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Hi all:

This is for all the baseball fans out ther.

When is one game worth 3 games?

Last Sunday evening, the Atlanta Braves found themselves one game ahead of the New York Mets with four games to go.  Their head to head series was 9 games all.  The two teams had Sunday's game against each other with the Braves having 3 games against weak Florida and the Mets had 3 games against the even weaker Washington Nationals.

(1) If the Braves won, their magic number would be one (one Brave win or one Mets loss in these 6 games) (Braves won 6-3)
(2) If the Mets won, their Braves magic number would be four (sum of Braves wins and Mets  losses in these 6 games)

This is a remarkable 3 game difference in magic number from a single game.

Head-to-head already seems to be overly influential, which is exasperated by also using as a tie breaker.

The Mets and Braves wound up with the identical win loss records.  Why not break the tie with a single game in Atlanta today (Wednesday 10/6)? 

Most sports use head-to-head as a tiebreaker.  Any comments would be appreciated.

Best wishes,


Jon

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Jonathan Shuster
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Yes.  It was an interesting scenario.  If the Mets won just one game, it would have been impossible for the Braves to win the division.  By not winning just one game, it became impossible for the Mets to win.  I'm a Mets fan, but I agree with the outcome even though it was a tie at the top.  The rules are the rules.  You have 162 games to win it outright.  If you didn't do it, then see the movie "A League of Their Own".  "There's no crying in baseball", according to Tom Hanks.  As a baseball purist, I'll take it one step further.  There should be no wild cards and no between league play.  After 162 games, the top winner of the AL meets the top winner of the NL.  Extra division wins and wild cards reduce the chances that the two best teams meet in the WS.  The WS should be a best of 9, as it was in the early 1900s.  Of course, this format would drastically reduce revenue, so it will never happen.  But it would benefit the 2 truly best teams of the year.

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Philip R. Scinto
Senior Fellow
The Lubrizol Corporation
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-06-2022 14:08
From: Jonathan Shuster
Subject: Baseball NL East

Hi all:

This is for all the baseball fans out ther.

When is one game worth 3 games?

Last Sunday evening, the Atlanta Braves found themselves one game ahead of the New York Mets with four games to go.  Their head to head series was 9 games all.  The two teams had Sunday's game against each other with the Braves having 3 games against weak Florida and the Mets had 3 games against the even weaker Washington Nationals.

(1) If the Braves won, their magic number would be one (one Brave win or one Mets loss in these 6 games) (Braves won 6-3)
(2) If the Mets won, their Braves magic number would be four (sum of Braves wins and Mets  losses in these 6 games)

This is a remarkable 3 game difference in magic number from a single game.

Head-to-head already seems to be overly influential, which is exasperated by also using as a tie breaker.

The Mets and Braves wound up with the identical win loss records.  Why not break the tie with a single game in Atlanta today (Wednesday 10/6)? 

Most sports use head-to-head as a tiebreaker.  Any comments would be appreciated.

Best wishes,


Jon

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Jonathan Shuster
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