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Here’s a look at the teams that qualified for the playdown, and how they fared. We’ll look at these in 20-year increments, the first of which encompasses the Dead Ball era.
As a reminder, each team played 10 154-game seasons in the qualifying round, as a member of a 16-team league. At the end of 10 years, the three teams with the highest winning percentages in the league qualified for the quarterfinals.
Yellow = Qualified for quarterfinals
Dark Green = Among 64 teams with highest winning percentage in first round that DIDN’T qualify. These teams will compete in another qualifying round, with 12 more teams moving on to the quarterfinals.
Light Green = Out of the running, at the moment. There will eventually be a third and final qualifying round, with another field of 64 teams playing down to 12. But a lot of these teams are done.
Teams from this era that dominated in the first round include the Pirates (Honus Wagner, Fred Clarke, Vic WIllis), Giants (Christy Mathewson, Rube Marquard), Cubs (Frank Chance, Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Three-Finger Brown) and A’s (Home Run Baker, Chief Bender, Eddie Plank, Eddie Collins).
The White Sox went 0-for-7, with none of their top teams qualifying. The Red Sox and Tigers are on the verge of going 0-for-4.
A total of 62 teams from the Dead Ball area met the criteria of either winning a pennant or posting at least a .599 winning percentage. That total is just slightly more than the next four 20-year spans, which each saw 56-58 teams qualify. Of the Dead Ball era teams, 22.6% have qualified for the quarterfinals, a percentage that’s right in line with the next four 20-year periods.
So, since Dead Ball teams competed against teams from all eras in the qualifying round, it doesn’t appear they’ll have an obviously unfair advantage against teams from more modern eras. In fact, when you look at the percentage of teams that are either in the quarterfinals or good enough to make the second qualifying round, the Dead Ball era may be slightly underrepresented.
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