“Striking batters out, catching the ball, and having a good closer wins championships,” Nate Silver and Dayn Perry write in the book “Baseball Between the Numbers.”
“It makes a good deal of sense why each of these variables is so important in the postseason.”
Inspired by the postseason failures of the Moneyball-era Oakland A’s teams in the early part of the decade, Silver and Perry, then working for the sabermetric-minded Baseball Prospectus, took a closer look at factors often associated with playoff fortunes. Those included records in close games, records in the month leading up to the postseason, team playoff experience, the ability to play small-ball and age.
Most of those factors, their statistical research concluded, had little bearing on outcomes. But one trend prevailed: In the playoffs, run production is trumped by run prevention.
In testing their theory, Silver and Perry created a system for ranking playoff teams based on what they found to be the three most critical areas: strikeouts by starting pitchers, team defense and the performance of a team’s closer, with each represented by a related advanced statistic.
The team’s ranking in each of the categories is then added together to come up with a final composite score, which came to be known as the “secret sauce.”It may just bee 11% of the equation, but I'll take it. The three factors mentioned -- "strikeouts by starting pitchers, team defense and the performance of a team’s closer" -- are areas in which the Yankees struggled for much of the time from 2001-2008, especially since '04, well, besides the closer part.
From 1996-2001, a span that included five World Series appearances, the Yankees never were lower than fifth. Since then, they’ve managed to crack the top 10 just once.
As of yesterday, the Yankees rank third in baseball, first in the American League.
That said, according to Silver and Perry, those three main factors account for 11 percent of playoff success. The other 89 percent? Pure chance.
This year we've seen a change; the Yankees have played much better defensively this season, their starters rank second in the American League in strikeouts, and Mo is still the best closer in the game. I'm not saying this is a guarantee of anything, but they should be better suited to win in October than they have been since their last parade down the Canyon of Heroes.
4 Comments:
Pitching and defense wins in the postseason, no question about it.
The Yankees are much better prepared for this year's postseason. It's their best-prepared team in years, probably since 2001.
Doesn't mean they will win, but I am as optimistic as I've been in ages.
Not sure if I'll get to use them or not but I scored 2 tickets, four rows back from the field in section 135 for game 7 of the ALCS.
The person who figured this out must be brilliant. Not giving up runs and making errors help you win games. Never would have thought that.
The basis of the article posted is that runs prevented are more important than runs created. In other words if a good pitching staff and defense is more important in October than a great offense. In the regular season, as we saw with the 2004-2007 Yankees a good offense can carry you most of the way.
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