As the Yankees continue running down the Red Sox for the AL East title–can’t you just feel the inevitability about it?–my mind is drawn to the question of whether that really means anything.

I’ve written in this space before, more than once, that the AL East “race” is meaningless, or something close to meaningless, since the “loser” is going to be awarded the Wild Card and head into the playoffs just the same. But with the Yankees and Red Sox, in this division, I have to wonder…

The first thought to come to mind is that of course you’d rather be the division champion, since in this case it means the #1 seed and guaranteed home-field advantage in the ALDS and ALCS. That seems attractive; you’d always rather have an extra home game than an extra road game, and you’d definitely rather have game 5/game 7 at home, right? That’s all good and logical, except that pesky ol’ historical data says we’re wrong. To wit, here are the World Series participants from the last few years…
2006: Tigers (wild card) vs. Cardinals (wild card)
2005: White Sox (1 seed) vs. Astros (wild card)
2004: Red Sox (wild card) vs. Cardinals (1 seed)
2003: Yankees (1 seed) vs. Marlins (wild card)
2002: Angels (wild card) vs. Giants (wild card)
2001: Yankees (2 seed) vs. Diamondbacks (2 seed)
2000: Yankees (3 seed) vs. Mets (wild card)

Here’s how those past seven years break down, by number of times each seed has won the league pennant:

1 seeds: 3
2 seeds: 2
3 seeds: 1
Wild cards: 8

That’s… pretty amazing, isn’t it? More wild cards have won their league championship in the past eight years than all the division champions combined. In some cases (like 2004 and 2006) it’s because the wild card really was one of the best teams in the league, and then in cases like the 2003 Marlins and 2007 Cardinals it’s just fluky. Either way… no, home field advantage doesn’t really mean anything in the playoffs. It’s counterintuitive, but the data is conclusive.

Well, then, I thought, yeah, but what about momentum? I consider myself right on the front lines of the War Against the Raccoon Lodge, but even so, I really do believe there’s a lot more to winning baseball games than simply the stats we can read off books and computer screens. I believe there are such things as momentum, and hot and cold streaks (as something more than random statistical variation, that is), and, yes, even clutch performance. Just because we can’t measure something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and I for one think that, given that baseball is played by people, and each person has his own physical and psychological idiosyncrasies, it stands perfectly to reason that those idiosyncrasies can affect performance.

Lacking understanding of just how that happens, though, we have to settle for looking at historical data. So does momentum make a big difference? Well, given as how the Tigers and Cardinals both collapsed down the stretch last year, and won their league championship anyway… not so much. But then, in 2005, the White Sox and Astros both sizzled down the stretch, so… maybe so. 2004? Well, you could argue the momentum of slaughtering the Yankees in games 4-7 carried them to their annihilation of the awesome Cardinals in the World Series. In fact, after last year, you have to go all the way back to 2000 to find an example of a team heading into the postseason with major downhill momentum and win anyway. That was the Yankees, who crashed into the postseason on the heels of losing their last seven games and finishing 2-13 in their last 15… then went on to accidentally spark all this “Dynasty” nonsense by winning the World Series. Oops.

So momentum? Yeah, it seems to matter a little bit. The case is certainly visible in recent history that finishing the season hot is a good indicator of postseason success… not nearly as good an indicator as your team’s collective on-base skills or the quality of your starting rotation, but an indicator. It helps, and it makes sense that it helps, doesn’t it? I know I feel better when I’ve been doing well at my job the last week or two, and when I feel better I often perform better. Not always, but often.

And the thing is, this isn’t just any random two teams jockeying for playoff seeding here. This is the Yankees and Red Sox, and though you and I may be sick of the media constantly cramming these two particular teams down our throats, it is an extremely hot rivalry, and not only that, but it’s pretty one-sided. In retrospect, it seems to me like 2004 really didn’t change as much as we assumed it would. Now that that’s all worn off… well, the Red Sox fans I know talk about 2004 and pronounce they’re not afraid of the Yankees, but there’s a certain faux confidence about it that betrays that the Yankees still make them nervous. Yankee fans I know snicker at the Red Sox and seem to take for granted that they’ll beat the Red Sox. In other words, they’re just as arrogant as they always have been.

And if the Yankees do run down the Red Sox and beat them out for the division title–which would be their 12th such title in a row–I have to think that’s going to make an important impact on the psyches of these two teams and their fan bases. Again, let me stress here that this isn’t nearly as important as taking walks, hitting home runs, and striking out opposing hitters. But given that the Yankees and Red Sox are substantially similar in overall quality, I think that psychological warfare is going to matter. Taking the division is going to provide a confidence boost to the team that does.

The division title matters. Red Sox fans, almost to a man, really want that division title, in no small part because the Yankees have won it eleven years running; and Yankee fans want it, if nothing else so they have something else to relentlessly gloat about. Now, does it matter enough to keep working your pitchers at full steam, instead of letting them rest the last week? Enough to maybe push a hurting player to play a few extra games, instead of taking the last week to rest up? Well, I don’t know. I think we all can agree it’s important, but that important, when your playoff spot is already assured? To an extent, yes, I think it is, by which I mean I wouldn’t push an injured player to play over it, but I might be willing to let my playoff rotation get mixed up a little to take a run at the division title.