Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

I remember someone, I think it was Joe the Jet, saying that there was a homefield advantage working in TSN-Strat, an advantage other than simply having a line-up adjusted for homefields. ANy one believes so?

I kinda think this was only rumors, some other "conspiracy" beliefs, but still I would like to know if we got some formal dismiss from the TSN staff.

I'm asking this because I am really amused by the large differences of records by playing home and away even in teams with "neutral" stadiums.

I also ask now, because I have an all-injury-prone team getting into players. I have players like Mauer, Marcus Giles, Thomas, Bay, Everett... Rolen is one of my few reliable starter, but he has just been hit for eight games on the DL.

Magic number is at 2 with 12 games to go.

Yet, I am three games back from having homefield advantage throughout the playoffs, and I am even back (two games off) from having it for the first-round only. The chance I have to get three games back with Rolen already on the sideline is not the greatest.

So I was very tempted by sitting all my starters, at least as soon as get my playoff spot secure. But maybe looking at the huge difference in home record and away record (my future playoff opponents have losing record on the road), I wonder if it's not worth the risk to play all-out even with the playoff spot secured in order to get home advantage.

What do you think?

...programmed into the CD-Rom. It supposedly adjusts batting average ca. 10 points for the home team. I'm not sure how they do it.

Thanks PBTR.

One hit per 100 AB isn't so much, but it's still one more per series.

That makes home field advantage even more important.

Anyway, I will still play it safe.

But despite this advantage wild card teams (always on the road) do very well in the playoffs. What gives?

I do recall TSN saying that home field advantage is turned on.

[quote:6f8b5c6686]But despite this advantage wild card teams (always on the road) do very well in the playoffs. What gives?[/quote:6f8b5c6686]I have a theory. Teams with great records are often built to take great advantage of their division and are built to do well over a long season. While perhaps at times the wild card team is better built to just do well enough in season to make playoffs but is really structured to do well in playoffs.

The great ace strategy for example. Randy Johnson or Pete Alexander might not have much staff support for allowing the team to do great during season but they can be huge difference makers in playoffs where they start twice in a 5 game series. Similar but less extreme is the 3 good starters and some warm bodies to fill in 4th/5th starter slots. Those warm bodies drag a team down during season but are almost meaningless come playoff time not pitching at all in semis and only once in finals.