Skin in the (Ball) Game: Do Teams Underperform When They’re Out of the Race?

The end takeaway of all this? I think you can say with some certainty that teams that are out of the playoffs play worse than their projected talent level down the stretch. Maybe that’s because they’re coasting, maybe that’s because their managers use lower-leverage relievers and generally protect their best arms, maybe it’s because they’re more likely to go out the night before and eat some fried food. I couldn’t hope to figure out why from this study. But the effect does feel real to me, even if it’s not a complete no-doubt lock.

There are a few other interesting effects – for example, this down-and-out penalty seems to apply more in road games than in home games, though the sample size is necessarily smaller there. Additionally, when down-and-out teams play each other in September, the home team massively outperforms expectations. Perhaps the crowd can keep teams in games that they’d otherwise give up on? Perhaps it’s less fun to stay out the night before when you have a chance to sleep in your own bed? Sounds like a fun thing to investigate sometime.

Overall, I’ll say this: I think that the skin-in-the-game effect exists in baseball. Teams that are out of the playoff hunt mostly play worse than you’d expect, even after you account for their diminished rosters. The exact composition of the effect is uncertain – and hey, I have a pile of data to play with, so if you have any other ideas for how to split this up, please let me know – but it seems very real.