The idea that Mo Rivera can't shut down some random hitter over 5 PA doesn't mean he sucks, the countless people who couldn't get a bat on a ball over the same means Rivera was better, not lucky, and the same is true of Feliz, IMO.

I think we both agree that Feliz is a good pitcher (modulo his wildness this year). I'm just trying to figure out why the hell you're citing 10 PA against Kendrick and 10 PA against Hunter, instead of saying he has a career 178 ERA+ in 162 innings. If Kendrick had gone 5 for 10 with 2 HRs, that wouldn't change our conclusions at all. Or more accurately, it would change our conclusions by a tiny, statistically-insignificant amount.

By the way, as a Rangers fan, I respectfully submit that we use a different example for our "good" pitcher. :)

Was it luck (for me) that I stumbled upon this thread? I say no. I'll just stumble on out.

My point was regarding Ray's insistence that all outcomes between major leaguers over small sample sizes are driven and determined primarily by luck and not skill. I disagree. Citing Feliz's season ERA+ doesn't apply to this debate. (And I'm using Feliz as someone else - I think Ray - brought him up already.)

Well, if you agree that 10 Kendrick PAs don't imply that Feliz is good... and 6 Brantley PAs don't imply that Feliz is bad... then it seems to me you agree that individual PA outcomes are largely determined by luck. Or at least something other than baseline talent, whatever you choose to call it.

To quantify things a little bit, we can imagine that most extreme true-talent match-ups might vary between an expected batting average of .175 (call it Punto vs. Feliz) and .375 (Pujols vs. Rhodes). This implies that any at-bat between typical major leaguers is 20% skill (the batting average differential above) and 80% luck, even for these extreme cases. In general, less.

EDIT: I'm not trying to be obtuse here. Are you objecting to the terminology "luck"?

Well, if you agree that 10 Kendrick PAs don't imply that Feliz is good... and 6 Brantley PAs don't imply that Feliz is bad... then it seems to me you agree that individual PA outcomes are largely determined by luck.

Aagh. No, I'm not saying 10 Kendrick PAs means Feliz is good. I'm saying that because 48 individual major league hitters - of which Kendrick is one - with small sample size PAs against Feliz couldn't make it to three hits, it implies to me that the driver of that fact is skill. Because only 2 batters could get more than two hits, it is THOSE PAs - the minority, and not majority that Ray says - that are driven by luck.

And I think that's an incoherent position. Differences in skill explain differences in results, in the long run. Babe Ruth made outs in 53% of his PAs, Luis Aparicio in 69% of his. The 16% in the middle -- that's where the skill is, at least among players good enough to be in the majors to begin with. Neftali Feliz getting outs in 75% of PAs isn't so impressive when you consider that 2011 Derek Lowe came out on top 65% of the time. (Well, of course it is, but only because we have to consider these things on a relative basis.)

Your position is logically equivalent to saying that pitchers are better than hitters in general, because hitters are successful in well less than half of plate appearances.

Another way of making the point is that if skill were the determinative factor in most at-bats, as you claim, batters should be hitting home runs on every other pitch in batting practice, when they're facing a theoretically zero-skill opponent. Even for the best hitters, this isn't true.

And I think that's an incoherent position. Differences in skill explain differences in results, in the long run. Babe Ruth made outs in 53% of his PAs, Luis Aparicio in 69% of his. The 16% in the middle -- that's where the skill is, at least among players good enough to be in the majors to begin with. Neftali Feliz getting outs in 75% of PAs isn't so impressive when you consider that 2011 Derek Lowe came out on top 65% of the time. (Well, of course it is, but only because we have to consider these things on a relative basis.)

Your position is logically equivalent to saying that pitchers are better than hitters in general, because hitters are successful in well less than half of plate appearances.

Concur.

And, again, this goes to the point I was making about trying to distill meaning from a short series between a 90 win team and a 95 win team.

And, again, this goes to the point I was making about trying to distill meaning from a short series between a 90 win team and a 95 win team.

