I really want an awesome sound bite from Melvin talking about "why they play the games".

I enjoy proving all the stats guys wrong

I don't think he understands that the Diamondbacks *prove* nothing. They're just another data point.

"When we lose, it seems like we lose 15-0," Reynolds said. "But if we win the first two games of a series, then lose 15-0 in the third game, we still won the series."

Yeah, that doesn't sound like luck or anything. It's perfectly normal for a team to only give up a lot of runs in games where they don't score a lot of runs. Definitely not luck.

Reynolds is so lame. I can't believe he hasn't taken the time to sit down and really pontificate on this stuff. Hey Mark, you're just a data point! Duh! I can't believe I'm cheapening myself by even addressing you, Mark. You're a dork!

I'm sorry, but the Diamondbacks' attitude towards this is representative of the anti-intellectual trend in this country. Creationism, Global Climate Change denial, they challenge scientific method with rhetoric.

Thinking that Arizona's record proves something about the Pythagorean Record isn't much different than thinking that peanut butter proves we were intelligently designed.

Do I expect the D-Backs to think or say, "Yeah, we're not that good, we're lucky to be here." No, of course not. But the attitude that anyone who posits that they were lucky doesn't know what they're talking about pisses me off.

Maybe they're not lucky. Maybe they've lost blowouts because they use horrible pitchers in games they're likely to lose, while they use their good pitchers in the tight ones. Maybe they're unlucky -- their runs scored and allowed in their wins is more representative of their talent in the games they lose. But the fact is they don't *prove* anything one way or the other. If they get swept in the first round, that proves nothing. If they win the World Series, that proves nothing.

The Pythagorean Record should only matter to the D-Backs in that they should look to improve their talent if they want to maintain their record next season. If they want to have the attitude that their record is proof enough that they've got enough talent to win next season, then they have nobody but themselves to blame if it all falls apart.

Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if they said they were unlucky if they finish last next season.

I'm sorry, but the Diamondbacks' attitude towards this is representative of the anti-intellectual trend in this country. Creationism, Global Climate Change denial, they challenge scientific method with rhetoric.

I agree 12,000%.

'm sorry, but the Diamondbacks' attitude towards this is representative of the anti-intellectual trend in this country. Creationism, Global Climate Change denial, they challenge scientific method with rhetoric.

Isn't part of the reason for "anti-intellectualism" that "intellectuals" are so annoying in their insistence to be "right" in every discussion?

Isn't part of the reason for "anti-intellectualism" that "intellectuals" are so annoying in their insistence to be "right" in every discussion?

I tend to think it all stems from our Puritan roots, with boosts thanks to such cultural touchstones as "strong, silent type", "man of the earth", and "city slicker", and given a final punch-up in the sports world to dislike/jealousy of nerds and teachers' pets.

Annoyingness and insistence on being right is hardly a unique characteristic of "intellectuals."

Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if they said they were unlucky if they finish last next season.

As an aside, I was shocked that mildly depressed people are usually the best judges of their ability to do things. Most "normal" believe that they are the reason for the good things that happen to them and that the bad things that happen to them aren't really their fault.

It would be perfectly normal for the Diamondbacks to give themselves credit for being in first place this year, and blame luck for finishing in last next year if that's where they end up.

It would be great if one of the D'backs came back with something like: "Well, Pythagoras doesn't take into account at talent distribution or injury distribution, so when you collapse the runs on a large scale basis, sometimes you lose a lot of information. Plus our bullpen has been lights out and if there's anything that, at least heuristically, should help a team beat their Pythag, it's a good bullpen."

Geez, how do we go from a baseball projection formula to "anti-intellectualism", creationism and (gasp!) Global Climate Change denial? What's next? Do we accuse the DBacks of denying the Holocaust, too?

Grip. Get one.

Isn't part of the reason for "anti-intellectualism" that "intellectuals" are so annoying in their insistence to be "right" in every discussion?

There's a big difference between insisting that you're right and insisting on what is a correct way to conduct debate (what evidence is admissable, what are appropriate rules to follow, etc). There are more than a few "intellectuals" who can't tell the difference themselves, but I wouldn't really call them intellectuals, more like jerks who happen to end up on the same sides of some issues that I believe in.

