Your grasp of basic logic is lacking. Of course the team that outscores the other team will win the game. What's your point? The point of the article is to determine what factors influence the postseason success of teams. Regular season offensive performance was shown to be a non-factor in predicting success in the playoffs. The study used many different stats and found that those three are the most important for postseason success. More important than having a dominant offense, etc. About Roger... what is the relevance? We're talking about playoff series', not starts over the course of a season for an individual pitcher.
amen to that! but we all have to remember that 0.25 rpg is better than 0 rpg. With great pitching . . . 0.25 could be enough.
Thanks for the ad hominem. You're grossly inaccurate, btw. I didn't read the article. Hence the disconnect which you wrongly misinterpret as poor logical skills on my part. The statement you make here seems plausible, but "there are 3 things that win in the playoffs: having a dominant closer, having an excellent defense, and strikeout rate of the pitching staff" does not. Perhaps you think I'm guilty of splitting hairs, hence the "what's your point?", but a dominant closer, a high strikeout rate, and a stellar defense can not win a baseball game--they can only prevent the other team from winning. I agree with this observation completely. I've seen it played out over and over in the postseason. What the study found was that those three factors are the most common among successful teams in the postseason. There have been some *excellent* articles written about the fallacies of using stats as predictors as opposed to what they are--a measurement of some of what has happened. They were baseball games just the same as postseason games are. But, if you prefer, I'll mention RJ. Of course the analogy breaks down as RJ didn't have quite the defense behind him in October '98 and his elite closer didn't perform so "elite" in the postseason (off the top of my head, I don't remember if Wags pitched in RJ's start).
Nope. It wasn't a correlation analysis, they did regressions work. Also, you're can't just select 1-2 games as your "proof" that the article is wrong.
Please find where I said it was wrong. I made a general statement about how that crowd can take things beyond their logical ends, based on a statement you made. I said they're a little far on the "stats are everything" side for my taste. Is the "rotogeek" swipe offensive to you? Is so, my bad. The article might be nail it 100%; all I had to go on was your summary. Whether or not the article said so, you said that closers, strikeouts, and defense win games in the postseason (and that goes beyond even correlation to cause, btw). They do not. They prevent the other team from winning, and they can only do so for so long if a team doesn't score for itself.
If it's a word choice issue we have here, than how can I rephrase what I originally said. The three most important attributes for teams to have are closers, strikeouts, and defense. The whole point about offense is that it's unpredictable. A team can do amazing in the regular season and sputter out in the playoffs. Likewise, a team can be anemic in the regular season but have enough juice to win in the playoffs.
Can't that be said for pitching as well? A team can have an amazing bullpen all season long, and give the game away in the 8th and 9th innings several times in the LCS and (should they survive) the WS. Sound familiar? Not that I disagree with the premise that teams with strong pitching and defense can win more often than not even if the offense was "anemic" through the regular season. If it looks like I'm splitting hairs, then fine. I didn't mean to start a huge argument. I don't remember who said it, but one of my favorite quotes is, "Pitching and defense don't win championships. Winning wins championships."
No worries. To be honest, most of playoff success is luck. I think a way that you can look at the study is this: even though most of playoff results are from luck, the three things I mentioned play a bigger role than any other aspect of teams. So If I was a betting man, I'd take a poor offensive team with 2004 Lidge, great defense, and alot of strikeout pitchers over say... a loaded offensive team. I think that's a good way of looking at it.
Now, that I agree with. I've been roasted more than once in cyberspace for saying, "the playoffs is a craps shoot". Recent history certainly bears that out.
What is the market for Bengie Molina? I'd like us to go after this guy. I have no idea who is interested in him and for how much but he'd sure look good behind the plate for us and actually hitting above the Mendoza line. I'm just plain tired of the automatic 3 outs at the bottom of the lineup.
Well looks like we might be out of the big for Soriano if he is asking for money like this. But maybe Sheffield? He was injured last season, but still seems like he has good bat speed. He would be a nice cleanup hitter with us. Maybe if we don't have a chance with Lee. This is from ESPN Insider.....(dont know if the link will work or not) LINK
speaking of halloween....i took my kid over to West U and went to Biggios house...he sits out front of his house every year with a sharpie and will sign one item for each kid....pretty awesome of him to do that
she needs to eat; but i admire the killer b costume. btw, look how freaking big taylor's hands are. ginormous.
