It was Billy Beane in Moneyball who famously remarked, “The playoffs are a crapshoot”. The argument goes that whatever assiduousness and craft goes into producing a winning regular season team, the outcome of the playoffs is random. I want to use my offseason opportunity this year to explore this a little bit. A warning up front: there will be a fair amount of math, and I’m not going to come close to explaining it all. But I give a few references, and I’ll try and answer any questions you have.
Stating the Obvious
We need to start by clearing away some underbrush.