Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Home field advantage -- meaningless stat?

I have noticed a fairly odd trend in the standings this year. American league teams enjoy a fairly substantial home field advantage (HFA) while National league teams do not.

In the NL, the teams with the greatest bias towards playing at home are Colorado (+9 games), Milwaukee (+8), and Pittsburgh (+8). The mean bias for the NL +3.125 and the median is +3.5

In the AL, the teams with a bias +10 or above are Cleveland (+10), Oakland (+11), New York (+11), Toronto (+11), Seattle (+13), Chicago (+13), Texas (+14), and Boston (+15). Over half the teams in the AL have a home field advantage of +10 or greater. The mean bias is +7.8 in the AL and the median is +10.

I wonder why? I'd put some thoughts, but I must get back to work.

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