Are the playoffs still a crapshoot when you're THIS good?

[Cubbie Swagger]

Thread title: Are the playoffs still a crapshoot when you're THIS good?

 

Comment in thread from OP

I know the playoffs are a crap shoot, but I'm wondering how good you have to be before you start tipping the scale.

 

Cubbie Swagger, who you crappin?

Oh, come on.

 

There isn't even any inconsistency there. Just different phrasing, my friend.

[SouthSideRyan]

It's a slightly weighted crapshoot IMO.

 

Smart people have been trying to figure out the secret formula for winning in October for years and pretty much every theory has been debunked. Great pitching? Sounds great until you remember the 90's Braves. Great hitting? the 90's Indians are one of many examples of great teams that went cold at the wrong time. 2001 Mariners won 116 games, led the MLB in RS and RA and barely got past the ALDS and lost the ALCS in 5.

 

In 2008 there was a lot of talk of a secret sauce that involved power pitchers, good closer and good defense as being the key to winning in October. I believe the Cubs were well regarded in all 3 areas and got swept out of the NLDS.

 

But every time I am convinced its a 100% crapshoot, the 90's Yankees, 2010-2014 Giants, even the stinking Cardinals of recent years seem to have succeeded more often than you'd expect in a crapshoot while teams like the 2000's Twins and A's have failed more than you'd expect to in a crapshoot. So I think there are small things that give a team a higher probability of winning playoff series, but even then its just a weighted crapshoot.

 

Are you surprised when you flip a coin 10 times and it comes up heads for 8 of them?

[Cubbie Swagger]

It's a slightly weighted crapshoot IMO.

 

Smart people have been trying to figure out the secret formula for winning in October for years and pretty much every theory has been debunked. Great pitching? Sounds great until you remember the 90's Braves. Great hitting? the 90's Indians are one of many examples of great teams that went cold at the wrong time. 2001 Mariners won 116 games, led the MLB in RS and RA and barely got past the ALDS and lost the ALCS in 5.

 

In 2008 there was a lot of talk of a secret sauce that involved power pitchers, good closer and good defense as being the key to winning in October. I believe the Cubs were well regarded in all 3 areas and got swept out of the NLDS.

 

But every time I am convinced its a 100% crapshoot, the 90's Yankees, 2010-2014 Giants, even the stinking Cardinals of recent years seem to have succeeded more often than you'd expect in a crapshoot while teams like the 2000's Twins and A's have failed more than you'd expect to in a crapshoot. So I think there are small things that give a team a higher probability of winning playoff series, but even then its just a weighted crapshoot.

 

Are you surprised when you flip a coin 10 times and it comes up heads for 8 of them?

What a mysterious question.

[UMFan83]

It's a slightly weighted crapshoot IMO.

 

Smart people have been trying to figure out the secret formula for winning in October for years and pretty much every theory has been debunked. Great pitching? Sounds great until you remember the 90's Braves. Great hitting? the 90's Indians are one of many examples of great teams that went cold at the wrong time. 2001 Mariners won 116 games, led the MLB in RS and RA and barely got past the ALDS and lost the ALCS in 5.

 

In 2008 there was a lot of talk of a secret sauce that involved power pitchers, good closer and good defense as being the key to winning in October. I believe the Cubs were well regarded in all 3 areas and got swept out of the NLDS.

 

But every time I am convinced its a 100% crapshoot, the 90's Yankees, 2010-2014 Giants, even the stinking Cardinals of recent years seem to have succeeded more often than you'd expect in a crapshoot while teams like the 2000's Twins and A's have failed more than you'd expect to in a crapshoot. So I think there are small things that give a team a higher probability of winning playoff series, but even then its just a weighted crapshoot.

 

Are you surprised when you flip a coin 10 times and it comes up heads for 8 of them?

 

In the 96-01 Yankees case, its flipping it 15 times and landing on heads 14 times. For the Giants, its flipping 9 times and getting heads 9 times (or 10 in a row if you count the 2014 WC game as a round). Sure its possible in a 50/50 environment, but its improbable (probability of flipping 9 heads in a row is 0.2%, 10 times in a row 0.01%)

[bcl412]

I have to imagine things like our approach and maybe pitching helps us be more consistent but a short series is still a short series and this is still baseball.

[Derwood]

If you have to face Kershaw or Scherzer twice in a 5 game series, you can throw your 110 wins out the window

[bcl412]

I wish the answer was no because were so good and I'm horrible at math but i didn't see how

[CubInOK]

If you have to face Kershaw or Scherzer twice in a 5 game series, you can throw your 110 wins out the window

What if that 110 win team can make other teams face Jake Arrieta twice on normal rest?

[Cubbie Swagger]

If you have to face Kershaw or Scherzer twice in a 5 game series, you can throw your 110 wins out the window

What if that 110 win team can make other teams face Jake Arrieta twice on normal rest?

I was about to type basically the same thing. Not to mention, we also have Jon Lester. So, in a 7 game series, 4 of those games will be pitched by those 2 gentlemen.

[Derwood]

If you have to face Kershaw or Scherzer twice in a 5 game series, you can throw your 110 wins out the window

What if that 110 win team can make other teams face Jake Arrieta twice on normal rest?

 

Somethings got to give

[Sammy Sofa]

I was trying to be polite.

Ah, yes, of course. I'm sure that was your best effort.

 

Your sig pic is more perfectly fitting than you could ever possibly know.

[Cubbie Swagger]

I was trying to be polite.

Ah, yes, of course. I'm sure that was your best effort.

 

Your sig pic is more perfectly fitting than you could ever possibly know.

I'm assuming that was another attempt at being polite. You're pretty bad at it.

[Sammy Sofa]

Nah, that was just a sweet, sweet burn.

[Cubbie Swagger]

Nah, that was just a sweet, sweet burn.

How sweet was it?

[BigSlick]

I think being really, really good does a lot, but just not as much as people think it does.

 

So there will be 8 teams left after the wild card games, and all things being equal, each team has a 1/8 chance of winning the World Series. Currently, 538 has the Cubs at 23% to win the World Series, and Fangraphs has them at 19% to win. 538 has them at just about double the chance of an average playoff team to win the World Series, Fangraphs has them at 1.5x the chance. Which is quite a bit.

 

It just means there's still a 75% chance something stupid happens and they die. Which, well, is unfortunate, but its 3 short series in a row that determines this thing.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Look at it this way:

 

The difference between an 89-win team and a 109-win team is about one win every 8 games. Hard to count on that coming up in a 5 or 7 game series, let alone three times in a row.

[Gmoney08]

One thing I noticed with all this RD talk is that the truely elite RD teams seems to win the Word Series a lot and dedinitely make the WS a lot.

 

So we can definitely make ourselves a significant favorite and up to maybe mid 20% chance compared to most #1 seeds. But, still the field had the odds over 1 dominant team.

[Gmoney08]

It seems like its been awhile.. maybe 09 Yanks since the favorite took it home. So maybe this is the year the dice rolls on the favorite again..

[Tim]

One thing I noticed with all this RD talk is that the truely elite RD teams seems to win the Word Series a lot and dedinitely make the WS a lot.

 

So we can definitely make ourselves a significant favorite and up to maybe mid 20% chance compared to most #1 seeds. But, still the field had the odds over 1 dominant team.

A lot of the historically dominant RD teams played when there was a single round to the playoffs.

[David]

One thing I noticed with all this RD talk is that the truely elite RD teams seems to win the Word Series a lot and dedinitely make the WS a lot.

 

So we can definitely make ourselves a significant favorite and up to maybe mid 20% chance compared to most #1 seeds. But, still the field had the odds over 1 dominant team.

Most of those teams were pre-playoffs. All you had to do was be the best in the league to make the world series. That's something the elite RD teams were very likely to do.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

It seems like its been awhile.. maybe 09 Yanks since the favorite took it home. So maybe this is the year the dice rolls on the favorite again..

 

2013 had the two best records and run differentials in the world series when Boston beat St. Louis.

[bcl412]

If we continue to work pitch counts and we have series going 5,6,7 games those late games against worn out bullpens could be fun.

[SRQCub]

Look at it this way:

 

The difference between an 89-win team and a 109-win team is about one win every 8 games. Hard to count on that coming up in a 5 or 7 game series, let alone three times in a row.

 

This is also in a vacuum, assuming the 89-win team played the same teams that the 109-win team played, given the exact same variables.

[SRQCub]

I agree that this is a weighted crapshoot (that word just looks funny now that I've read it 1,000 times in the past 10 minutes), but I think some of these statistical probabilities also oversimplify the equation. I'm not suggesting that complicating it more would drastically alter the chances, but I also don't believe that a 23% generalization actually plays out the same if you're hypothetically sending Arrieta/Lester/Jose Fernandez out to the hill in the playoffs, versus sending Arrieta/Lester/Lackey.

 

Maybe it increases us to a 24% probability team, but that 1% would feel significant enough to me (in actua game play) to warrant doing what it takes to add a guy like that.

[JonJayCutler]

I can't believe Eli Manning stormed the field after the Arrieta no-hitter.