AL Home Field Advantage Heating Up

With less than 2 weeks remaining in the 2007 baseball season, the top four teams in the American League are separated by a mere 2.5 games.

I'm going to look at two things. First, the home and road records of these four teams to see who needs the top seed the most. Second, the record between these four teams since the 1st tie-breaker is head-to-head.

AL Standings
BOS 90 62 .592 ---
CLE 89 62 .589 0.5
LAA 89 62 .589 0.5
NYY 87 64 .576 2.5

The top team in the American League will have home field throughout the playoffs thanks to the AL's win in this year's All-Star Game. While all the teams have good home field advantages, nobody has a bigger difference between home record and road record than the Angels. The Halos are 26 games above .500 at home and one game above .500 on the road. The Yankees also have a big differential while the Red Sox and Indians have played well on the road this season.

Home
LAA 51-25 .671
NYY 49-27 .645
CLE 48-28 .632
BOS 47-28 .627

Away
BOS 43-34 .558
CLE 41-34 .547
LAA 38-37 .507
NYY 38-37 .507

Home WLP - Road WLP
LAA .164
NYY .138
CLE .085
BOS .068

Looking at these stats, it looks like the Angels should be shooting for the top record in the AL rather than resting everybody next week.

In the playoffs, the team with the best record plays the team with the worst record as long as the two teams are not in the same division. Right now the Red Sox are 1st and the Yankees are 4th. They are in the same division, so the Red Sox would play the 3rd team which right now is the Angels.

The Indians and Angels played 10 games this year and split them winning five apiece. The next tiebreaker is win-loss percentage within their own division. The Indians are 45-23 (.662) against the AL Central while the Angels are 28-19 (.596) against the AL West. Advantage Indians.

Record within Division (2nd tiebreaker)
CLE 45-23 .662
LAA 28-19 .596
BOS 40-28 .588
NYY 32-29 .525

Here is a breakdown of the head-to-head records of the 4 AL contenders. None of the teams play each other again so these records are final.

BOS 6 games - LAA 4 games
BOS 5 - CLE 2
NYY 10 - BOS 8
CLE 5 - LAA 5 (Cleveland wins on 2nd tiebreaker)
NYY 6 - CLE 0
LAA 6 - NYY 3

That's all the current information you need to know.

I'll post updates as the season winds down.