Olerud363

I was out of line implying the smart guys don't fight Grant. Sorry smart guys... looking back you did spend time on this, probably more than it deserved it.

If the coin flip model, is better than "regular season wins" it means that the relationship between wins and playoff success is inverted... so Grant is now saying the lesser team has an advantage??

This is crazy.. where the hell are the smart guys. Please at least acknowledge this is crazy. If the coin flip model is "better" it means the other model was just inverted... I mean if you proved statistically that the coin flip model __IS__BETTER___ and it is repeatable... then you just invert the other model.

A coin flip model would never be more accurrate... if the process is truly random, the best you could for is a tie. Coin flip model would be 50/50, and no other model could ever beat that, as the sample grows large.

You are not using numbers here. You posted one murky undergraduate project. The fact is that fangraphs gives the better teams a slight advantage. Why?? Are saying that advantage isn't real?? What about Vegas odds?? Are they all about even?? Are you claiming that there is __LITERALLY__ no advantage for the better team?? That after robust statistical analysis the odds of any playoff series are 50/50?? I __suspect__ there is an advantage for the better team, it is small because the team is never that much better.

What data?? That paper was hard to absorb at first glance. Here is a question. How does fangraphs calculate their playoff series odds?? Are they based on historical playoff data?? Or just the regular season model applied to playoff series?? For example Toronto has a 26.8 percent chance to win the Series, Cubs 31%?? Is that real?? If regular season has no meaning why are they not even. As with all your arguments, if you are right, by definition you know something fangraphs doesn't. I'm still waiting for this. Fangraphs - Hi Toronto Message Board -- Please check out our latest article on our new "playoff odds" system, it will be of interest to you because one of your Members, "Grant" was insturmental in helping us with the new system. He pointed out a few flaws in our old system, and helped us design the new one. You'll notice that the better regular season teams, no longer have a better chance of winning in the playoffs, Grant pointed out that they shouldn't, and after carefully looking at historical data we realized he was right and adjusted our system. 3 cheers for Grant!"

Holy crap -- Grant doesn't understand luck. Luck is random and would effect all teams equally. If the underdog teams, are proven to be "luckier" over a large sample size it's not luck, it's a real effect, even if we don't the explanation yet.

Why is the burden of proof on others?? It's on you?? Sorry if I missed the link to the studies you referenced. But I can't find them.

Why are you so confident?? Do you have the numbers in front of you?? Does Strong team win 50% of the time?? 53?? 43?? 60?? What is the definition of "strong team". You have to do aprior design an experiment. Use round numbers so you don't rig it. For example take all playoff series between teams 10+ games apart 5+ games apart Tell us, the total number of these games, and the number of times the better team won.

Why would this be complicated at all?? There have been hundreds of playoff series in mlb history. Isn't the data out there somewhere. In most cases the differences in regular season record are small, a .600 team going against a .550 team... so you are still basically in coin flip territory. 55, 60% chance of the better team winning.

I just think you are over-estimating EE and Bautista... they were about 5 WAR this year... Good management should be able to fill the positions with at least 3 projected WAR. In actuality everything is crazy random... so the real goal is to create a roster that is projected for mid to high 80s win total. There are lots of ways to do that without Bautista and EE.

He's a 1 WAR player according to fwar... all I'm saying is that if you theoretically lost Bautista and EE (5 WAR combined at this point), you could probably find 2 players to get 2-3 WAR pretty easilly So it's not a 5 WAR loss, it's a 2 WAR loss and then you can improve else where.

There will be some random scenario that no one is anticipating yet Bautista EE - 5 WAR Jays acquire Nick Markakis, Jays sign Kenry Morales - 3.5 WAR down only 1.5... Jays improve some other position(s) as well They will sit down with the poindexters and come up with a way to create an 88 win projected team (teams ussually don't project much above 90, the 95++ win teams almost always have positive luck as well).

These guys don't understand the most basic concept of WAR. It is measured with reference to replacement value. If Bautista and EE are 5 WAR, and you "replace" them with some guys just lying around in aaa, yes you lose those 5 wins. That's not the case. They would be replaced with new players from a trade or free agent. Some combination of Reddick, Morrales, Alex Gordon??, Napoli, Beltran, Fowler... who knows who exactly. You don't just replace Bautista and EE with RANDOM guys lying around... if you did, yes you would lose 5 wins. You replace them with other players that are above replacement value.

Bautista didn't even make the Jays top 10 in WAR... EE is probably as valuable as Tulo, Sanchez, Pillar, Osuna, Travis moving forward... I know it is hard to believe but EE is declining, Strikeout rate and OPS relative to league were down this year. Bautista and EE have been great for the franchise... but going forward they are not the same players they were looking back. So basically losing them is not going to torpedo the Jays win total.

