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What makes a successful playoff team?

I thought this might be interesting to discuss, given our discussions on power pitchers and whether or not we needed Burnett during the offseason.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=betweenthenumbers/billybeane/060405

Star-divide

This is an article on espn.com that is an excerpt from Baseball Prospectus' new book Baseball Between the Numbers:  Why everything you know about baseball is wrong.

What seems to have the most bearing?

  1. Closer's performance
  2.  Pitcher strikeout rate
  3.  Defense

0 recs  |  Comment 2 comments

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similar article
A co-worker sent me that link too, and it reminded me of this article on The Hardball Times from way back in May '04.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/so-billy-what-does-work-in-the-playoffs/

The top 3 as found by that article are:

Hits allowed (fewer)
Errors committed (fewer)
Batters strikeouts (fewer)

That's pretty similar, although in this study, the closer wasn't discussed much.  There was a category for "Saves by Team Leader", but it was inconclusive.  Maybe Closer ERA would've been more telling.

by john vb on Apr 5, 2006 4:49 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

#2 (K rate)
is exactly why many of us have been holding our breath on Mulder since he arrived. Hopefully tonite will be the beginning of better numbers for Mark in this area.

Go Mulder!!
Go Birds!!

by rockin redbird on Apr 5, 2006 5:59 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

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