Thursday, July 18, 2013

All-Star Game Debriefing - Does Home Field Advantage Matter?


Prior to this week, the last time the All-Star Game was held in New York the NL took the loss 4-3 in a 15 inning epic that ended on a sac fly by Michael Young off of Phillies closer Brad Lidge.



2008 Topps #UH304 Brad Lidge (stolen from Trading Card Database)


Since 2003 the All-Star game has decided home field advantage in the World Series. Lidge couldn't know it at the time, but the NLs loss would cost the Phillies Home Field in the 2008 World Series. Fortunately for him the Phils and their fans like myself, The Phils took one game in Tampa and all 3 of their home games and didn't need HFA to win the 08 series.

Fox was throwing around some stat about how often the World Series was won by the home team. I wanted to look deeper into this and find out if the Home Team won or perhaps it worked out that the Home Team was the better team.  Here is what we found.

YearAwayG>.500HomeG>.500LenHome W DiffHome Team WinsBest Rec WinsHome + Best RecAway + Best RecHome Worse RecAway +worse Rec
2012Tigers14Giants26412111000
2011Rangers30Cardinals187-1210010
2010Rangers18Giants2254111000
2009Phillies24Yankees44620111000
2008Phillies22Rays3261000001
2007Rockies17Red Sox30413111000
2006Cardinals5Tigers2852300001
2005Astros (NL)16White Sox36420111000
2004Cardinals48Red Sox344-1410010
2003Marlins20Yankees4062000001
2002Giants29Angels3677111000
2001Yankees30Diamond Backs227-810010
2000Mets26Yankees235-3111000
1999Yankees34Braves4441010010
1998Padres34Yankees56422111000
1997Indians11Marlins22711111000
1996Braves30Yankees226-810010
1995Indians56Braves466-1010010
1994
1993Phillies32Blue Jays286-410010
1992Blue Jays30Braves346400001
1991Braves26Twins2872111000
1990Athletics44Reds 204-2410010
1989Giants22Athletics36414111000
1988Athletics46Dodgers275-1910010
1987Cardinals28Twins87-2010010
1986Red Sox29Mets54725111000
1985Cardinals40Royals207-2010010
1984Tigers46Padres225-24010100
1983Phillies18Orioles34516111000
1982Brewers (AL)28Cardinals227-610010
1981Dodgers16Yankees116-5010100
1980Royals22Phillies206-210010
1979Pirates34Orioles4571100001
2615132135
AwayG>.500HomeG>.500Home DiffHomeRecHome+RecAway+RecHome-RecAway-Rec


The Chart goes back 33 World Series and list the team that ended up being Away and Home for the Series - the team in Green won the series. 7 Game series are noted in yellow.

The G>.500 is the number of games each squad finished above .500.  The Len column is the length of the series. Home Diff is the number of games the Home squad was ahead or behind the away team.  

To the right of the chart a A '1' in a column indicates a win in a certain category. Those catgories and composite records are as follows

Home Team 26-7 
Better Record 15-18

Better Record + Home 13-5
Better Record + Away 2-13
Worse Record + Home  13-2  
Worse Record + Away 5-13 

There are 2 things worth noting here, 33 series is not a huge sample size, but it isn't small.  The second is that the best team doesn't always have the best record.  And indeed it does seem to be the hotter team has been winning Series recently.

I will admit those two issues with the study here, but there are some astounding numbers. 
1) The 2-13 record of teams w/ better records w/ Road Status. Thats abysmal. In fact it is worse than being the Away Squad and having the worse record in the contest (5-13)
2) I went back to 1979 just so I could find a game 7 that was won by the road squad.  There have been 9 Game 7s since then, every single one of them won by the Home team. Assuming both teams are near equal the odds of 9 home consecutive home wins is over 500-1.      

Source
Baseball-ref.com

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2008 World Champions