As has been noted already, the standard deviation over a full season is at least five wins. Throw in freak injuries and the like, and you can't distinguish a 90 win team from a 95 win team in a full season.

So what? The point of the exercise isn't to determine a statistically valid champion. You can go over to Baseball Prospectus's third-order wins, or whatever it's called these days, and check that yourself. It isn't hard to find, and while some will nitpick, few people question the general technique. By now the only reason to bring this crapshoot stuff up is to air partisan grievances (let me tell you about the 2005 NLCS) or to preen before the rest of the message board. It's really unbecoming.

As has been noted already, the standard deviation over a full season is at least five wins. Throw in freak injuries and the like, and you can't distinguish a 90 win team from a 95 win team in a full season.

When this was "noted" previously, it missed -- as you do here -- the point completely. I'm talking about a TRUE 90 win team or 95 win team.

If you had a true 90 win team play a true 95 win team, would you be able to tell the difference over a short playoff series? No. You. Would. Not.

So what? The point of the exercise isn't to determine a statistically valid champion. You can go over to Baseball Prospectus's third-order wins, or whatever it's called these days, and check that yourself. It isn't hard to find, and while some will nitpick, few people question the general technique. By now the only reason to bring this crapshoot stuff up is to air partisan grievances (let me tell you about the 2005 NLCS) or to preen before the rest of the message board. It's really unbecoming.

My point is that the playoffs don't "mean" anything. They don't mean that one team was better than another. Lassus and SoSH and others are pushing back on that, claiming that playoff PAs and games and series aren't driven by luck. They. Are.

And Lassus, as to the above, think of it this way: suppose you have a weighted coin, so that it's not 50-50 heads or tails but is 48-52, or 45-55. Would you be able to tell that in one flip? Of course not. 5 flips? 10? No, and no. You need to do MANY flips for the weighting to become apparent. That's all we're talking about here.

My point is that the playoffs don't "mean" anything. They don't mean that one team was better than another. Lassus and SoSH and others are pushing back on that, claiming that playoff PAs and games and series aren't driven by luck. They. Are.

I can't speak for Lassus, so I won't, but my point is that luck is just part of the equation. Playoff games are won on some non-constant combination of luck and skill, unless one happens to define virtually everything that is not 100 percent projectible as luck.

Albert Pujols' hit 3 home runs recently because he's a great hitter. By good fortune, he happened to hit those 3 home runs in Game 3 of the World Series. I don't know how much you can attribute to luck and how much was skill, and I doubt it's possible to know. I do know that slapping ones hands together and claiming it was just luck that he happened to do it in the World Series is the act of a simpleton, not something that only one man is smart enough to grasp.

I mean, in a sense the Cardinals are "lucky" that David Freese's mom allowed David Freese's dad to take her on that hot summer night in Texas a little more than 29 years ago, but that's a similar kind of silliness to expanding luck to include the timing of good or bad plays on the baseball field, as you did earlier.

There are any number of ways playoff series can go all crapshotten. A team can be seriously outplayed but win by virtue of a fortuitous grouping of runs (the 1960 series). A team can benefit from a series of bad calls that turn a loss or losses into wins. One can take advantage of a key injury suffered by an opponent, or have its path to a title eased by others vanquishing the superior clubs. A drastically inferior team can play above its heads (or its superior foe below its talent level) for a week and provide an unexpected result.

Then again, two evenly matched teams can meet and one just happens to outplay the other. Or an excellent team can summarily dispatch some inferior foe.

When you group all of these disparate types of outcomes under a single "luck" umbrella and consider your work done, you've essentially stripped any significance from the word.

It's not that people don't understand your position. It's that you're not actually saying anything.

I think everyone here understands that the large sample size of the regular season is a far better indicator of talent level than a short series. Everyone here understands that chance plays a significant role in the outcome of a baseball game, and is more likely to swing results in a playoff series than it would in a full season.

But not every outcome is simply the result of luck (or your vague, nothingish "driven by"). Nor should luck be the blanket explanation for every outcome.

