Baseball All Star Game 13 Straight

[SoCalDukeFan]

If you started following baseball the summer before you entered kindergarten and now are about to enter college, then for that entire time the National League has lost EVERY All Star Game.

What is going on? AL might be better but 13 in a row!

SoCal

[Jim3k]

If you started following baseball the summer before you entered kindergarten and now are about to enter college, then for that entire time the National League has lost EVERY All Star Game.

What is going on? AL might be better but 13 in a row!

SoCal

Well, there was that annoying 7-7 tie in 2002 to break the string.

But your point is worth pondering.

[YmoBeThere]

It doesn't really matter. Of the last 13 World Series champions, 5 have not had home field advantage(i.e. were NL teams).

[hurleyfor3]

Some of us remember, pre-Freddy Lynn grand slam days, when it was the other way around.

[bjornolf]

The irony is that since they went to the determining home field for the world series thing, the NL has actually done pretty well in the series. Haven't they split 3-3 since then?

[Mal]

Yes, but home field advantage hasn't come into play, really, since there haven't (IIRC) been any Game 7's in that span, and there have been at least a couple sweeps, too. It's a pretty small sample size, either way, so I don't think the last six years worth of results disproves the general adage that all things being equal, the team with four potential homes games instead of just three will win out the majority of the time.

Regardless, it's an idiotic concept to have something potentially pretty important determined by an exhibition game. If you want an accounting of which league is "better" in a given year, the metric is right there - you've got over 100 games of interleague play every season. Just give World Series home field to the league that wins more interleague games.

[BlueDevilBaby]

Would you not end up in the same place since the AL has dominated interleague play? I'm for the old fashioned who has the best record determination.

[hurleyfor3]

Better yet, make it a real home field advantage by going 2-2-1-1-1 as the NBA (pre-Finals) and NHL do.

[bjornolf]

Would you not end up in the same place since the AL has dominated interleague play? I'm for the old fashioned who has the best record determination.

Well, some people would say that if you're in a weak division, you have the advantage in best record determination, even if you might not be the better team in the World Series. I think most ways of determining these things is pretty arbitrary, though All-Star game is definitely pretty bad. Might as well just do it with a coin flip, or alternate years or something.

[throatybeard]

Better yet, make it a real home field advantage by going 2-2-1-1-1 as the NBA (pre-Finals) and NHL do.

That lengthens the postseason well into November, which they don't really want to do.

[Mal]

Would you not end up in the same place since the AL has dominated interleague play? I'm for the old fashioned who has the best record determination.

You would over the last few years, but it's purely coincidental. The All-Star Game streak is an aberration - even if we were to accept that the team the AL has put on the field has been "better" in some measurable way in each of the past 13 years, it still shouldn't actually win all those games. The weaker team should win somewhere around 45% (guessing) of the time. When we get back to normalcy at the All-Star Game, you're likely to have a discrepency between which league "wins" that exhibition and which takes more interleague victories fairly often.

Contrarily, going by interleague results, you at least follow a defined principle, that being: we think it's fair to say that the team that emerges from the stronger of the two leagues is deserving of home field advantage in the World Series. That seems better to me than flipping a coin, alternating years, or going with regular season record. There will be occasions (AL Central champ with 86 wins makes the Series along with the one legitimately strong team from the NL) when the "better" team may not get the advantage, but that's at least lessened by the fact that the other squad beat two teams in playoff series from the stronger league.

Agreed on Bjornolf's note regarding giving the advantage to the team with the better regular season record. That's probably still the best way to determine things within each league's individual playoffs, but even there you have unbalanced schedule issues. In the case of the World Series, you've got completely different schedules.

To extend this conversation, can anyone suggest ways to deal with the structural disadvantage the DH places on the NL when it comes to the World Series, regardless of how many games it plays at home vs. on the road? (Other than just having the NL adopt the DH rule).

[InSpades]

I think the silliest thing about the all-star game is that they actually let the pitchers hit. You have all these guys who are supposedly the "best" at what they do and then you let some pitcher who is probably batting under .200 try to hit off some of the best pitchers the opposing league has to offer. I realize that the pitcher actually doesn't hit very often (maybe once per all-star game) but to even pretend like they are going to hit is ridiculous. It's an all-star game, no one want to see pitchers try to hit off other pitchers.

[Matches]

Yeah, I'm no fan of the DH but the All-Star Game is one place where it clearly should be used all the time.