That is a little nuts if true... When Barry Bonds got old they did a really good job of managing his playing time. Admittedly he was late 30s not early. Last year Gibbons seemed to be trying to manage Tuols time... this year he didn't. Anyway... maybe they should schedule more off times and down time for these guys?? Aim for a healthy 150 games??

I'm not sure what is up with these bad apples. Over the weekend in Boston there were a few Canadians causing trouble that were kicked out of Fenway. Drunk as hell, throwing things, fighting. And it took security guards about 10 minutes to get them out. It's really sad and gives the good guys a bad name. I talked to a Boston security guard and he was really upset, and said it gave us all a bad name. On the good side there were 90% awesome Canadians. One guy was buying everybody hot dog and ice cream.

Absolutely, that was horrible... I think banning all cans for the rest of post season is absolutely fair.

Life is a game of constantly shifting expectations... while 3 days ago, perched on the precipice of doom, just getting to the wild card game seemed like victory that is no longer the case... here are the new "emotional" scenarios from today's point of view Quick kick in the nuts - it's over in 12 hours, Buck is victorious, Orioles hang out celebrates. Long ball squeeze - it's over in a few days, Texas and Odor have their revenge. Just sort of what the f*** that was kind of fun - Lose to Boston/Cleveland in ALCS, same as last year, but given lower expectations everyone is happy. Holy f*** we are playing the f***ing Cubs!!!!! - Anything I missed??

Wow... what do you do?? If I had to work I'd listen to it on the radio. I wouldn't take the chance that I'd hear the score.

It's not exact... I know they're not like sitting there with a formula... well actually most of them aren't... On second thought I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of them do have a formule... even Greg Zaun apparently had a formula (not a good one). If you trained a model against Wins and WAR I suspect WAR would be weighted about 80% and team wins 20%... or something in that range.

The heuristic they are using is not binary it's something like - WAR * factor Where the factor is between about 0.75 and 1.0 depending on team accomplishments. and "story" So Trout's wins are .85 of Mookies (or something, I don't know exactly what it is), Basically they are evaluating Trout as a 8 win player instead of 9... Donaldson is evaluated as 7.5 Bett's is probably an 8, because he's kind of new, and the red sox are the bounce back team... please don't throw gasoline at me... I am not saying this is right or wrong.. just saying they are using a heuristic... it's not that Trout's wins don't matter, just that they matter a little less.

What?? How would there position not change. Bett's is worth 7ish WAR. If you replaced him with a replacement player they don't win the division.

I just looked at the video... and the Travis homer looked harder hit on video, then it did in real life. Keep in mind it is only 310 down the line in Fenway, and that ball went into the second row. On second thought it probably was a homerun in another park.. but in real life it did not seem hard hit at all, it just floated out there. Stats cast has it at 350... Ramirez homerun at 388 -- I could buy that Travis' was 350... but I can't believe Ramirez home run was only 388. It looked like it went over everything...

Game 162 was cool, not as good as 161, partly because we had better seats and not as many Jays fans around. I checked stubub in the morning expecting tickets to be ridiculous (Big Papi goodbye day-3)... but they were cheaper than a month ago. I checked again at 1:00 before planning to leave Boston, and they were cheaper again... so got seats behind first base, for cheaper than the 40th row of bleachers the night before. Another great game, Sanchez was hitting 97 routinely and looked awesome. Bautista is really slow, on the Tulo double my wife was like "is he getting in", I was like "of course", then "umm... maybe not". Travis homerun was just a warning track fly ball in another park... Ramirez homerun was majestic... no clue if it was fair or foul but it was like a missile hit into the fog. Tulo's hit was big. It is crazy watching the out of town score board in Boston... Some of the scores seem to be changed from behind the monster, but the National League score, including Atlanta/Detroit had to be changed from outside. So between innings a guy comes out and changes them... I'm like holding my breath hoping he doesn't change the '0' in front of Detrois **.. finally when the scores go final they take off the "inning" and it's blank... so that happens and I realize we got the wild card... tension down a bit, now it's just for homefield. Crowd goes crazy for Papi's final at bat.. I am like "He's coming back next week, wouldn't you rather he hit 3 homers against Cleveland??". Hit's a squibber. A little tension from Osuna but it works out... Organist plays "On the Road again", after game (Boston lost HFA), nice touch. Jays celebrate, good job. Hopefully more bush party to come (for Jays and Kawasaki so they can meet again).