But, yeah, I guess I could understand being annoyed at someone who won't recognize that my illogical means of argument or my unprovable assertions are valid points when that's the only ammunition I have in an argument.

Ugh... I really wish Mark Reynolds would shut the #### up and focus on hitting. That applies to every hitter in that lineup. If Mark and co. did less walking and more hitting, the DBacks wouldn't have looked like a pathetic bunch of sucks yesterday.

Mark, you went to college, for crying out loud. I assume you can read and think. Do more of that, and less of this inane babbling that you're doing. Better yet, don't think, don't talk, don't do anything else but get a ##### hit once in a while.

Where the hell is Jeff Kent when you really need him? Someone put these rooks in their places.

I'm sorry, but the Diamondbacks' attitude towards this is representative of the anti-intellectual trend in this country. Creationism, Global Climate Change denial, they challenge scientific method with rhetoric.

I think you can make a pretty solid crowbar separation between creationism and the pythagorean record. We really don't - and can't, statistically - know very much about how to predict in-season winning percentage or post-season success. If you actually take up the statistical case honestly, you'll find that pyth is a better predictor than winning pct, but both are very poor predictors.

One of the reasons that there has been such a backlash(!) against statistical types is that their rhetoric has constantly outpaced what they can actually do with the numbers - and this is a perfect case. We really have no idea how sustainable the Diamondbacks' run is. We think that in the aggregate, it's less sustainable than a run by a team that was outscoring their opponents at a rate commensurate to their winning pct, but we can't really speak to the Diamondbacks individually, and even in the aggregate, we have to acknowledge the weakness of all statistical predictors of team winning. People don't do this, though. They act like the case has already been "proven" and refuse disconcerting data points as mere data points that can't speak to the aggregate. While it's true that the Diamondbacks do not prove anything, it's also true that the regression studies show weak correlations everywhere, and it's true that applying these results to a single case is a perfect example of the ecological fallacy.

Thinking that Arizona's record proves something about the Pythagorean Record isn't much different than thinking that peanut butter proves we were intelligently designed.

It's also not much different than thinking that the PT proves something about the Diamondbacks.

I think this discussion illustrates how events can come full circle. A more accurate title for this post is that the Diamondbacks defy "convention" rather than "logic". Just as once upon a time, Bill James' arguments defied "convention".

As for the Diamondbacks, rather than merely a "data point" their performance could simply be an outlier - a perfectly "normal" expectation within any data set.

Clement's 14 says it well; so many of us stat-types (points finger at self) have trumped Pyhtag so much that we've essentially OVERsold it. Backlash ensues.

Just like Mr Replacment Level has vastly oversold his look-down-the-nose attitude about others who reach different conclusions than he does. Yes, William Albright, George W. Carver, Jean Henri Fabre, John Ambrose Fleming, Sir William Huggins, James Joule, William T Kelvin, Joseph Lister, Samuel Morse, Sir William Ramsey, I could go on, all obviously idiots who merely used rhetoric instead of science in the last 150 years to analyze the world and conclude it was designed.

all obviously idiots who merely used rhetoric instead of science in the last 150 years to analyze the world and conclude it was designed

Huh? I don't think Carver would have ever used his invention of peanut butter as an argument for the existence of a creator. The purpose of his analogy was to criticize the quality of the arguments, not to question the intelligence of everyone who believes in God.

Thinking that Arizona's record proves something about the Pythagorean Record isn't much different than thinking that peanut butter proves we were intelligently designed

Larry, you crush me. Most of my cosmology is based on staring into a jar of Skippy Extra Crunchy in the morning.

Actually I think the D'Backs retorts to these Pythagorean questions are as reasonable as anything else one could say. The most killing retort would be: "We're overperforming our Pythag? Well, it is pretty damn lucky for us that the standings go by individual game scores and not on aggregate, isn't it." And their remarks amount to that for the most part ...

that peanut butter proves we were intelligently designed

Larry, you crush me. Most of my cosmology is based on staring into a jar of Skippy Extra Crunchy in the morning.


peanut butter doesn't prove we're intelligently designed; that's ridiculous

jelly does

Diamondbacks:Run Differential::Stagflation:Phillips Curve

(I screwed this up the 1st time.)

