# The Official MLB Offseason Thread

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-official-mlb-offseason-thread/601185>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [October 29, 2011, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-official-mlb-offseason-thread/601185 "2011-10-29T14:39:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 71

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**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-official-mlb-offseason-thread/601185/71 "2011-11-02T03:55:56Z")

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> [@gonzomax](#):
>
> Not the point at all. Will they be able to spend a lot more without hurting team chemistry. It is not that easy. Otherwise the Yanks would win every year.

As **Yookeroo** notes, they do win pretty much every year. How many times have the Yankees missed the playoffs since the mid-1990s? Exactly once.

The playoffs are a crapshoot. It’s very easy for a five- and even a seven-game series to turn on a bit of luck, or an outstanding performance by one or two players. The results of the short series aren’t a good measure of a team’s overall quality. Billy Beane understands that; as he said to Michael Lewis, “My shit doesn’t work in the playoffs.” There’s too much luck.

The measure of a good team is a team that does well over a long season, where the overall quality of the team is able to overshadow the day-to-day vagaries of luck. Luck evens out over time, and the good teams rise to the top and make the playoffs.

Of course, you know all this. Less than a month ago, you said:

> [@MLB: The Playoffs](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlb-the-playoffs/598185/105):
>
> Its over the top to suggest they can even predict a series. The first ones are 5 games. They are less predictable. The world series is better but that is still too small a sample to decide the best team.
> 
> \<snip\>
> 
> A season is a far better sample, but how often are the baseball geniuses wrong about them?

If you recognize that the regular season is a better measure of team quality, and that the playoffs are a crapshoot, you should also recognize that, by the best measure we have, the Yankees do win just about every year.

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