Entering playoffs as top seed - a curse?

[kaviksdad]

Add another one - up 2 games to none against the wildcard, with Ben Sheets slated for game 5 if needed, after breezing through the season and finishing with a league best record 96-66. So what happens? The usual -

Swept 3 straight to lose the semis. Sheets loses game 5 at home to D. Davis, who tosses a 3-hitter. Vlad, Huff, I-Rod and Godzilla manage one hit between them. My designated lefty killers - Giambi & Corey Patterson, finish 0 for 8.

[JAYDINGESS1]

It would be worth our own investigation to add up top seed champs and wildcard champs. I bet we'll come up with some staggering numbers. I feel for you kaviksdad

[Play By The Rules]

The curse that I know about is only when the Wild Card meets their division leader in the first round. It seems like the Wild Card wins more than half the time.

Although I should say I just beat a division wild card...

[J-Pav]

[quote:2027714b2d="jaydingess"]OK, one last thing on the conspiracy theory.

I went back and checked the same teams for Wild Card statistics. Here is what I have found.

25 teams - 2 still going

Wild Cards

Won Finals - 10 times - (40%)
Lost Finals - 4 times - (16%)
Lost Semis - 11 times - (44%)

Conspiracy I tell you.[/quote:2027714b2d]

[b:2027714b2d]Dingo[/b:2027714b2d]:

Here's my experience w/ the wildcards...(33 game sample)

Won Finals - 9 times - (27%)
Lost Finals - 6 times - (18%)
Lost Semis - 18 times - (33%)

So together (58 teams) we have...

Won Finals - 19 times - (33%)
Lost Finals - 10 times - (17%)
Lost Semis - 29 times - (50%)

Even though our 58 team sample shows the WC to be winning a finals series at an above average rate, I'm sure that with more samples we'd approach a perfect 25% score.

As an aside, as I was zipping through the leagues, I did notice that [i:2027714b2d]many[/i:2027714b2d] times the WC had the second best record overall. The WC team is not often an "also ran" but rather a team just a win or two shy of winning a strong division. A team like that is obviously a "best record contender". This probably better explains why the WC makes such a good playoff showing.

[J-Pav]

To add to our sample, league 34 WC lost semis.