There is no magic formula to winning in October or many teams would have discovered the formula. Baseball is the sport where luck is the biggest factor.

Now, imagine if the average SB winning team had Trent Dilfer.

I believe Dilfer was with the Ravens when he won the super bowl.

Think you mean Brad Johnson

27 titles later, the Yankees seem to have figured out something approaching a formula.

No. He means Alex Smith and this year.

Salvador Perez OPS by year
2011 .834
2012 .799
2013 .756
2014 .692
2015 .691

Batting Avg
2011 .331
2012 .301
2013 .292
2014 .260
2015 .249

Still good production offensively for a catcher, that isn't the point, the trend is. If we are going to have him for future years, we NEED to rest him more. Have to have to. One of the reasons I was so against paying for a DH and rather doing it by committee to give Sal more time off. Yes, Kendrys is a big surprise but I hope we do this eventually. If we are still 8 games up in the end of August I'm going to be livid if Sal is still playing as often as he does. His batting average and OPS have gone down EVERY SINGLE YEAR. He needs freshlegs at the plate for our playoff push.

it's why I can't really take people like 'Hamas' or PB serious because they look at fangraphs and then make conclusions

just yesterday Hamas was like 'nah Moose is the same guy he just had rat shit luck with BABIP last year!'

he totally ignored the fact that was because Moose constantly just pulled the ball into the shift. Every ****ing time. Over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over. OF COURSE YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE A TERRIBLE BABIP WHEN YOU HIT INTO THE DEFENSE EVERY TIME. That's the point of the shift.

This offseason, he worked on it, he became a complete hitter, and now he has more hits to left field than he does to right field. Of course his BABIP is going to much higher when he's using THE ENTIRE FIELD. You can't just say, "well he's just luckier this year because his BABIP is way up compared to last year!" There is a reason for that.

and so far I've looked at the past 5 WS champions and surprise surprise ... they all had dominant pitching performances in the postseason.

Posting regular season offensive statistics is meaningless. Pitching wins in October. Hitting can win in July.

Aces!

if John Lackey, a mediocre pitcher, turns into an "ace" for the 2013 postseason ... it happens. The 2013 Red Sox won because Lackey and Lester were dominant.

if the Dodgers go into a postseason series with Kershaw / Greinke / Hamels (or Price) ... they aren't always going to win, but you'd be a god damn fool to think they don't have the odds to win every series.

If I have AK and you have Q10 I'm going to call whatever you bet 100% of the time and realize I'm only going to win 58% of the time. I'm still taking my chances.

When success in scoring is dependent on accomplishing a task in which it's considered very good if you can be successful between 3 and 4 times out of 10, welcome to arbitrary chance. The difference between an extremely good team and an average team is about the outcome of 15 - 20 games.

You go from 81 and 81 to between 96 to 101 and 61 to 66.

Hence , the inpredictability come playoff time.

Different time in baseball. Much easier back then.

I wouldn't even take Tulo for free, not with that contract and not with his injury history.

There's plenty of room to walk the middle ground with analytics and "baseball logic."

A balanced approach is the best way to go, IMO. Rely only on analytics, and you're Paul DePodesta/Keith Law. Rely only on "baseball logic and scouting" and you're the Arizona Diamondbacks.

You can't rely entirely on analytics, because you miss things like Moustakas remaking his entire approach over the offseason and becoming a completely different hitter. (For the record, hamas mentioned that in his breakdown of the changes).

But you can't rely entirely on the 'scout's eye' either, because sometimes a players raw skills and abilities don't translate to reality.

If you're referring to predicting the future, you're right. If however you're talking about actual events, then you're not because high level analytics are extremely accurate in assessing performance.


If I say Omar has been a POS this year, analytics will prove that without a shadow of a doubt regardless what "eye tests" say. Predicting how he will do based on them? Yes.....much trickier