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February 04, 2004
A's Post-Season Fluke
Posted by Nick
I cannot recommend these remarks from Dominic Rivers enough:
Finally, while I'm willing to concede that the ability to play little ball has SOME increased value in the post-season (due to more lights-out pitching performances), I wish to remind everyone that the A's have gone 8-12 over the last four years in the post-season, all against VERY good teams. Some of them (including this year's Red Sox team) were in my opinion better teams to begin with. Numerous great teams go through 8-12 stretches. Heck, the A's started the 2002 season much worse than that, against much inferior competition. In other words, The A's failure to advance in the playoffs is not the vindicating force for littleball that some people think it is. It's part vindicating force, part fluke, and part explicable by the fact that one (or more) of the four teams that the A's played between 2000-2003 were better than they were.
This is a terrific point. Twenty games is not enough to base any firm conclusions. Dominic says the A's were playing better teams, and I'm inclined to agree.
Comments (3)
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Nick Schulz is the Editor of Tech Central Station and has worked in media circles and the ideas industry as a writer, editor, television producer and policy analyst. His writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The National Post of Canada, The Baltimore Sun, Investor's Business Daily, The Washington Times, National Review, Reason, Policy Review, and several other publications. He is also, it should be said, a rabid sports fan whose fandom is inversely proportional to his overall athletic ability.
1. Arnold Kling on February 4, 2004 10:06 PM writes...
The Man himself, Bill James, used to describe base-stealing and sacrifice bunts as "first-run strategies." That is, they increase your chances of getting one run in an inning, but they reduce your chances of getting more than one run.
In close games with good pitching, first-run strategies may help. When there is bad pitching or the teams are mismatched, first-run strategies are less appropriate.
So, if you have two teams that play .600 ball overall, but one uses first-run strategies and the other one (the A's?) does not, the first team might be able to get more of its wins against strong teams, while the second team would be more effective against weak teams.
A testable hypothesis, one would think...
Permalink to Comment2. Hei Lun Chan on February 4, 2004 10:26 PM writes...
As long as we're going on stats, I'll challenge the contention that the A's lost to superior teams in the playoffs.
2000: NY 87 regular season wins, Oak 91
2001: NY 95, Oak 102
2002: Min 94, Oak 103
2003: Bos 95, Oak 96
So in each of the last 4 years, Oakland lost in the playoffs to a team with fewer regular season wins. Wouldn't a reasonable conclusion to draw be that Oakland's playing style is more conducive to winning in the regular season than the playoffs?
Permalink to Comment3. Paul Und Paula on September 18, 2004 02:31 AM writes...
Paul Und Paula http://tickets.gelago.de/cat4304/Klassik-&-Kultur/Theater/Paul-Und-Paula/
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