September Record Doesn't Predict a Team's October Success

Momentum. More than anything else, it seems that when October comes around that momentum plays a big deal about who is going to finish on top and win the World Series. A hot starter, a hot hitter, a hot bullpen. We all tend to think that a team needs to be hot down the stretch to win the World Series. Sure there's a few teams that can turn it up when they really need to, but most teams feed off the games before, right? Well looking at the Yankees' recent history as well as the history of other World Series winners, your record in the last month of the season may not be as important towards determining your fate in October as you think.

History says Joe Girardi doesn't need to pray for playoff success in 2010 (NYDN)

The reason I did this quick study was because of the 2010 Yankees. "Limping" towards the playoffs (literally, with guys like Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher actually limping), the Yanks are 11-13 so far in September after having the best record in baseball for the first five months of the season. So how much does this poor September record affect their chances of excelling in October? Let's take a look.

Part of this is certainly the size of the sample and there are a million other factors at work here including the fact that the playoffs in baseball are usually little better than a crap shoot. But looking back at the Yankees teams that have either won the World Series or failed to do so since 1995, it seems that September/October record doesn't always equate success. Here are the September/October regular season record of those Yankees teams that failed to win the World Series recently: 

	W	L	Winning %
1995	22	6	78.6%*
1997	17	11	60.7%
2001	16	9	64.0%
2002	19	8	70.4%
2003	18	9	66.7%
2004	20	11	64.5%
2005	20	10	66.7%
2006	18	12	60.0%
2007	19	8	70.4%
TOTAL	169	84	66.8%
Games over .500	85

The first list here shows those 9 teams since 1995 to qualify for the postseason but not win the World Series. The theme: they were all really good in September. We have every team with at least a .600 winning % and three teams who won at least 70% of their games down the stretch. The 1995, 2002, and 2007 teams were especially hot in September but lost all their momentum in the American League Division Series where they lost. Now let's take a look at the Yankees' teams who have won the World Series:

*Side Note: How dominant were those 1995 Yankees? How about this: no Yankee team since then has had that good of a winning percentage in a month as they did in September (where they went 21-6 which is a .778 winning percentage). None. Not even in 1998. Amazing. Just ran out of gas after that it seems.

	W	L	Winning %
1996	16	11	59.3%
1998	16	11	59.3%
1999	17	14	54.8%
2000	13	18	41.9%
2009	20	11	64.5%
TOTAL	82	65	55.8%
Games over .500	17

A different picture here all together. Again, it's a small sample size, but only last year's 2009 version of the Yankees win at least 60% of their games and the 2000 Yankees (a team that made a lot of in-season moves and took longer to gel--very much like the 2010 version) won under 42% of their games, backing into the playoffs before marching their way to a Subway Series win. Of course, the reason some of these teams faltered down the stretch was that they could because of their large lead and resting guys, but the same case could be made for the group of playoff teams above.

But is this just something that has occurred to the Yankees or do other World Series winners sometimes undergo September yips? Let's take a look at all the other nine World Series winners since the Yankees won in 1996 and their September/October records:

	W	L	Winning %
Phillies	17	8	68.0%
Red Sox	16	11	59.3%
Cardinals	12	17	41.4%
White Sox	19	12	61.3%
Red Sox	21	11	65.6%
Marlins	18	8	69.2%
Angels	18	9	66.7%
D-Backs	14	13	51.9%
Marlins	12	15	44.4%
TOTAL	147	104	58.6%
Games over .500	43

No teams on this list won 70% of their games down the stretch. In fact, 4 out of the 9 didn't even win 60% of their September/October games. The 2007 Red Sox weren't great down the stretch but turned it on in October, coming back in the ALCS vs. Cleveland before sweeping the Rockies in the World Series. The 2006 Cardinals backed themselves into the playoffs and were written off before the stream rolled through the playoffs on their way to playing the Tigers (a team that went 12-15 in September) in the World Series. The 2001 Diamondbacks and 1997 Marlins didn't look good in September but looked really good when the calendar turned to October.

So what does this all mean for the 2010 Yankees? Absolutely nothing. Which is the point of the article. The Yankees play in September won't predict what they do in the playoffs. Every team goes through a rough patch in the season (yes, even World Series winners) and the 2010 Yankees have had that rough patch in September. Do you know who else has played poorly this September? The Tampa Rays at 12-11 and the Texas Rangers at 13-10, two other American League playoff teams (the Twins are 16-7). When it comes to October, the Yankees will go as far as their starting pitching takes them and a September swoon will be a distant memory if they hoist the World Series trophy in a month.