Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images
When it comes to throwing shade in the playoffs in recent years, nothing has caught as much attention as the concept of home field advantage. The reason for the negative feelings isn’t surprising. Other than a possible first-round bye, home field advantage is the main reward for playoff teams that win more regular-season games than other playoff teams.
Home teams in the playoffs have struggled in recent years, but they haven’t been too bad this year. The 19-18 record of home teams isn’t the most scintillating tally, but their .513 winning percentage across 37 games is not a drastic departure from the .522 winning percentage for home teams during the 2024 regular season.
The most games a team can possibly play in a single postseason is 22, and a nine-point difference in winning percentage works out to only 0.2 wins per 22 games.
The data for postseason winning percentages at home from 1995 to 2024 show some fluctuations, with some years showing better results for home teams than others. But overall, home field advantage seems to have remained relatively stable over the years.
Looking at the Wild Card era as a whole, home teams have gone .540 over 1,045 playoffs games, which is comparable to their .537 winning percentage in the regular season over the same era. This suggests that the playoffs aren’t vastly different from the regular season in terms of home field advantage.
One common argument for the recent issues with home field advantage has been attributed to long layoffs from the bye round, but this doesn’t seem to hold up under scrutiny. The larger issue may simply be that home field advantage isn’t as significant in baseball as it is in other sports where the gap between teams is more pronounced.
In conclusion, home field advantage in baseball playoffs may not have changed significantly in recent years and may not be as crucial as perceived. Without major alterations to the postseason format, baseball has limited options in rewarding teams based on their regular-season performance. Home field advantage appears to be working as one would expect it to, given the nature of the sport.