The home-field thing is dumb but really not any dumber than the way they used to do it, which was to just alternate years between the AL and NL. I'm suspicious of best overall record, or even best interleague record, since the schedules are unbalanced. The home-field thing at least adds a little carrot to the All-Star winners, though it creates some weird situations like the possibility that last night's AL starter may be pitching for an NL team in the WS.

[Bluedog]

Home field advantage in baseball means very little. It's not like basketball or even hockey where the home team statistically fares much better. I mean, in basketball you have the crowd noise/distraction techniques for free throws, a lot more subjective refereeing that usually favors the home team, etc. In baseball, what do you have? Loud noises when somebody hits a homerun? That's not going to do much. Fans don't really influence baseball although there is something to be said for playing in a ballpark you are familiar with and getting to sleep at home.

[Mal]

In addition to knowing the ballpark's quirks, there are other factors. For one, teams are built for their parks, and obviously more statistically likely to succeed on their own ground for that reason. The '80's Cardinals teams, for instance, who played on turf all season and were built for speed, would have been at a disadvantage in a 7 game series with the Red Sox if 4 games were at Fenway, where lumbering corner outfielders are no disadvantage and it's a benefit to be an extreme flyball hitting righthander, as opposed to a guy who lives off groundballs through the hole and high hopping singles on turf. There's also the DH, as noted before. AL teams typically carry one bopper more than NL teams because the strategy during the 162-game regular season leads to a different roster building process. This puts an NL team at a greater disadvantage in the AL parks than it does the AL team in the NL parks, where the pitchers hit (for one, pitchers hit so poorly there's not much difference, and additionally, it's not that much of a liability to play a DH in the field for a game or two to continue to get the advantage of his bat).

There still is a home field advantage in baseball, whether it's extreme or not. Home teams have won the last 8 Game 7's in the World Series, and overall, home teams in the Series are, by my quick check, 46-38 since 1995. That's about a .550 winning percentage. I don't have the energy to check every game since, but from 1969-2002, home teams were 24-12 in playoff deciding games.

My favorite team, the Twins, are a good example of why it matters. In '87 and '91, they won two Series by going 8-0 at the Humpdome and 0-6 on the road. The Dome is strange enough for visiting AL teams, but magnified in strangeness for NL teams who'd never played there before. It's unbelievably loud, the roof conceals fly balls, and the team was built beat out choopers, hit grounders down the lines for triples, and run the bases aggressively. It's not certain the result would have been different if those Games 7 were in St. Louis or Atlanta, but it sure feels likely, and I sure wouldn't want to find out.

[rasputin]

Home field advantage in baseball means very little. It's not like basketball or even hockey where the home team statistically fares much better. I mean, in basketball you have the crowd noise/distraction techniques for free throws, a lot more subjective refereeing that usually favors the home team, etc. In baseball, what do you have? Loud noises when somebody hits a homerun? That's not going to do much. Fans don't really influence baseball although there is something to be said for playing in a ballpark you are familiar with and getting to sleep at home.

There is a home field advantage. I believe that historically, home teams win about 54% of games (all games, not just World Series games).

[SoCalDukeFan]

To extend this conversation, can anyone suggest ways to deal with the structural disadvantage the DH places on the NL when it comes to the World Series, regardless of how many games it plays at home vs. on the road? (Other than just having the NL adopt the DH rule).

Have the AL drop the DH.

SoCal

[Jim3k]

Have the AL drop the DH.

SoCal

What!!?? And render the game unwatchable? ... [ducking...]

[bjornolf]

I think the silliest thing about the all-star game is that they actually let the pitchers hit. You have all these guys who are supposedly the "best" at what they do and then you let some pitcher who is probably batting under .200 try to hit off some of the best pitchers the opposing league has to offer. I realize that the pitcher actually doesn't hit very often (maybe once per all-star game) but to even pretend like they are going to hit is ridiculous. It's an all-star game, no one want to see pitchers try to hit off other pitchers.

Seriously, it's not even a real game. Why not just instead of a nine man lineup, let ALL the players hit? I mean, why not put nine defenders out in the field, but let them bat all the guys that aren't pitchers. I mean, why does it really matter what the hitting lineup is? Let everybody hit, even if they're not on the field. That way, the fans of the various teams all get to see their guy at least hit a couple times, even if he doesn't get in the game.