The Worst of Series: Parts I and II

So we've already taken a look at the most lopsided playoff series in postseason history. Now, what about the closest series? Anecdotally, people talk about 1967, 1975, or 1986 when the Red Sox just fell short. Or they mention Maz's homer and the 1960 Series. Or you'll hear about Jack Morris and the 1-0 ten-inning, seventh-game shutout in 1991. Or the D-Backs comeback against Mariano Rivera in 2001. Students of the game will mention Snodgrass's muff in 1912 or Pete Alexander and 1926 or the bad hop over Fred Lindstrom in 1924. There's the Dodgers finally edging the Yankees in 1955. And there are others 1972 A's vs. Reds, 2002 Angels vs. Giants, 1997 Marlins vs. Indians, 1940 Reds vs. Tigers, 1979 Pirates vs. Orioles, 1964 Cards vs. Yanks, etc.

However, a lot of these anecdotes center on game seven. There's even a website for them. However, if you look at the rest of the series, you'll get a much different series. Consider the Maz Series of 1960. The Yankees won games by scores of 16-to-3, 10-to-nothing, and 12-0. The Pirates never won a game by more than three runs. So you have an extremely close, four-game sweep by the Pirates intermingled with a three-game ransacking of the Pirate at the hands of the Yanks.

I decided to run the data from the previous study to determine which was the closest playoff series based on how closely the teams competed in certain offensive and defensive criteria. (For batting I used runs per game, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging, and OPS. For pitching: ERA, WHIP, strikeout-to-walk ratio, strikeouts per nine innings, and home runs per nine innings. I also threw in unearned run average, the difference between runs and earned runs per nine innings, for some measure of defensive play.)

Here are the closest World Series based on those criteria:

I'm not entirely please with those results. A number of the more famous close series do show up near the top (1975, 1972, 1925, 1997, 1924, 2002, 1991—1926 just missed the list). However, the 1982 Series, which came in number one, featured a 10-0 game one and a 13-1 game six shellacking by the Cards. But the teams were remarkably close in batting ratios: Cards .273/.328/.412, Brewers .269/.323/.399.

The problem with the approach is that it measures the stats across the entire series. So let's say team A shuts out team B 10-0 in game 1 and then loses game 2 by the same score. Chances are that the teams will have very similar stats. Runs per game will certainly be identical. However, clearly neither of the games was close.

What's needed is a way to weigh the overall series stats with the per-game performance. However, all the data that I have is based on series-specific stats, and even I don't have enough free time to divide it by game. So, for now, this will have to suffice.

Anyway, here are the results in the other playoff rounds. There are some good ones there as well:

I remember many of those series fondly, especially the two Phils ones.