>I'm talking solely about the first 2 games. >Better team at home, human manager, last licks. >You presume that the lower seeded teams have >better starters in the first 2 slots and then >tail off. It's far more likely that, on the >whole, the top 2 starters for the teams with >better records are considerably suoerior to the >top 2 starters on the inferior team.

Can't say I agree with that, Brian.

For a team to make the playoffs they often have to play down to the wire, which can mean using their ace starter in the last game of the regular season, forcing him to miss the first two games of the playoffs. This can apply whether a team is fighting to win a division or a wildcard spot.
Plus, looking at the first two games of each playoff series is still a pretty small sample size, all things considered.

Also, the team with the better regular season record is not necessarily a "better" team. I'm sure we've all seen leagues where the wildcard team wound up with a better record than a division winner - think Oakland, for example.
A team can play in a weak division with unmanaged opponents and rack up a lot of regular season wins while another team might have several tough opponents in their division and finish with a lesser record than they might have. And, a "good" team can wind up against a "lesser" opponent and wind up losing because they don't match up well because of lefty/righty balances, and so on.

I'm not really convinced that the away team gets this bias you've percieved. The fact that you went into this analysis looking for numbers to back up soemthing you already believed makes your argument a little less convincing. Any kind of research is always more persuasive if someone goes into it with a wide open mind and looking for answers one way or the other.

I'm not saying you're definitely wrong, just that you haven't convinced me. Tehre's way too many variable at work. I've seen too many teams with good records at home and horrible records on the road to think there's a serious bias for away teams.

Still, it's an interesting discussion.