MBL tournament: my analysis looks good so far.

Originally posted Thursday, October 11, 2012.

When the Major Baseball League (MBL) introduced its new tournament format in March I immediately drew some conclusions, which appear to be confirmed so far.  Here are just two examples of what I have consistently written for six months.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012
MLB tournament: inadvertently less random with one more team?

The four seed in each conference should be at a big disadvantage because it will have to play its way into the tournament by using one of its top two pitchers, maybe both.  The one seed is unlikely to have to break a division tie (MLB should just use head to head as a tie breaker, then record in division), although it may have to play hard down the stretch to win the division.  Most likely is that the one seed will be rested and waiting for a tired and depleted four seed, thus ensuring that the types of upsets that occurred in 2011 will become rare.
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Sunday, September 2, 2012
One seed is more valuable than most realize.

Here are my non-statistical guesses for how this will work.

1. The one seed will defeat the four seed (winner of the play-in game between the two wild card teams) 75% of the time in the five game series, often in a sweep.  The four seed may be starting it's three or four starter in game one v. the one seed's ace.  The four seed will have all hands on deck in that play-in game, probably after battling just to get into the game.

2. The two and three seeds, both division winners, will be evenly matched and will play a long and difficult series in the first round.

3. In round two a rested one seed will defeat a depleted 2/3 seed 60% of the time in the seven game series.
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Both 2-3 series are going the maximum five games.  San Francisco defeated Cincinnati and Detroit will use its ace Justin Verlander in game five in Oakland later.  Verlander will be unavailable to start game one in round two even if Detroit wins.

National Conference (NC) one seed Washington tied its series 2-2 against St. Louis despite de-activating the best Washington pitcher (Stephen Strasburg) weeks ago and despite St. Louis activating its best pitcher (Chris Carpenter) just in time for the tournament.

In a few minutes the Yankees will try to take care of business by beating Baltimore in four games and saving ace CC Sabathia to open the next round.