If you had a true 90 win team play a true 95 win team, would you be able to tell the difference over a short playoff series? No. You. Would. Not

OK right, I see that. But let me ask you this ( and this may illustrate greenback's pt or maybe not)

1 Which team do YOU think was the best team for the year 2011?

2. How confident are you in this conclusion?

Albert Pujols' hit 3 home runs recently because he's a great hitter. By good fortune, he happened to hit those 3 home runs in Game 3 of the World Series. I don't know how much you can attribute to luck and how much was skill, and I doubt it's possible to know. I do know that slapping ones hands together and claiming it was just luck that he happened to do it in the World Series is the act of a simpleton, not something that only one man is smart enough to grasp.

and that is the funny part of the luck argument. None of those hits were lucky, they were all absolute bombs from a player locked in that day. I'm a D&D player, so I'm a fan of letting the dice roll, but at the same time, something has to be said, about a manager who consistently is able to get the best out of his players, day in day out, and over the course of the season.

TLR did not(and still doesn't) think that John Jay is a starting level talent, yet the anti-luck/stat brigade would tout his numbers, and bag on TLR for not starting Jay more. Guess what, every time Jay spends too much time in the starting lineup, he struggles. Maybe TLR knows more than the numbers on this particular player (and Craig Paquette, and Anthony Reyes, and Kerry Robinson, etc.)

I have to agree with the people that say the term luck has been watered down to the point the point of absurdity. On a day to day basis, if you manage strictly based upon the numbers, you will get your ass handed to you by TLR, who manages by the numbers, the players, his own experience and thousands of other things that could not be predicted or accounted for by a stat book, but can be done by a person watching the player walk into the dugout.

You can not expect to win over the course of the season by just assuming the luck averages out in the end, the fact is that the luck that averages out, is something that can be predicted by a scout, a coach, a manager and heck even a tv analyst. It might be miniscule, it might be uncalcaluable by the limited minds of an MGL, but it's not non-existent, it's not true luck, it's a skill of the people in charge knowing more than the numbers by just being exposed to the people. (sorry rambling rant)

1 Which team do YOU think was the best team for the year 2011?

2. How confident are you in this conclusion?

not directed to me, but I go

1. Philadelphia Phillies
1a. New York evil empire
3. Rangers
4. evil empire two
......that is where I see the gap.
I do not see any noticeable difference, regardless of records between the Cardinals, Brewers, Tigers, Rays(I know others see it different, I just don't), and Braves,

then a step down will be the Diamondbacks, Giants and Angels.

I think you could order the groups how you want, and I know the Diamondbacks had a better record than others, but I'm calling it the way I saw it.

how confident? pretty confident in the groups, although I hesitate on the Diamondbacks as their record was noticeably better than the guys in the group above them, but that the perceived talent going into the season wasn't near that level, and that if this season is played out 10 times, I have to think the results would have been different for them the majority of the time.

A better way to put it is that no individual plate appearance demonstrates skill in a statistically significant way. (Of course this is really what you meant anyway...)

I just thought this was worth reposting. "Luck" is a loaded term when we use it in sports contexts; one of the first defenses of the sore loser is "you just got lucky."

And there are degrees of luck. If I put on a helmet, grabbed a bat and tried to connect against Neftali Feliz by closing my eyes and swinging as soon he started his motion, and the ball actually hit the bat, then that's--literally--blind luck. A major league hitter going 3/6 or 1/10 against him or St. Louis beating Texas four out of seven times, is just a small sample, which is a different thing.

One of my favorite lines about luck and baseball was written by Roger Angell, talking about the now-forgotten-but-closely-contested 1972 Series. He said, "Baseball luck is inescapable." He added that the trick is to dominate the game to a degree that it doesn't matter.

I think talking about LaRussa's post-season record is interesting, but the key to greatness as a manager is combining longevity and effectiveness--not many guys can. LaRussa put guys in position to succeed, established good relationships with his very best/key guys so they bought in, and always knew what he was trying to do and how he was trying to do it. He was that way in Chicago, in Oakland, and in St. Louis, and he won in all three places.

