Quote:
Originally Posted by jpeters1734
I don't get this complaint.
Over the course of a 162 game season, you're upset because a team that won 10 less games than you beat you in a 5 game series? you don't understand how close teams are talent-wise that are only 10 games apart over the course of a full season
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Since 1995, teams that go into the Division Series with a record 5 games better than their opponent are 36-30. While it *is* fairly close, the evidence suggests that the team with the higher record wins about 55% of the time, which is not statistically insignificant.
Strangely enough, when you increase it to a 10 game record gap, the winning percentage drops to 53% (16-14).
Still, the evidence seems to suggest that when a team is significantly better than their opponent going into a series, there is a reasonable expectation that they will win more often than not. That has not been my experience in this game.
EDIT: If you add the Wild Card Series since 2012, the numbers for a 5 game gap go to 44-36 (still 55%) and 10 game sits at 18-15 (up to 55%)
EDIT AGAIN, LOOKING AT RUN DIFFERENTIAL.
Since 1995, there have been 70 division series where one team's season RD is 50+ higher than the others. The higher RD went 42-28 (60%). In the 33 of those division series where the RD gap was 100+, the higher RD went 21-12 (64%)
So it seems like maybe I understand the data plenty well. It is not unreasonable to expect that a team with a significantly better record and RD would win the series more often than not, even taking into account injuries and the closeness of the talent gap. Certainly it is reasonable to expect that the better record/RD would win at least 1/3 of the time.