Too much caffeine close to Halloween I guess. I wanted to put this out there to have fun with and get folks opinion on why it "seems" that teams with the best record frequently do NOT Win in playoffs. A few popular explanations below but vote in the poll to see how you stack up vs. others.

1. It doesnt really happen. The only reason people say it is because their juggernaut just got swept in the 1st round and they are unhappy. Their team that backed into the playoffs that gets smoked is easily forgotten.
2. Settings Changes. Good owners set their baserunning aggressiveness, hook ratings, SB or Bunt settings different in playoffs. Every out matters.
3. Normalization. "Sparky puts hand on the scale". That star player who overperformed by a lot all year due to your great managing or preferential park just sucks in the playoffs. Example, I just saw in a 1971 theme real life MVP Joe Torre who hit .371 RL and .401 in the league, hit sub .200 in 10+ playoff games. Did he just have a bad series or two?
4. LineUp Changes / Baking Cookies. Your opponent may have built their teams / materially change their lineup with playoffs in mind. You will not face that 15 Win high ERA/WHIP guy at #3 SP, you will only face his Top 2 guys and they will throw 120 pitches. Think Arizona when they had Big Unit/Schilling. You may also "discover" Bob Milacki was buried in the minors all year pitching against you in Game 1. Also do not be surprised to see 1985 Cesar Cedeno at 1B for a couple of games instead of .280 hitting Mark Grace who played there all year.
5. Matchups - Could be that team was in a tougher division vs. your cupcake division. Unbalanced schedule or opponent matchup actually makes the opponents team look worse or overinflate your teams actual strength. Or his playing in Petco w/ Low Hr/9 guys may take away your mashers who outslugged everyone in normal parks.
6. Just bad luck - Some guys are just luckier in playoffs than others. Also that guy who hit .230 in RL and .235 all year...just hit .480 against you in a 7 game series. Thats why we play the games.
7. You got "outmanaged" / or "F'd yourself" - You made the playoffs, you forgot to "correct your lineup vs. LH Pitcher" that you set late in year to rest some players or your Ace to PC of 40 and forgot to change it back. The other manager realized you sucked against LH pitchers and pitched an average LH who shut you down. Every game matters and if you lose a game due to this...its very hard to overcome. This doesnt explain a 120 Win team getting swept though.

Definitely a combo of the top 3 vote-getters, but playing in OLs may not be the same as theme leagues.

With the deletion of AAA in OLs, when the best team gets bounced early, it's generally matchups because the payrolls are so tight few, if any, owners have the space to stash players or dedicate a mil to a guy who's going to make one start in the playoffs.

Interesting Results thus far....keep em coming.

I think in general people underestimate the odds of the best team actually winning the WS. If there are eight teams in the playoffs, you'd need a ridiculously good team (and be facing relatively weak competition) to win the title any more than often than once out of three.

Posted by contrarian23 on 10/27/2021 8:23:00 AM (view original):
Well, my vote was #1, because I think this actually happens a LOT less frequently than certain whiners would have you believe. But I will add that some combination of lineup changes and matchups are also a factor. In my advice for newbies thread, I made a few posts about a series of my teams that won OL titles. Their combined regular season winning percentage: .575. Their combined playoff winning percentage (against much tougher competition): .713.

I certainly ain't no postseason managing genius. But those teams were built specifically to (a) get to the playoffs (b) be strong in a short series. I don't care about regular season record at all, as long as the team gets a playoff spot. It was not unusual for me to use scrub players in 20-30 games for each of these teams, meaning they were actually a LOT better than their regular season record, and often much better than teams that won 10+ more games.

Hmmmm, that tickles a memory or two in my mind. The mind 'aint what it used to be, but I know I've heard of that idea in the past. I just need to figure out where...

Posted by 06gsp on 10/27/2021 2:18:00 PM (view original):
I think in general people underestimate the odds of the best team actually winning the WS. If there are eight teams in the playoffs, you'd need a ridiculously good team (and be facing relatively weak competition) to win the title any more than often than once out of three.

I would take 1 out of 8. I'm quite certain my 100+ win teams are worse than 1 out of 8.

Th First? No.

I did learn at the feet of the Great master, who was the FIRST. Just4Me.

Good comments C23....I think top teams DO get knocked off often but due to the lineup changes and matchups as you also mentioned. I just got into playoffs with the worst record of all four divisions in a 200m open. knocked off the Top team in my league and took another with much better record to the last game before losing the World Series.

Basically both teams were loaded w/ LH hitters and/or Babe Ruths who hit almost 20 points less against LH...so they got a lot of doses of partial season Kershaw who was Long B most of the year and Ferdie Schupp starting. On the offensive side, 1953 Ted Williams got 3 starts, 1963 Mantle started, etc. Net-Net, I had a materially different lineup and rotation...those matchups and different lineups than regular season worked...just not well enough...I did however blow a 5 run lead in the 9th of game 3 otherwise I would have Won it....haha. Thats what makes this fun....

41 Votes and no clear Winner....interesting that 22% just think ti is bad luck.

Very interesting results so far. Ill publish the votes at some point but a couple of observations
- Pretty clear no one "owns" their failure (Screwed themselves w/ lineup build or got beat by a better owner)
- Few think your actual settings do not drive materially different outcomes than regular season.

- If I look at the names, using cooking and setting your lineup appears to be most common by veterans here but not all agree. Not entirely surprising but love the differing thoughts on this.

Probably means there's some degree of most or all of these factors happening.

I vote for 3 things, Bad luck, lineup/pitching changes, and It doesn't happen
Luck is a major factor in a 5 games series it's a small sample size for random numbers.
Changes may also be a factor. Unbalanced teams are built for the playoffs and expect to lose some extra games in the regular season keeping their stars fresh for the playoffs.If your team is built for the regular season you're more likely to have the best record but not necessrily the best playoff team.
And it doesn't happen as often as it seems. It just stands out when it does happen.

Keep the votes coming.

There was a topic (probably started by Contrarian) here some time ago that discussed teams' success in regular season vs playoffs.

I believe the gist of it was that deep offensive teams with 3 or 4 average/good SP's and deep bullpens would invariably succeed in the regular season (90+ wins) and go on to the playoffs. Teams with 2 very good or excellent pitchers and 1 or 2 standouts in the bullpen and a top-heavy lineup (2 or 3 studs who can drive in 125-150 runs) won't win as many regular season games but when they make the playoffs will dominate in 5 game series and just need a bit of luck in 7 game series. I had a rested Greg Maddox ( maybe '95 or '98) pitch every other game in the playoffs ( a prog league) awhile back and he was untouchable.