This is the sort of thing on LaRussa that drives me nuts and makes me repeat myself occasionally. LaRussa didn't "win" in Chicago, in any meaningful sense. Over 9 years he finished first all of once, whereupon the Sox promptly lost the LCS to the Orioles. LaRussa's winning percentage in Chicago was .506. He doesn't seem like the same manager in Oakland and St. Louis that he was in Chicago. While it's not easy, or even possible, to distinguish all the salient factors, the idea that LaRussa's career was this homogenous thing from start to finish simply doesn't make sense.

cardsfan: I was hoping you would quantify your ranking. E.g. you were 95% certain or 98% certain.

Also would be interested in what method you used. E.g. wins/losses, player stats, etc. As this should affect the confidence level.

I think everyone here understands that the large sample size of the regular season is a far better indicator of talent level than a short series. Everyone here understands that chance plays a significant role in the outcome of a baseball game, and is more likely to swing results in a playoff series than it would in a full season.

You claim you understand this, but then you say things like:

But not every outcome is simply the result of luck (or your vague, nothingish "driven by").

You cannot equate the two. To do so shows your confusion. The first says luck is 100% the cause of a single outcome. The second says luck is some very high percentage of a single outcome (85%? 90%? 95%?). I have been saying the second, not the first.

My main point is that a PA, or a game, or a short series is so driven by luck that we cannot discern which player or team is more skilled. But over 162 games, we have a much better idea. (That is not to say, for those who enjoy knocking down straw arguments, that a team's record over 162 games is 100% indicative of quality.) The point is that a short series is virtually meaningless, and tells us next to nothing about which team is better.

Now please don't respond with "everyone understands that" and then go on to show how you don't understand it.

That it apparently rocks your world to think that <gasp!> a playoff series tells us pretty much nothing (such that you try to reduce my argument to the absurd "everything is luck") is not my problem. I'm just telling you the way the world is. I don't care, for these purposes, how you think the world should be.

EDIT: Not necessary.

This is the sort of thing on LaRussa that drives me nuts and makes me repeat myself occasionally. LaRussa didn't "win" in Chicago, in any meaningful sense. Over 9 years he finished first all of once, whereupon the Sox promptly lost the LCS to the Orioles. LaRussa's winning percentage in Chicago was .506. He doesn't seem like the same manager in Oakland and St. Louis that he was in Chicago. While it's not easy, or even possible, to distinguish all the salient factors, the idea that LaRussa's career was this homogenous thing from start to finish simply doesn't make sense.

You're the only one who seems to think it does. LaRussa did a nice job in Chicago, with a franchise that had been rudderless before his arrival (and a few years after his exit). Nothing earth-shaking, but established himself as a pretty good skipper.

He obviously did even better work in Oakland, even if he still wasn't Cooperstown timber when it was over. But three straight pennants is nothing to sneeze at.

He then cemented his Hall of Fame legacy in St. Louis by performing even better. For some reason, this progression startles and frightens you and demands explanations.

Just curious: when Bobby Cox retired last year, did you wonder the same thing. Because he's an even more extreme example of this phenomenon, at least when you ignore all the other salient factors (.436 WP his first stop in Atl., followed by a .557 in Tor and a .576 the second go-around in Atlanta)?

As for Ray's latest bit of reading incomprehension, it's nice to note that you can count on some things in this crazy, mixed-up world.

EDIT: Not necessary.

Too late. I saw everything.

Too late. I saw everything.

Least of my worries, not why I erased it. Actually, probably better that way.

I still can't believe you wrote that.

I still can't believe you wrote that.

I'm not even sure what you mean. It was standard snark, quoting you and then chiding you for never, ever, ever changing your position or thinking you could learn anything from a discussion to alter a single thing you think. (After admitting I was doing some re-thinking to my own argument based on said discussion.)

That's unbelievable? Seems pretty standard, but it was really not relevant while also being particularly whiny and shrill, so I erased it.

Ray, if you think that everyone out there is using the playoffs as some way to statistically prove the true talent level superiority of a team then you are woefully out of touch and clueless about how everyone (both the general public and within BBTF) views or uses the playoffs.

