Interesting concept but I thought I read most games are decided by 1 - run.
That's true, but don't forget if the favorite loses by 1 run, we still win. Only the favorite winning by 1 run hurts us. Here is a list of the 2006 playoff teams and what their 1-run game records was...
Detroit Tigers: 24-20
Minnesota Twins: 20-11
New York Yankees: 24-22
Oakland Athletics: 32-22
Los Angeles Dodgers: 20-20
New York Mets: 31-16
San Diego Padres: 30-22
St. Louis Cardinals: 22-27
You would figure that the playoff teams were favorites most of the year. There are only four teams with very impressive 1-run records on this list and those teams are the Mets (+15), A's (+10) Twins (+9), and Padres (+8). Toronto is not on this list but they were 20-10 (+10), Boston was 29-20 (+9), and Cincinnati should be noted as they were 27-20 (+7). It'd be interesting to know in how many of these games these teams were favorites but thats a lot of research that I don't have the team for right now. If anyone can do it, please share your results w/ me.
Now looking at all this info, you'd be safe to say that the Mets were the favorites in a majority of those 1-run games because they were regarded as a great team all year long. But for all we know, the A's, Twins, Padres, Jays, and Red Sox won half or a majority of their 1-run games when they were the underdogs. Also looking at this info, we can say that according to last season's stats, only a handful of teams tend to do well in 1-run games. Out of all the 30 ML teams; 23 teams were +4 or lower in 1-run games, 21 were +3 or lower, 18 were +2 or lower, and 15 were at or below .500.