Making the cut

In golf, a cut is something that you want to make. For if you miss it, you're usually in the bottom half of the tournament pool. This sense of the usage of a cut is what the four major sports have as their playoff system. If you're in the top 8 (NBA, NHL) or 6 (NFL) or 5 (MLB) in your conference/league, then you make the playoffs. Everyone falling short of those teams doesn't. But what also happens in golf, and more interestingly so, is a cut relative to the leader after two rounds. Anyone who is ten or more (usually) shots behind the leader misses the cut after two rounds. The remaining two rounds are played with whoever is within single digits of the leader.

What if the four major sports worked like this? What if they all went off the same system that golf does? Let's try and take a look through this. According to this somewhat arbitrary golf tournament I found, the winning score (in terms of strokes) was 268. The cut, that is, the number of strokes by the end of 2 rounds to be eliminated from the tournament, was 142. Or, 52.99% of the strokes of the winning score. Now, I know this is one golf tournament, but let's assume that this 53% holds true for most cases. Furthermore, let's say that each team with a .530 winning percentage or higher makes the playoffs. (Disclaimer: Practically, I know that this wouldn't work. With scheduling, travel, television, and everything else that goes into the world of sports, this realistically could probably never happen. But theoretically, it's really cool to think about.) Here's how the four major sports' most recent playoffs would be different if they went with the 53% system:

MLB
2012 playoff teams: 10
Lowest win % of a playoff team: .543 (Detroit, St. Louis)
2012 playoff teams, under 53% rule: 13 (Tampa Bay .556, LA Angels .549, LA Dodgers .531)

NFL
2012-2013 playoff teams: 12
Lowest win % of a playoff team: .625 (Washington, Minnesota, Baltimore, Cincinnati)
2012-2013 playoff teams, under 53% rule: 14 (Chicago .625, NY Giants .563)

NBA
2011-2012 playoff teams: 16
Lowest win % of a playoff team: .530 (Philadelphia)
2011-2012 playoff teams, under 53% rule: 16

NHL
2011-2012 playoff teams: 16
Lowest points* % of a playoff team: .561 (Ottawa, Washington)
20112012 playoff teams, under 53% rule: 20 (Calgary .549, Buffalo .543, Dallas .543, Colorado .537)
*2 points for a win, 1 for a tie makes for 164 possible points

What I get out of this is that every playoff team already had a win % of .530, so the 53% rule would just open the door for a few other teams. Teams that you could make an argument for to succeed in the playoffs. While there might not be much coming out of this data, it's certainly something really interesting. In other news, it felt really good to do a sports/stats blog post. Seriously, someone needs to start paying me for this.