Too late. I saw everything.

Hey, it's Patrick Stewart from Extras! Who knew, maybe Ray has a sense of humor?

I think everyone here understands that the large sample size of the regular season is a far better indicator of talent level than a short series. Everyone here understands that chance plays a significant role in the outcome of a baseball game, and is more likely to swing results in a playoff series than it would in a full season.

But not every outcome is simply the result of luck (or your vague, nothingish "driven by"). Nor should luck be the blanket explanation for every outcome.

Baseball as a set of outcomes is well-described by independent, weighted, random events*. That's why Strat-O-Matic works so well. I don't get why this is so controversial. This doesn't ruin my appreciation for the game, unless you want to argue that I'm enjoying it wrong.

Relevant xkcd comic (although I'm sure I've seen this posted here before).

*modulo all of the interesting, non-independent stuff like pitch sequencing, different approaches with runners on base, etc., but at some level this just goes into altering the weights in particular circumstances -- e.g., BB% goes up with runners in scoring position.

Well-played, Ray.

Ray, if you think that everyone out there is using the playoffs as some way to statistically prove the true talent level superiority of a team then you are woefully out of touch and clueless about how everyone (both the general public and within BBTF) views or uses the playoffs.

I don't know about that. See $112:

There are any number of ways playoff series can go all crapshotten. A team can be seriously outplayed but win by virtue of a fortuitous grouping of runs (the 1960 series). A team can benefit from a series of bad calls that turn a loss or losses into wins. One can take advantage of a key injury suffered by an opponent, or have its path to a title eased by others vanquishing the superior clubs. A drastically inferior team can play above its heads (or its superior foe below its talent level) for a week and provide an unexpected result.

Then again, two evenly matched teams can meet and one just happens to outplay the other. Or an excellent team can summarily dispatch some inferior foe.

SOSH seems to be arguing that you can discern which of these narratives is the "correct" narrative to apply based on the results of a seven-game series. I don't think this is true. Maybe more importantly, I don't think it's interesting, because in a neighboring dimension of the multiverse, the series would have turned out in a completely different way. A narrative is purely descriptive and after-the-fact. It doesn't tell us anything, it just embellishes the story of what we already watched.

And to be fair... humans like narratives. It's the way we think, from what little I glean of the cogsci literature. The narrative makes it easier to hand down the history of baseball in a living way. It's just not the way I experience the game.

EDIT: and to add, fundamentally you could apply the same narratives to a game of Strat (and of course people do; it's called D&D).

Ray, if you think that everyone out there is using the playoffs as some way to statistically prove the true talent level superiority of a team then you are woefully out of touch and clueless about how everyone (both the general public and within BBTF) views or uses the playoffs.

No, I am not. Because that's how these things are discussed. With heros and goats and momentum and clutch, etc. You don't talk about those things if you understand that the playoffs are driven by luck.

That's unbelievable? Seems pretty standard, but it was really not relevant while also being particularly whiny and shrill, so I erased it.

I was using the literary tool known as sarcasm.

SOSH seems to be arguing that you can discern which of these narratives is the "correct" narrative to apply based on the results of a seven-game series.

I see the opposite. E.G., when he uses this example "a drastically inferior team can play above its heads ... for a week and provide an unexpected result," it is implied that determining which is the "drastically inferior team" is done by looking at the larger sample of regular season games and/or evaluation of individual players, rather than determining it by the series results. post #112 does not seek to determine the true talent level of a team by examining a playoff series in any way that I can see.

Yes. Every player is like a weighted die, programmed to produce certain outcomes based on what side the die lands on. Just like strat.

I was using the literary tool known as sarcasm.

Not really the best use, but nevertheless, late credit given in #128.

Maybe more importantly, I don't think it's interesting, because in a neighboring dimension of the multiverse, the series would have turned out in a completely different way.

Exactly.

EDIT: and to add, fundamentally you could apply the same narratives to a game of Strat (and of course people do; it's called D&D).

