I've seen this way too often

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/league/223528

Is it me, or do the two teams with the best records seem to get bounced from the playoffs in the first round and the wildcard team and the team with the worst record go on to the finals? It also seems like the wild card team wins it all, but didn't this time. Instead the team that finished 4 games over .500 went on to win it all. The wild card team finished 8 games ahead of the team they lost to.

i think someone had done a study at one time in the last year or so on this (WJannsen or maybe Dean, not sure) but I seem to remember it was a myth. The stats show otherwise but just so happens we always note the wildcard cases because they are significant emotional events.

That is what I recall also and they showed the percentages that proved is was just another SOMO old wives tale.

Once the playoffs begin, regular-season records are meaningless. Just like in real life.

Florida Marlins
0 Division Championships
2 World Series Titles

Over the past real-life 12 MLB seasons, only two World Series Champion teams: the 2009 Yankees (with 103 wins in the regular season) and the 2007 Red Sox (tied for most reg season wins) finished their respective regular seasons with the most regular season wins. List shows the champions with the their MLB ranking of reg-season voictories for that year:

Year WS Winner Rank (Wins)
2001 Arizona D'Backs 5
2002 Anaheim Angels[W] 4
2003 Florida Marlins[W] 7
2004 Boston Red Sox[W] 3
2005 Chicago White Sox 2
2006 St. Louis Cards 13
2007 Boston Red Sox t-1
2008 Philadelphia Phillies 5
2009 New York Yankees 1
2010 San Francisco Giants 5
2011 St. Louis Cards[W] 7
2012 San Francisco Giants t-4

4 of the 12 eventual champs were wild-card teams (W).