Past Performance Is No Guarantee Of Future Results

More proof that anything can happen in the post-season: this year, the teams which lost their regular-season head-to-head matchups tended to win their post-season rematches.

2006 Regular-Season Head-To-Head Records:

• Detroit vs. NYY: 2-5
• NYM vs. LA: 4-3
• Oakland vs. Minnesota : 4-6
• St Louis vs. San Diego : 2-4
• Detroit vs Oakland: 5-4
• St Louis vs. NYM: 2-4
• St Louis vs. Detroit: 0-3

In five of the seven series, the head-to-head matchup was won by the team which lost their playoff rematch. In the other two series which accurately predicted the playoff series outcome, the regular-season records had only a slim one-game margin of difference.

Perhaps the Dodgers should have lost one more game to the Mets during the regular season. From this methodology, they would have then beaten St. Louis (LA was 0-7 in the regular season against the Cardinals). Detroit would have been a toss-up though, since the two teams hadn’t met in 2006 (LA went 2-1 against Detroit in 2005, so this methodology would again favor Los Angeles).