Right. If a James Bond villain rigged the game such that Pujols got hits or made outs in the World Series based on what the temperature was in Idaho at that moment, people would be coming up with the same standard narratives to describe what they were seeing.

...With heros and goats and momentum and clutch, etc. You don't talk about those things if you understand that the playoffs are driven by luck.

Maybe you don't. But lots of people are capable of discussing the playoffs using those themes AND understanding perfectly the role of chance in the results and understanding that the playoffs do not offer proof of one team being the best. People can do both of these things without it being a contradiction or paradox, and just because you cannot comprehend how that happens doesn't mean everyone else doesn't "know what they are watching" in the postseason.

(Now, I'm not trying to imply that "clutch" "choker" "playoff goat" etc are not misused by some people...)

Ray, if you think that everyone out there is using the playoffs as some way to statistically prove the true talent level superiority of a team then you are woefully out of touch and clueless about how everyone (both the general public and within BBTF) views or uses the playoffs.

Ray's problem is that he actually thinks that anyone cares (or should care) which team is "best," as if that term had any meaning at all beyond the Pythagorean world.

I don't know about that. See $112:

Seriously, you too.

SOSH seems to be arguing that you can discern which of these narratives is the "correct" narrative to apply based on the results of a seven-game series. I don't think this is true. Maybe more importantly, I don't think it's interesting, because in a neighboring dimension of the multiverse, the series would have turned out in a completely different way. A narrative is purely descriptive and after-the-fact. It doesn't tell us anything, it just embellishes the story of what we already watched.

No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that luck and skill are both at work in any series, and that it's not a constant unless you lump everything non-projectible under the luck banner, which neuters the term completely.

If Albert Pujols hits 3 homers in a WS game, there's an element of luck to it. If Skip Schumaker did the same thing, there's also an element of luck. I'm willing to guess that the degree that luck played less role in those two events was greater in the latter than the former. How much, I don't know.

Anything can happen in a short series. But just because anything can happen does not mean that what happens in a short series is automatically the product of sheer (or even overwhelmingly the product of) luck. Sometimes the best team wins because it plays better than its inferior foe. In one broad, pointless definition of the term (if we played it again, the result might have turned out different), that's luck. But I find the alternate multiverse line of discussion to be the pointless one.

...With heros and goats and momentum and clutch, etc. You don't talk about those things if you understand that the playoffs are driven by luck.

Maybe you don't. But lots of people are capable of discussing the playoffs using those themes AND understanding perfectly the role of chance in the results and understanding that the playoffs do not offer proof of one team being the best. People can do both of these things without it being a contradiction or paradox, and just because you cannot comprehend how that happens doesn't mean everyone else doesn't "know what they are watching" in the postseason.

This is wrong and incoherent, for the reasons I've explained.

It's like talking about how you enjoyed the drive from New York to Boston, when you actually took a plane. It makes no sense.

Ray's problem is that he actually thinks that anyone cares (or should care) which team is "best," as if that term had any meaning at all beyond the Pythagorean world.

The issue is broader than simply which team is "the best." See my post 130.

Yes. Every player is like a weighted die, programmed to produce certain outcomes based on what side the die lands on. Just like strat.

If a 10-sided die is weighted enough to roll a 4 nine out of ten times, what percentage of the result is luck, and what percentage of the result is the skill of the person who made the die?

Anything can happen in a short series. But just because anything can happen does not mean that what happens in a short series is automatically the product of sheer (or even overwhelmingly the product of) luck. Sometimes the best team wins because it plays better than its inferior foe.

And that result was driven by luck.

In one broad, pointless definition of the term (if we played it again, the result might have turned out different), that's luck.

Again, this is the way the world works, whether you can handle the truth (cue Col. Jessup) or not.

It's like talking about how you enjoyed the drive from New York to Boston, when you actually took a plane. It makes no sense.

you are right, that makes no sense: flying from NY to Boston probably saves no time compared to train or car once you factor in all the hassles of air travel.

...My post #136 seems completely coherent to me.

