In 2012 and 2013, there were 10 teams in the MLB playoffs: the six teams that had the most wins in each baseball division, and four “wild card” teams. The playoffs start between the four wild card teams - the two teams that win proceed in the playoffs (8 teams remaining). Then, these teams are paired off and play a series of games. The four teams that win are then paired and play to determine who will play in the World Series.

We can assign rankings to the teams as follows:

Rank 1: the team that won the World Series Rank 2: the team that lost the World Series Rank 3: the two teams that lost to the teams in the World Series Rank 4: the four teams that made it past the wild card round, but lost to the above four teams Rank 5: the two teams that lost the wild card round

teamRank vector:

teamRank = c(1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5)
teamRank
##  [1] 1 2 3 3 4 4 4 4 5 5

In 2012, the ranking of the teams and their regular season wins were as follows: Rank 1: San Francisco Giants (Wins = 94) Rank 2: Detroit Tigers (Wins = 88) Rank 3: New York Yankees (Wins = 95), and St. Louis Cardinals (Wins = 88) Rank 4: Baltimore Orioles (Wins = 93), Oakland A’s (Wins = 94), Washington Nationals (Wins = 98), Cincinnati Reds (Wins = 97) Rank 5: Texas Rangers (Wins = 93), and Atlanta Braves (Wins = 94)

wins2012 vector:

wins2012 = c(94, 88, 95, 88, 93, 94, 98, 97, 93, 94)
wins2012
##  [1] 94 88 95 88 93 94 98 97 93 94

In 2013, the ranking of the teams and their regular season wins were as follows: Rank 1: Boston Red Sox (Wins = 97) Rank 2: St. Louis Cardinals (Wins = 97) Rank 3: Los Angeles Dodgers (Wins = 92), and Detroit Tigers (Wins = 93) Rank 4: Tampa Bay Rays (Wins = 92), Oakland A’s (Wins = 96), Pittsburgh Pirates (Wins = 94), and Atlanta Braves (Wins = 96) Rank 5: Cleveland Indians (Wins = 92), and Cincinnati Reds (Wins = 90)

wins2013 vector:

wins2013 = c(97, 97, 92, 93, 92, 96, 94, 96, 92, 90)
wins2013
##  [1] 97 97 92 93 92 96 94 96 92 90

Exercise 1: Numerical Response - Correlation between teamRank and wins2012

cor_teamRank_wins2012 = cor(teamRank, wins2012)
cor_teamRank_wins2012
## [1] 0.3477129

Exercise 2: Numerical Response - Correlation between teamRank and wins2013

cor_teamRank_wins2013 = cor(teamRank, wins2013)
cor_teamRank_wins2013
## [1] -0.6556945