Photo via Milwaukee Brewers/Facebook
Rowdy Tellez Oct. 8, 2021
Rowdy Tellez
There are positives and negatives to take away from the first weekend of the NLDS, but the bottom line is this: It’s now a three-game series between the Brewers and Braves to determine who will face the Dodgers/Giants winner in the National League Championship Series, and the Brewers no longer have homefield advantage in the remaining games. Any path to advancement now requires the Brewers to pick up a win in Game 3 or 4 in Atlanta.
The good news is that this is the best road team in Brewers franchise history, and they clinched that mark by something of a wide margin. Until this season no Brewers team had ever won more than 47 of their 81 road games, a mark set by the 1982 team, and only three teams had ever won more than 43. The Brewers blew that mark out of the water, however, winning 50 games away from American Family Field.
Even that figure, however, undersells just how good the Brewers were away from home this season. Their road record includes six games from the season’s final week, where they had clinched the NL Central and their playoff position and took their foot off the gas a bit in two series against teams with much more to play for. Entering that week, the Brewers were 49-26 on the road, a remarkable record that was dimmed a bit by a 1-5 finish. They clinched the best road record in franchise history all the way back on Sept. 11, when Corbin Burnes and Josh Hader’s combined no-hitter was also their 48th road victory of the season.
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The Braves, meanwhile, were not a great home team this season. They went just 42-38 at Truist Park, which tied them for the 18th-most home wins in MLB. That’s easily the least among 2021 playoff teams, three games worse than the Cardinals and Brewers’ 45 home wins.
How Vital is the Homefield Advantage?
Homefield advantage in October, however, seems like it might be a big deal this postseason: Teams playing at home got off to a 6-0 start in the playoffs, with the host team winning both Wild Card games and each of the first four Division Series games. Road teams eventually won three of the first eight DS games, including the Braves’ win over the Brewers on Saturday, but home teams were still 9-3 in the first 12 games of this postseason after winning both games on Sunday.
Teams with homefield advantage went 29-24 during the 2020 postseason, which was hardly a normal sample for a variety of reasons: In addition to the array of changes in protocols for road teams during a postseason played during a global pandemic, the 2020 postseason also featured 16 teams for the first and to-date only time in MLB history. Eighteen of the aforementioned contests came during an expanded Wild Card round, which featured three different series where a team was swept out of the playoffs at home.
Looking further back, over the last five “normal” seasons (2015-19) home teams have won about 53% of the 179 postseason games played. That’s about one extra win every 17 games. Postseason homefield advantage varies wildly in the small sample sizes of single years, however: In 2019 home teams went just 15-22, including a World Series where the visiting team won all seven games. That had never happened before in any major North American sport.
On the flip side, in 2017 home teams went 27-11, including an American League Championship series where the host team won all seven games.
Despite some of the year-to-year fluctuations, a .530 winning percentage for postseason home teams roughly tracks with regular season data: Home teams had a .539 winning percentage during the 2021 regular season and were between .528-.541 in each season from 2015-19. Home teams performed significantly better during the 2020 regular season (.557) but, again, the unique nature of an abbreviated season under COVID protocols may have contributed to an outlying performance.
So, in the end, we can clearly state that homefield advantage isn’t that big of a deal except for when it is. Furthermore, it might be a bigger deal this postseason, but it also might not be a big deal in this series. And by Thursday, it’ll either be a major part of the narrative around a wrapped-up NLDS or simply a footnote in a larger story.