Yeah, that doesn't sound like luck or anything. It's perfectly normal for a team to only give up a lot of runs in games where they don't score a lot of runs. Definitely not luck.

Not quite.

The D-backs rarely ever score runs. They have a terrible offense. They generally make up for it with terrific pitching. They have Webb and a very solid rotation backed up by a terrific core of 5 far-above average relievers. However, when the starters falter, they don't go to their core relievers. They go to their garbage time relievers, who are really bad, even by the standards of garbage time relivers.

Hence they are really good at staying in games when its close, but when they start falling behind, they're designed to really fall far behind and get killed. Thus they win more than their share of close ones, and consistently lose the blowouts.

I'm sorry, but the Diamondbacks' attitude towards this is representative of the anti-intellectual trend in this country.

Dismissing the D-backs success as luck without actually examining why they're winning so often isn't much of a rally cry on behalf of intellectualism.

Fact: The Diamondbacks are performing much better than their aggregate statistics suggest they should be.
Question: Why?

Answer 1: "They've just been lucky; they're really not that good".
Answer 2: The Diamondbacks are a team with very good front-line pitching, a so-so offense, and very bad back-end pitching. When the front-line pitchers pitch, they're an excellent team; when the back-end pitchers pitch, they're terrible.

Answer 1 has the advantage of not requiring any analysis whatsoever, which makes it a popular answer. Answer 2 requires that the individual actually take some time to see what is going on here, and while it doesn't necessarily carry any predictive significance, it does give one some understanding of this team, which has both obvious strengths and obvious weaknesses.

I don't think that Arizona will remain idle in the off-season, even if they do win the division or the Wild Card. I think they KNOW they lack pitching depth, and they can't count on a healthy return from Johnson. I think they expect (quite rightly) that the offense will improve as the younger players (Drew, Montero, Young, Upton) grow into their roles, so they may not have to do much there. They do have some trading chips available to them - I would expect that Chad Tracy will be gone, certainly. Next year, I expect that the D'backs will continue to be good - not that they will regress to the level of their Pythagorean record.

The Diamondbacks, in many ways, remind me of this team, which won 90 games despite being outscored by 24 runs. That team stayed good for the next seven years, although ultimately disappointing its fans with only 1 WS title.

-- MWE

The most anti-intellectual people in America are academics. That's why they have speech codes. That's why Columbia invites Ahmanutjob while keeping out the ROTC. Mustn't challenge the orthodoxy.

Mike, I was thinking of this 1984 team.

Hitler had "Mein Kampf". Levski has "My Rant"

Here's the deal, young Dbacks:

I know that plenty of times what you say gets taken out of context by journalists. I know that plenty of times you get misquoted. But:

Will you just shut up and play? More winning and less talking? More spat and less chat? More growling like RJ and less yapping like Schilling?

One, if you don't really understand what the Pythag theorem, as used to project baseball win/loss records REALLY means, then either read up to find out more, or just don't say anything.

Saying something stupid just for the sake of saying something stupid is... well, stupid. You are NOT proving any theorems wrong. You are not proving any "stat-heads" or Pythagoras or Bill James or anyone else wrong. The Bill James theorem does NOT exclude a season like the one you're having. It just states that the season you are having is pretty unlikely... but that it CAN HAPPEN.

The 1905 Tigers, the 1984 Mets, the 1987 Twins, for example, have all been in your shoes. They've been there, they've done that. And what you are doing isn't impossible. You haven't landed on Mars, for f-k's sake. You have won 11 games more than expected... that's all... And guess what, the 2005 Dbacks won 11 games more than expected. And they didn't come you running their mouths.

Two, you haven't PROVEN ANYTHING. You haven't WON ANYTHING. You haven't won the division, you haven't won the wild card, you haven't even clinched a playoff spot.

