Objective

In this activity, we will evaluate how well playoff rankings correlate with regular season wins for MLB teams in 2012 and 2013.

Ranking System

We assign rankings to the teams based on their playoff progression:

  • Rank 1: World Series Winner
  • Rank 2: World Series Runner-up
  • Rank 3: Teams that lost to the World Series finalists
  • Rank 4: Teams that made it past the wild card but lost in the second round
  • Rank 5: Teams that lost the wild card round

Create Team Rank Vector

teamRank <- c(1,2,3,3,4,4,4,4,5,5)

2012 Regular Season Wins

wins2012 <- c(94, 88, 95, 88, 93, 94, 98, 97, 93, 94)
cor_2012 <- cor(teamRank, wins2012)
cor_2012
## [1] 0.3477129

Result: The correlation between teamRank and wins2012 is approximately 0.3477.

2013 Regular Season Wins

wins2013 <- c(97, 97, 92, 93, 92, 96, 94, 96, 92, 90)
cor_2013 <- cor(teamRank, wins2013)
cor_2013
## [1] -0.6556945

Result: The correlation between teamRank and wins2013 is approximately -0.6557.

Conclusion

The correlation in 2012 is positive, while in 2013 it is negative. This inconsistency suggests that regular season wins do not reliably predict playoff outcomes. Therefore, we would not feel confident using regular season wins alone to predict playoff success.