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After further review, I must correct myself. Generally speaking, Dead Ball teams appeared to underperform, while 1921-1940 teams outperformed expectations.
There were 116 teams in the tournament from 1901-1940 -- 63 from 1901-1920 (54.3% of the sample) and 53 from 1921-1940 (45.7%).
41 of 116 teams finished within 50 places of their seeding, which is actually much closer to expectations than it sounds. Consider, 17 teams qualified with a winning percentage of .623, and they were seeded 139 to 156. World Series winners were ranked at the top, pennant winners next, followed by others … but that’s still a big range for teams with the same winning percentage. And when you consider there were five more teams with percentages of .624 or .625, and seven more with marks of .622 or .621 … well, you get the picture. That’s 29 teams within five-thousandths of one percent, so a swing of 50 (or even 100) positions from seeding to result is not terribly out of line.
But what we’re interested in – I think – are the outliers.
16 of the 116 teams finished more than 200 places off from their seeding. Only two teams did so to the positive – the 1933 Yankees (seeded 233, finished first) and the 1908 Tigers (seeded 326, finished 121).
Of the 14 teams that finished more than 200 places lower than their seeding, 11 are from the Dead Ball era, a much higher proportion than the sample size would indicate (78.6% compared to 54.3% sample size).
Of the 15 teams that finished 151-200 places off from their seeding, six did so to the positive, but only one is from the Dead Ball era. Of the nine that finished 151-200 places lower than seeded, six are Dead Ball teams.
Of the 15 teams that finished 101-150 places off from their seeding, six did so to the positive, but only two are Dead Ball. Of the nine that finished lower, six are Dead Ball, again larger than the sample size would indicate.
So … Dead Ball teams appear to have underperformed, at least when compared directly to the 1921-1940 era. To a certain extent, this would validate the assumption that the Dead Ball era had so many teams with high winning percentages because there was a greater talent gap from the best teams to the worst in this era compared to later years. Lots of teams ran up some gaudy winning percentages in real life, but many of them faltered against later (tougher) competition in our tourney.
Based on this (and good ol’ “feels”), I’m not too concerned Dead Ball teams have an unfair advantage in this tournament … at least generally speaking.
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