Jason Whitlock's column. Anyone else disagree?

Maybe this is stat geeky, but doesn't small sample size mean a 17-game playoff run is exactly as indicative as any other 17-game run? And as a result the playoffs are kind of flukey.

Is there something wrong with that?

 

"Joe Pedpants hit four home runs in that playoff series, that's awesome!" = yes

"Joe Pedpants hit four home runs in that playoff series, he's especially good at hitting in the playoffs!" = no

 

Is Gale Sayers not one of the greatest running backs to ever play the game? And he had what, four, maybe five good seasons?

 

Cody Ross thanks you $6 million worth that you did not explain this to Brian Sabean.

 

No. There's more pressure in the playoffs.

That's why Luke Donald's scoring average per round doesn't mean anything for majors. If it did, he'd have won a few by now. His scoring average is not indicative at all of what matters in golf - the four majors.

 

Oh. In that case Cody Ross makes love to pressure.

 

Believe it or not, "The Book" is the most important baseball book on the market today:



http://insidethebook.com/

 

Any connection to "The Book On the Book," buck?

 

Nein, but I do know the authors of both have attended recent SABR conventions.

 

Read it. Dry, but pretty good work.

 

So, we have the official, accurate records of all the things that happened in the playoffs. And thanks to our buddy Bud, we now have a whole lot of playoff series every year. All we have to do is look and see if players who underperformed in one playoff season have at tendency to underperform in future playoff seasons. We don't have to just guess at what seems to make sense, we can test the hypothesis.

 

I never said you couldn't, although I think there's a limit to such a hypothesis' accuracy.