The only thing you've proven is that you can collapse at the drop of the hat, go cold in a hurry, and look like the suckiest bunch of sucks who ever sucked... and if you go into sucking over the next five games, you WILL miss the playoffs, and you WILL look like idiots.

So shut up and win a few ####### games first, will you? When you clinch the division, when you win a playoff series, when you win the NL pennant, and when you win the world series, THEN come out and brag. Not now.

Three, Mark and Chris and Conor: you want to prove others wrong? How about you answer the numerous questions about your own abilities to play the game well BEFORE mouthing off?

Like Chris, maybe you can get your OBP over .300? One of these years, please? Those 30 homers are nice, but you have been about as valuable as Juan Pierre this year. Yes, that Juan Pierre.

Or Mark, maybe you can talk less AND strike out less while you're at it? You have sick power, but you look like a damn windmill out there. How about you focus on drawing more walks instead? And keep working on your D at 3b? Being barely average with the glove there ISN'T good enough.

Or Conor: You've been better in the second half, but you are a first baseman who cannot hit 15 home runs in a season. That's NOT going to help this team win the world series. And that's definitely NOT going to ease up the front office concerns about your future.

You want to REALLY prove people wrong? Win the #### division first. Then win the #### NL pennant. Then do your best in the world series. And then talk...

And don't take this personally, guys. I LOVE this team. I really DO. Even if at times I feel I'd rather have someone extract my gall bladder with a shovel than watch you play, I still remain the biggest fan. But please, do more thinking, less talking and most imporantly, more winning. Period.

I am stunned by this discussion. They read and hear EVERY day that they are flukes and lucky, etc etc....it's the ONLY thing that is EVER written about them in the National press. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that. So when someone asks them about it directly, what do you expect them to say? They are athletes, and much of what they have to do is based on confidence, and belief in themselves. So OF COURSE when asked, they are going to respond like this. It's not "anti intellectualism".....sheesh....it's a bunch of young guys in pennant race under a lot of pressure being told they don't belong.

Mark, you went to college, for crying out loud. I assume you can read and think. Do more of that, and less of this inane babbling that you're doing. Better yet, don't think, don't talk, don't do anything else but get a ##### hit once in a while.

Mark Reynolds is a rookie straight from AA who has a 112 OPS+ for the season, and in the heat of the pennant race has hit

August .342/.405/.539
September .324/.412/.581

He can say whatever the #### he wants, (within reason of course) and one tough game doesn't deny him that right.

But the attitude that anyone who posits that they were lucky doesn't know what they're talking about pisses me off.

Anyone who has the attitude that the Diamondbacks record is primarily a function of luck doesn't have a damn clue what they are talking about.

It mightbe luck. Might not be. We have no way to know. BP claims After 150 games a teams won loss record is more indictive to true talent than pythag. I agree.

He can say whatever the #### he wants, and one tough game doesn't deny him that right.

I know, I know. I'm just ranting. Of course he can say whatever he wants. I just wish he'd wait until actually the Dbacks win anything before saying it...

I think Mark has been great. Definitely better than Matt Kata :) (cue: Mark's B-ref's page)

I don't think that Arizona will remain idle in the off-season, even if they do win the division or the Wild Card. I think they KNOW they lack pitching depth, and they can't count on a healthy return from Johnson. I think they expect (quite rightly) that the offense will improve as the younger players (Drew, Montero, Young, Upton) grow into their roles, so they may not have to do much there. They do have some trading chips available to them - I would expect that Chad Tracy will be gone, certainly. Next year, I expect that the D'backs will continue to be good - not that they will regress to the level of their Pythagorean record.

Well put, Mike. Completely agree with you.

I do think they'll put Tracy on the trade block, but because of his knee surgery, I doubt they actually trade him until he's back and proven he's healthy and can hit. He'll most likely stay in AZ this offseason.

They will trade Carlos Quentin though, and they also have a bunch of major league ready spare parts they can package along with Quentin for pitching help. It'll be a really interesting offseason.

Would Quentin fetch much in a trade these days? He was pretty bad this year, they might need to let him get healthy and have some success before they'll get much of value for him.

