Tag Archives: Playoffs

Embrace the Chaos: the NFL Playoffs and Variance

Posted on January 10, 2013 by

By Andrew Mooney For interested fan or gambler, the NFL playoffs can be infinitely maddening to comprehend. Those Cincinnati Bengals that had won seven of their last eight? Well, they’re out, held to just -6 passing yards in the first … Continue reading →

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One and Done: A Thing of the Past? An Analysis of the NBA First-Round Playoff Format

Posted on November 9, 2010 by

By Will McMillan In the middle of the 2002-2003 NBA season, the league made a decision to switch the first round of playoff series from a best-of-5 to best-of-7 format. This was a puzzling move at the time, with the … Continue reading →

Posted in NBA Basketball | Tagged , | 6 Comments

MLB Playoff Home-Field Advantage Is Tinier Than David Eckstein

Posted on October 21, 2010 by

By David Roher These playoffs have been one for the road. In the Division Series, the home team went a combined 4-11, including a 1-7 showing in the ALDS. Why this happened isn’t that important — you can come up … Continue reading →

Posted in MLB Baseball | Tagged , , | 18 Comments

The Value of an NBA Playoff Seed

Posted on April 21, 2010 by

By David Roher More than half of the teams in the NBA make the playoffs year. This makes a lot of the drama at the season’s conclusion about seeds. Having a 3 instead of a 4 or a 6 instead … Continue reading →

Posted in NBA Basketball | Tagged , | 2 Comments

The Swing Game

Posted on October 31, 2009 by

By David Roher Update: An astute commenter below pointed out a key mathematical error that I made. The corrected values on the table are in italics. It seems that every game in a short series gets classified as either a … Continue reading →

Posted in MLB Baseball | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments

A Clever Rule

Posted on October 13, 2009 by

By David Roher If you’re like me, you might have spent some time thinking about a peculiar rule in the seedings for the MLB Playoffs: if the #1 seed in a league (the best record among the 3 division winners) … Continue reading →

Posted in MLB Baseball | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments