GDT: 4/7/'15 - Atlanta Braves (Wood) @ Miami Marlins (Latos) 7:35PM EST

Luck is big part of the game, especially in a short series.

I also think there are teams that are built for the regular season vs the playoffs. It seems like having 5 quality starters is the best way to pile up wins in the regular season. But in the playoffs you are better off having a Stud and crap behind him. B/c if you can drop starter 5 and maybe starter 4.

I think power arms do better in the playoffs than other guys. Vs the best teams/hitters you have to miss more bats.

I guess I'm saying it's a slightly different game in the playoffs than the regular season. So if you were building a team you'd do it differently for the marathon vs the sprint.
 
MadduxFanII said:
I feel like the word "luck" sort of throws these conversations off track, because it implicitly removes any sense of responsibility for the outcome of a game. People hear "luck" and they think you're saying that no player or coach can be criticized for what happened in a a playoff game, and that's just not the case.

"Luck," in this case, is really just a one-word stand-in for the idea that small sample sizes are a bitch in baseball, and that a postseason series is the ultimate in high-stakes small sample sizes. Was it "luck" that the Cardinals beat us in the wild card game? Was it luck that the Dodgers took three of four from us in 2013? Not really- those teams out-played us in those games. That wasn't lucky or unlucky, it was just how the teams played in those series (using the word "series" loosely in the 2012 context).

The conflict is whether or not those results really have any significance beyond the games in which they occurred. I, and a lot of other people, basically think that four games (and certainly one game) tell us nothing about the strength of the teams involved. We've out-scored the Marlins 14-3 in two games this season. We're probably going to be worse than them once the entire season is played. We took the season series from the Nationals last year, and we finished approximately 723 games behind them in the standings.

It's not at all unlikely for a noticeably worse team to win one game, as the Cardinals did in 2012. And it's barely more unlikely for a worse team to win three of four, as the Dodgers did in 2013. I mean, we see things like this in the regular season all the time, don't we? Inferior teams wins a series in June, no one blinks an eye. It happens in October, and all of a sudden that says something deep and significant about the teams involved.
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Fair argument.
 
Seems like this thread is a good showing that the offseason is now offically over and we're back to having baseball arugments on the daily. We've covered a lot of ground today. Can't say I've seen a thread quite like this in some time.
 
thewupk said:
Seems like this thread is a good showing that the offseason is now offically over and we're back to having baseball arugments on the daily. We've covered a lot of ground today. Can't say I've seen a thread quite like this in some time.
Click to expand...

Heyward's 0-4 today.
 
MadduxFanII said:
I feel like the word "luck" sort of throws these conversations off track, because it implicitly removes any sense of responsibility for the outcome of a game. People hear "luck" and they think you're saying that no player or coach can be criticized for what happened in a a playoff game, and that's just not the case.

"Luck," in this case, is really just a one-word stand-in for the idea that small sample sizes are a bitch in baseball, and that a postseason series is the ultimate in high-stakes small sample sizes. Was it "luck" that the Cardinals beat us in the wild card game? Was it luck that the Dodgers took three of four from us in 2013? Not really- those teams out-played us in those games. That wasn't lucky or unlucky, it was just how the teams played in those series (using the word "series" loosely in the 2012 context).

The conflict is whether or not those results really have any significance beyond the games in which they occurred. I, and a lot of other people, basically think that four games (and certainly one game) tell us nothing about the strength of the teams involved. We've out-scored the Marlins 14-3 in two games this season. We're probably going to be worse than them once the entire season is played. We took the season series from the Nationals last year, and we finished approximately 723 games behind them in the standings.

It's not at all unlikely for a noticeably worse team to win one game, as the Cardinals did in 2012. And it's barely more unlikely for a worse team to win three of four, as the Dodgers did in 2013. I mean, we see things like this in the regular season all the time, don't we? Inferior teams wins a series in June, no one blinks an eye. It happens in October, and all of a sudden that says something deep and significant about the teams involved.
Click to expand...

I've always thought about it in terms of investments. There's the long run, which is composed of a stream of short runs. A stock may fluctuate up or down depending on all types of dynamics and could out-perform the more reliable bet for a period of time. It's just more apparent in baseball because there aren't playoffs in the stock market.
 
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