22 is a lot of games against one opponent–I’m immediately reminded of the “Don Hoak!” moment in City Slickers). The new 10-team AL changed to 162 games, with an 18 x 9 balanced format. The NL also changed to 162 games in 1961, even though they didn’t expand until the following year. It’s as if playing 8 additional games conferred some other benefit, besides the opportunity to re-balance the schedule. If anyone knows another reason the owners wanted to lengthen the season, I’d love to hear an explanation.

Baseball has the smallest home-field advantage, or the second smallest, depending on measure.

Thanks for the link, especially since I had totally the wrong idea of how much home-field advantage mattered in non-baseball sports. I thought the other sports came in significantly above 60% in home win percentage, but actually they’re down fairly close to 50% like baseball. My conclusion about giving advantages beyond the usual home-field advantage doesn’t change, but it makes me think the other sports ought to do more as well, since their home-field advantage has the same problem–it’s a weak reward for regular-season performance.

Home field advantage in baseball is weak compared to other sports, even in the postseason.

I would say this is a backwards statement. Baseball has the biggest home field advantage. It is the only sport that has different sized fields of play, which a home team can use to their roster advantage, i.e. Safeco being friendly to Lefthanded hitters and Pitchers, Yankee and New Yankee Stadium being the same. Colorado needs to have great defensive outfielders because they have such a huge outfield and they plan their roster according. Every field plays different than every other.

Which sport has the biggest home field advantage?

Baseball has the smallest home-field advantage, or the second smallest, depending on measure.

It would be nice if they put some measure of random variability in those measures, but beggars and choosers…

Brewers should come back to the AL and move KC to the west and then one interleague series going all the time.

The Royals had a chance to move to the NL in 1997 and they declined.

regular season, i like the unbalanced schedule, but i can take or leave interleague, and i do advocate the NL taking on the DH.

While that is true in terms of division lead, it seems like it can be beneficial to have a crap team in your division you get to play a lot and pad your numbers for the wild card. A team like the Nationals or something in the AL west would go over very nicely right about now. You’d tack on a few extra wins over the teams outside of your divisions (potential wild card competitors), and subtract possible extra loss or two against the good teams in your division due to presumably playing them less to account for the 5th team. My logic could be flawed there, just something that just popped in my head and I haven’t reflected on it any more than what I wrote here.

Back on topic… 8 teams in the playoffs is more than enough. The season has to be worth something! I don’t like how the NBA or CFB does it. In CFB if you don’t have a losing record you likely get to go bowling. Whoop-de-do.

The NFL and MLB have it about right. I do wish equal number of teams per division. Brewers should come back to the AL and move KC to the west and then one interleague series going all the time.