Destiny of the 2009 Yankees

Before we delve into general themes affecting the league, I thought we could take a look at a current event - the playoff scheduling and how it is favoring the New York Yankees in these 2009 Playoffs. However, I think that it is important to note that the league office is not favoring the Yankees for the Yankees' sake, but rather it purposely and willfully designed the playoffs to its liking by giving the team with the best regular-season record a substantial advantage over its LDS opponent.

Initially, the fact that the Twins had to play their first playoff game the night after playing their tie-break game in Minnesota led me to believe one of two things: either the league purposely devised the schedule to favor the Yankees (for a slew of reasons, potentially: being the team with the best regular season record, attracting the most amount of revenue, easiest to market due to their rich history, etc) or MLB inadvertently set up its playoff schedule to favor them. I was hopeful enough in MLB that it was shrewd enough to give every playoff team an equally fair chance to advance throughout the post-season, but after reviewing the data, I have no other opinion than the playoffs have been molded to give the Yankees the best possible chance to make it to the World Series. Of course, games have to be played, and the players have to perform, but from looking at the scheduling, it has been shown that MLB specifically designed these playoffs to give the team with the best record the best chance of advancing in each of their series'.

The American League Division Series ends five days before the American League Championship Series begins, whereas there were only three days in between the NLDS and NLCS. Even if the ALCS had gone four games, they still would have started a day later than the NLCS. This in and of it self is not a problem, but when you couple it with the fact that the first two games of the NYY - Min series had a break in between them (Oct. 7, 9) even though both games were playing at Yankee Stadium. No other LDS series has a day of rest in between two games that were played in the same city.

The reason there was a day off was because MLB gave the Yankees the option of starting their playoff series against the Twins the day after the tie-break, and that empty day in their schedule was designated a "rest day" for Minnesota who essentially started their playoffs with the tie-break game on Tuesday Oct. 6.

Quote from ESPN.com (sourced below):
"The Yankees could have waited until one hour after that game to pick when they wanted to begin, but made the call about an hour before the first pitch."

It did not make a difference to the Yankees who they would be playing - they knew that the day after the tie-break game, they would be playing a team who had just played a win-or-die game the night before and had traveled 1500 miles on a charter flight to Yankees Stadium just hours before the opening pitch while they, the Yankees, were able to comfortably relax in their own homes and mentally prepare for the game on three days rest.

Home-field advantage is the only prize that the best regular-season team is awarded in any other major sport in North America, and that is an enormous gift in and of itself. Each series is begun in the best team's city, and if the series extends long enough, the last one or two games are also held in that city. Since teams generally win more than half of their games at home during the regular season, the theory is that home-field advantage will make it tougher for the underdog team to win a series facing that obstacle. This dynamic creates drama and different strategic approaches for both sides.

Not surprisingly, the Yankees trounced the Twins on Oct. 7, 7-2. The Twins actually scored first, but then ran out of gas after the 5th inning, and the Yankees scored 5 runs in the last 5 innings.



Sources: MLB.com 2008 Playoff Schedules Announcement, MLB.com 2009 Playoff Schedule, ESPN.com: Yankees know when they will play