You could make essentially the same argument to claim that rolling a die is not really based on "luck". If we just had enough information about the spin and velocity of the die as it was released, and how it interacts with the table, we know'd exactly what number would come up every time. That's all Newtonian mechanics, and we know how to do it; certain initial conditions lead to certain outcomes. But it's not interesting, because there is simply no way we can have all of that information; thus, any reasonable person agrees that the result of a die roll is based on 100% luck.

Similarly, all of the tiny, invisible events which go into a swing, PA, a game, and a series... there's no useful term for that other than luck. I don't think this "neuters" the term; I think it draws a useful line of demarcation between the knowable and the unknowable. Based on this criterion, an individual game is about 95% luck (depending on the skill of the teams involved, of course... or on the relative weights of the dice, if you like).

The sort of things I'm lumping into "luck" are the things which are unknowable for everyone, including the players involved. Butterfly effect-type stuff, minuscule differences in release point, swing plane, timing, etc, which lead to very different outcomes. If you don't think this should be called "luck", what should we call it?

ps: I should add that I don't agree with Ray in believing that PAs are entirely rolls of the die. In particular, I don't believe in clutch, which I define as performing above established levels in key situations, but "choking" is completely plausible to me... there are interesting studies which I'm sure have been discussed on BBTF about pro golfers being asked to think about where their left shoulder is during a putt (or something equally benign) -- and the act of thinking about this minor detail of one's swing leads to hugely reduced performance. Hitting and pitching a baseball are based on equally fine motor skills, so I think the concept would transfer...

Ray's problem is that he actually thinks that anyone cares (or should care) which team is "best," as if that term had any meaning at all beyond the Pythagorean world.

The issue is broader than simply which team is "the best." See my post 130.

Post 130:

Ray, if you think that everyone out there is using the playoffs as some way to statistically prove the true talent level superiority of a team then you are woefully out of touch and clueless about how everyone (both the general public and within BBTF) views or uses the playoffs.

No, I am not. Because that's how these things are discussed. With heros and goats and momentum and clutch, etc. You don't talk about those things if you understand that the playoffs are driven by luck.

But it still comes down to the same thing: It matters to you that most people care much more about the results of the postseason, and want to talk about the human factors (like "clutch" and "choke") that may have influence the outcomes, than they care about which team would have come out on top after 1,000,000,000 computer sims, or which was the "best" team in the regular season. If that weren't the bee in your bonnet, you wouldn't be spending so many hours on the subject.

If a 10-sided die is weighted enough to roll a 4 nine out of ten times, what percentage of the result is luck, and what percentage of the result is the skill of the person who made the die?

Depends on the level of competition. If we were having a "Roll-A-Four" competition, and your competing die-makers were only skilled enough to make dies which could roll a 4 seven out of nine times, then I would say that individual die rolls in the competition are based 20% on skill, and 80% on luck.

Or what if there was a Robo-Ruth, guaranteed to hit a HR every at-bat? (But only one -- no Imperial Army of Robo-Ruths.) Then I would say that skill is a more important factor in that game than I've been weighting it, because the playing field is demonstrably less even.

But because skill in MLB isn't distributed like that, and in an individual PA anyone is roughly as good as anyone else (to the extent that we can say anything definitive), luck has to play a larger role. If everybody were exactly as good as everyone else, then it would literally be a die-rolling competition, and the results would be 100% luck. The less even the playing field, the more skill matters in any individual event.

To put a bit of a finer point on it, "absolute" skill, whatever that might be, isn't really something we can measure. From the box score of a baseball game, we can't tell if it's Walter Johnson dominating the 1917 Indians, or Danny Almonte dominating some kids from Iowa. Relative skill levels between players are what directly manifest themselves in the results.

flying from NY to Boston probably saves no time compared to train or car once you factor in all the hassles of air travel.

Were reclining seats involved?

Were reclining seats involved?

I vote "abomination", by the way.

I think everyone here understands that the large sample size of the regular season is a far better indicator of talent level worthiness to be called "champion" than a short series.

FIFY.