The answer to how dumb this was on BAL's part (assuming the 3 teams are evenly-matched skill-wise) depends on how important they believe home field advantage to be. If there is ZERO advantage to home field, then BAL's decision decreased their odds of making the WC game from 75% to 50% and decreased their odds of advancing to the ALDS from 37.5% to 25%. In other words, catastrophically stupid. There is, however, an inflection point at which their decision makes sense: if Baltimore believes a home team will beat an evenly-skilled away team at least ~61.8% of the time, their decision makes sense. Would like someone to check my math, though. There are other variables too, like who their lined-up starters are, the effects of potentially playing 3 games in 3 days in dif cities, and of course non-gameplay considerations like how much $ they earn from home vs. away games, etc. I personally don't think home field is worth anywhere close to that figure, and playoff stats suggest as much (though sample size way too small.)