Why there's not much home-field advantage in these MLB playoffs

PHOENIX — It is probably a blip. Yep, that is it, just an anomaly.

After all, I reached out to four executives whose teams were eliminated earlier in these playoffs and they — independently, yet in unanimity — agreed there is nothing to see here when it comes to home teams being 15-24 in these playoffs through World Series Game 3 (all stats are entering Game 4).

This has happened periodically before. Road teams had a .594 winning percentage (19-13) in the 2010 postseason and .563 (18-14) in 1996 when the Yankees were 8-0 en route to the first title under Joe Torre.

The Rangers topped that mark on Monday night when they won at Chase Field, beating the Diamondbacks 3-1 to improve to 9-0 away from home. So a lot of that postseason-record .615 away winning percentage this year is based on the Rangers. Remove them and teams were 15-15.

It is hard to even see a trend, since as recently as the 2021 postseason, road teams were 13-24 (.351).

But what is the fun in seeing this as an aberration? Especially when this postseason was so unsettled by an inability to defend home turf? The division-winning Brewers, Dodgers, Orioles and Rays were a combined 0-8 at home to lead to their Division Series ousters. For the second time in the history of the four major North American sports leagues (not counting the NBA COVID bubble), the road team won every game in a best-of-seven.

Both times it was MLB and involved the Astros — the 2019 World Series they lost to the Nationals and the 2023 ALCS they just lost to the Rangers.

So if it was not a blip, what would explain why living off room service has become easier:

1. Bullpens. Diamondbacks pitching strategist Dan Haren theorized, “How often does the team that scores first win? The road team has an advantage. They can score first and hold the lead. Starters are rarely left in long enough to give it up.”

Teams to score first were 30-9 this postseason — a .769 winning percentage compared to .665 during the regular season. The Rangers were 9-0 when scoring first, the Diamondbacks 7-0. The Rangers’ road bullpen ERA was 2.04, the Diamondbacks’ 2.65.

We are seeing a game familiar now to the regular season when it feels so infrequent that teams rally late against a strategy of bringing one fire-breathing reliever after another into the game. So why would it be more extreme now?

2. Infrequency of play. The best teams over 162 games usually sport strong depth to deal with the day-to-day, six-month grind. But Game 4 represented the 16th time that both Texas and Arizona had played in 29 days. Yet, both were still basically in opener situations Tuesday, with Diamondbacks lefty specialist Joe Mantiply versus Andrew Heaney, who hadn’t reached the fifth inning since Aug. 29 versus the Mets.

So many off-days has allowed Texas manager Bruce Bochy to use the pitchers he most trusts — starters Nathan Eovaldi and Jordan Montgomery plus relievers Josh Sborz and Jose Leclerc — in 55 ¹/₃ of the 81 road innings or 68.3 percent of the innings.

Buck Showalter has long insisted that if you want to reward the best regular-season teams then play the postseason like during the regular season with few off-days (TV will never allow it) and, thus, reward the clubs that excelled April-through-September because of their depth.

3. Umpires. There was a time when the moment and especially a home crowd could influence an umpire in a greater way — with Eric Gregg’s large strike zone in 1997 NLCS Game 5 being the most infamous example.

These days, replay will negate most bad calls by umps, including ones motivated by human nature to give in to home crowds. Plus umps are now given a daily report card when they work home plate. Promotions and plum assignments are tied to excelling at this. In addition, the scorecards for ball-strike judgments are available daily on social media. Thus, umps are working harder to avoid the biases of being moved by a loud crowd.

4. Ballparks/cities. On the subject of loud crowds that can intimidate, the Boston and New York teams were not in these playoffs. The Phillies with their raucous Citizens Bank Park crowd were and went 6-2 at home, albeit losing NLCS Games 6 and 7 there to the Diamondbacks.

The defending champ Astros were 40-47 at home, including 1-5 in the postseason (they were 5-0 on the road). With a seventh straight appearance in the ALCS, Houston’s home crowd had taken on tones of those Bobby Cox Braves teams that made the playoffs 14 straight seasons and there became a bit of a been-there, done-this element that took life out of the stadium. Though Minute Maid was extremely loud for ALCS Games 6 and 7, especially hostile toward Rangers slugger Adolis Garcia after his involvement in a Game 5 benches-clearing incident. Houston still lost both of those games.

The construction of the new stadiums (think more mall-like) and the fact the regular fans have been sponsored and/or priced out of the best seats, has removed the most feverish fans from close to the field. Think in the old Yankee Stadium how the upper-deck overhang brought a claustrophobic feel to the field with the fans up there making visiting life miserable. Plus, how many fans are now looking at screens and not locked into the game?

These days the stadiums are more sterile. The intimidation is not as overt. Thus, October hardly feels like a road to ruins any longer.

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