One of the reasons that there has been such a backlash(!) against statistical types is that their rhetoric has constantly outpaced what they can actually do with the numbers - and this is a perfect case. We really have no idea how sustainable the Diamondbacks' run is. We think that in the aggregate, it's less sustainable than a run by a team that was outscoring their opponents at a rate commensurate to their winning pct, but we can't really speak to the Diamondbacks individually, and even in the aggregate, we have to acknowledge the weakness of all statistical predictors of team winning.

This is incorrect. We have lots of reason to believe the run is not sustainable, since no one has identified a team with a consistent ability to overperform their pythag, nor even any set of team qualities associated with overperforming. A huge amount of historical data suggests that large departures from pythag will not be repeated. So the burden of proof is squarely on those who want to make the case that the DBacks are different.

Hence they are really good at staying in games when its close, but when they start falling behind, they're designed to really fall far behind and get killed. Thus they win more than their share of close ones, and consistently lose the blowouts..... Dismissing the D-backs success as luck without actually examining why they're winning so often isn't much of a rally cry on behalf of intellectualism.

I'm sorry, Dag Nabbit, but you haven't "examined" this either. You've provided a loose description of the DBacks strengths and weaknesses, but without any comparison to other teams that demonstrates they are unique, or even exceptional, with regard to the spread of talent in their bullpen of their usage of good and bad relievers. Nor have you demonstrated that teams similar to the DBacks in these areas have any tendency to overperform their pythag. You have thrown out a theory, but with literally no evidence to support it. And again, the burden of proof is on you.

Anyone who has the attitude that the Diamondbacks record is primarily a function of luck doesn't have a damn clue what they are talking about. It mightbe luck. Might not be. We have no way to know. BP claims After 150 games a teams won loss record is more indictive to true talent than pythag. I agree.

I see MHS has radically scaled back his claims on this issue, though not the stridency of tone. It's not at all clear what it means that W-L is (slightly better) over the last dozen games -- after all, most of those games are played by non-contending teams in low-stakes games, and using many players who weren't even on the roster for the first 5/6 of the season. It's certainly not "proof" that W-L is a better measure of true talent after 150 games. And once again, if overperforming pythag is a true team quality or skill, let's see evidence of 1st-half/2nd-half correlation, or some correlation between pythag and a measureable team attribute. Until we see that, all the Pythag Deniers are doing is blowing smoke.

Would Quentin fetch much in a trade these days? He was pretty bad this year, they might need to let him get healthy and have some success before they'll get much of value for him.

Quentin's value will not get any higher if he returns to Tucson for a third year. It's apparent that he no long figures in AZ's plan; he hasn't started in RF since being activated from the DL, losing time to Upton and Salazar. The Dbacks feel Upton's ready, and with Byrnes locked up for 3 years, Quentin is gone. It'll be another example of selling low on a player, like they did with Hairston, but Moorad backed the Dbacks into a lose-lose sitation and they'll just have to get the best they can and move on. When Jeff Moorad is calling the shots, your team is ####

BP claims After 150 games a teams won loss record is more indictive to true talent than pythag. I agree.

That's future record, not past record. And future record after 150 games is heavily affected by being in a playoff race or not being in one. If you have a good record, you try harder. (Not on the player level, but who the team decides to put in the game.)

An explanation for why the Diamondbacks are outperforming their Pythag does not preclude luck. The reasons might not be repeatable or by design.

The DBacks are ELEVEN games over their Pythag. That's like 110 bonus runs. Do we think the DBacks have figured out a team skill that gives the equivalent of 110 extra runs over the average team?

Wasn't it the "statheads" who actually gave the Diamondbacks a shot at the division this year? The Diamondbacks aren't disproving any geeky prediction, just a geeky observation that they're somewhat lucky. How can people talk about how baseball's a game of inches incessantly and then not admit that win-loss record can be lucky at all?

Would Quentin fetch much in a trade these days? He was pretty bad this year, they might need to let him get healthy and have some success before they'll get much of value for him.

I agree Brian....I think Quentin's trade stock has plummeted at least as far as his OPS.

((Lousy performance)+(Eric Byrnes extension)+(upcoming shoulder surgery)) = Minor League Reliever.

