what home-field advantage?

[chhotii]

I don't get it.

Yes, the Red Sox get to play the first game of the WS at home. But they need to win at least 4 wins to win the series. Of the first 4 games, half are home and half are away. The 3rd and 4th games don't count any less than the 1st and 2nd.

If they win in 5 games, they will have won in spite of having more games away than at home. The only way series will contain more games at Fenway than away is if it stretches out to the full 7 games. Doesn't seem to me like the Red Sox got much of a prize on account of the All Star game.

Comments

[skreeky]

Well, perhaps not, but the ASG game used to be worth exactly nothing. The AL and NL simply alternated years for WS home advantage until recently.

The idea is that assuming all other variables equal, and assuming that there *is* such a thing as home field advantage (which statistically there is and theories about why are fascinating)... if both teams win all their home games, the game 1-2-6-7 team wins the series by virtue of having *more* home games, even if it takes them all 7. That's the only advantage. The game 3-4-5 team cannot win the championship by winning only home games.

The division of 12/345/67 is simply to make it more psychologically fair by not letting one team get into that 3-0 hole that the Sox are now the first to ever overcome. To be perfectly fair in that sense, they would alternate fields every game, but that's way too much travel. (Do we really want a 13-day series instead of a 9-day?)

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

What Kriss said. Another reason is just the advantage of having the *first two* games at home. Playing at home does help, and if a team can win at home, then they get that extra boost when they go away since they have the lead, thus cancelling out some of the home-field advantage the other team now has.

[totient]

12/345/6/7 would work and only require 10 days.

[totient]

This year there is a very real advantage. Teams usually start pitchers on four days' rest; with the breaks for travel this means that one pitcher can start games 1 and 5, one starts games 2 and 6, one starts games 3 and 7, and the weakest starting pitcher starts game 4. Francona would like to avoid starting Curt Schilling in a National League park because he is afraid Schilling would do further damage to his ankle by having to bat. He can do that by having Schilling take the second spot; if we did not have home-field advantage there would be no way to have Schilling start twice in AL parks.