It is just incredible how bad he looks in his at bats. I know they have been far and few between lately, but he looks the same as he has all year. A clueless hacker.

Take out the first week of his major league career, after which everyone in baseball figured out all you have to do is never throw him a strike, and here is what he has done:

.223/.311/.389 373 AB 31 BB, 19 HBP, 82 K/s 10 HR, and thats playing half his games in Chase Field.

He's 25 years old already. He may still turn things around, but not without a complete overhaul to his approach at the plate, something he has so far seemed unwilling to even attempt, let alone execute.

no one has identified a team with a consistent ability to overperform their pythag

Within a season, I can identify tons of teams with a consistent ability to overperform their pythag.

Whatever effect may exist does not seem to be very persistent across seasons - though the recent dynastic Yankees may be an interesting case study - but what's going on within a single team-season is pretty well a black box for us. The sample is too small.

This was dealt with in Huckaby's interview with two baseball execs on BPro yesterday (free content)



link

Within a season, I can identify tons of teams with a consistent ability to overperform their pythag.

If you mean you know of teams that overperformed in both 1st and 2nd half, well, duh. That will obviously be true even if variations are 100% luck. If you mean you can show that teams which overperform in 1st half have a general tendency to do the same in the 2nd half, do tell.....

That BP link is very interesting, for other reasons. The old boys' network is alive and well. It's very clear how racism is persistent, even if no one involved is bigoted. And then people have the nerve to question the types of people Minaya hires, even half-jokingly?

The Yankees from 95-06 outperformed Pythagoras by just under 4 wins per year. The A's of 87-92 outperformed Pythagoras by just over 3 wins per year. If someone wanted to suggest that a top flight closer used in the modern way can lead to outperforming of the Pythagorean projection on a consistent basis by 3-4 wins, there might be material there. Jose Valverde is a long way from Mariano Rivera or Dennis Eckersley though.

There are many factors that go into what can be expected from the Diamondbacks in 2008, and the fact that they outperformed their Pythagorean record in 2007 is only one of them. With their youth, it might be a minor factor. The chance that they will exceed their Pythagorean record in 2008 by more than 4 wins is probably 10% or less, but there is every reason to believe that their Pythagorean record in 2008 will be 85-77 or better.

"I'm sorry, but the Diamondbacks' attitude towards this is representative of the anti-intellectual trend in this country. Creationism, Global Climate Change denial, they challenge scientific method with rhetoric."

Except it does prove that you can't run the results through a machine, or predetermine anything using numbers. The actual reason we watch the games is that they aren't predictable.

And I agree with others that you have over-metaphored this to death already by extrapolating a connection between a baseball player's analysis of his teams wins and global warming.

Headline aside, I thought this was a good article. Sheinin did a nice job of explaining pythag to a casual audience. He presented the players' responses, while explaining how unusual their season has been, and offering some plausible explanations for why their record is so much better than their run differential. Not bad, especially considering it's about a team on the other side of the country.

Except it does prove that you can't run the results through a machine, or predetermine anything using numbers. The actual reason we watch the games is that they aren't predictable.

Who's debating this? I think what bugs Larry (and myself) is the gleeful and automatic jump to "I love proving the stats guys wrong" when it doesn't have anything to do with stats guys and it's not really proving anything anyway. What he's really saying is that he wants people to stop thinking about it shut the #### up so he doesn't have to think about it himself. That is anti-intellectualism, and that's "part of what's wrong with America today".

EDIT: And I'll add that I think a big part of it is also that they're sick of answering the question over and over, as shoewizard pointed out. But rather than saying something interesting or informative, even if it's a repeat of the bullpen management talking point, he goes on an (albeit small) stat guys bash. Either way, the DBacks season has been tremendously influenced by "luck", either that they've been lucky to win more games that they should or they've been unlucky to give up so many more runs than their actual ability. There's probably some degree of casuality somewhere but in the end you win games by scoring more than the other team in discrete chunks. This almost always follows through into scoring more in the aggregate. Any team "designed" to score fewer than their opponents is almost always going to lose. The almost makes it interesting, but it doesn't prove anything and it certainly doesn't make scoring less a good idea - again, not that anyone's arguing that.

Didn't the NY Times publish this exact same story three days ago?

Answer 2: The Diamondbacks are a team with very good front-line pitching, a so-so offense, and very bad back-end pitching. When the front-line pitchers pitch, they're an excellent team; when the back-end pitchers pitch, they're terrible.

Admittedly, I don't follow the D'Backs, but I don't see this looking at BBREF. Th very bad back end part I mean. They have only two pitchers who have thown more than 13 innings and have an ERA+ below 97 and those numbers are 92 and 86, coming in 51 and 43 innings respectively. The Padres have really good front end pitching, a pitiful offense, and two guys combining for more innings at a much worse rate (75 and 61) than the D'Back's bad two, and their record is exactly in line with their pythag.

Any team "designed" to score fewer than their opponents is almost always going to lose.

They sure weren't designed that way. If Drew and Quentin had managed to merely be league average for their positions, the D Backs would have clinched a week ago.

Any team "designed" to score fewer than their opponents is almost always going to lose

I remember some NFL defense, many years ago, being touted as a group that would "bend but not break" because they had given up a huge number of yards but not very many touchdowns. I don't think that was sustainable as a long-run strategy either ...

Answer 1: "They've just been lucky; they're really not that good".
Answer 2: The Diamondbacks are a team with very good front-line pitching, a so-so offense, and very bad back-end pitching. When the front-line pitchers pitch, they're an excellent team; when the back-end pitchers pitch, they're terrible.

Can't both be true?

Like I said on a previous thread, when a team grossly outperforms (or underperforms) Pythags, it should make you think. Luck is one thing you should consider because there is luck in baseball. That isn't an excuse to end the analysis there.

However, sometimes it isn't about serious analysis. Sometimes it's just a quick and dirty way to have a more than uneducated guess and a less than scientific conclusion. Yes, I look at the Diamondbacks and I think they're lucky. Practically all baseball teams have had good relievers and bad relievers. They all put in garbage relievers when they are being blown out and get blown out more.

I don't think they're solely lucky. They have a good bullpen and I think that helps. Better guys pitching higher leverage innings seems to cause some overperformance. They are a low-scoring team, which means their wins usually are by small margins. The discrepancy between good and lousy relievers is large and that helps too. But it's a massive overperformance, and I think luck is part of it. They are 32-19 in 1-run games. That's huge.

Answer 1: "They've just been lucky; they're really not that good".
Answer 2: The Diamondbacks are a team with very good front-line pitching, a so-so offense, and very bad back-end pitching. When the front-line pitchers pitch, they're an excellent team; when the back-end pitchers pitch, they're terrible.
Answer 1 has the advantage of not requiring any analysis whatsoever, which makes it a popular answer. Answer 2 requires that the individual actually take some time to see what is going on here, and while it doesn't necessarily carry any predictive significance,

Answer #1, as you surely know Mike, is based on a LOT of analysis of past teams. This is a cheap shot. And, if it "doesn't necessarily carry any predictive significance" -- which it very likely doesn't -- then by definition it doesn't tell us anything about "what is going on here."

And is there some evidence that teams fitting your "Answer #2" description overperform? Seems like it describes the Orioles pretty well, and they're -1 vs. pythag. (I wouldn't normally cite a single example as evidence, but that seems to be the standard you're employing here.)

The Yankees from 95-06 outperformed Pythagoras by just under 4 wins per year. The A's of 87-92 outperformed Pythagoras by just over 3 wins per year. If someone wanted to suggest that a top flight closer used in the modern way can lead to outperforming of the Pythagorean projection on a consistent basis by 3-4 wins, there might be material there. Jose Valverde is a long way from Mariano Rivera or Dennis Eckersley though.

Interesting examples. But winning teams will, as a group, overperform their pythag. So if you pick teams that had strong winning records over several years, they will overperform. You need to look at teams with closers with ERA+ over 180, or some other standard like that which doesn't reflect wins and losses (note: no leverage measure does that), to make the case.