Haven't read the article, so I don't know if Bill addressed it, but a Pythagorean projected 82 wins is pretty spot on to the Card's 84 wins. I don't see a need to change the formula simply because an 84 game winner wound up being the WS champs.

Dude, he's talking about changing real life, not a formula...

Well, I do seem to remember a couple of skinny white guys (basketball equivalents of David Eckstein), named Kerr & Paxon hitting a few key shots for the Bulls while Jordan was on the court. And, forgive me if I'm wrong here, but wasn't the Western Conference champ supposed to roll any creampuff unlucky enough to represent the Eastern Conference last year...? Granted, the NBA does seem to conform to the thesis David (by agreeing w/ Bill James) puts forth more often than not. But, then again, Robert Horry has hit more game winners as a bench player than Luis Sojo ever will.

homerj says that baseball works best when you watch "your team grow and get better together" than when some "crappy lucky team" hits the lotto and wins a championship. But you can certainly make a case that the 2006 Cardinals DID grow and get better throughout the season. After all, a big reason the Cards lost 78 games in the regular season is b/c of pitchers like Jason Marquis, Mark Mulder, Sidney Ponson, and Jason Isringhausen -- none of whom were on the postseason roster. The Cards adapted better than any team in baseball (particularly by making Wainwright their closer and giving him the highest leveraged innings). In other sports that would be lauded; in baseball for some reason that makes you a crappy lucky team.

The Cardinals didn't get in via the Wild Card, they won their division. So eliminating it would just have made their WS win a bit quicker.

The trouble with the baseball playoffs, is it's the exact opposite of the regular season. In the regular season, it's a marathon. Teams with the best 5 man rotation and bullpen and bench win more games. But in the playoffs, you only really need 3-4 starters, a few guys in the bullpen, and 1-2 bench guys. And some luck and some guys stepping up to turn in brilliant performances.

Anyway, this had hurt the Cardinals in their various 100+ win years when they flopped in the playoffs. And now this time they took advantage of it, so it seems fair to me.

I think Rob Neyer had the original concept for this, but it would be quite simple to "fix" the playoffs/WS to reduce the luck factor without alterating what makes the game great. Here is the sytem, with my modifications

1. Reduce the season by one week, to 156 games.

2. Revert to 2 Division Champions in each league plus 4 "wildcard" winners.

3. Give a major post-season advantage to the Division winners in each league by giving them a bye in the first round while the WC winners play a best of 5 series.

4. Make it even tougher for the Wild Card 5 and 6 place finishers to win by making the best of 5 game all at the home park of the 3 and 4 finishers. By eliminating the travel, you can also make this round 5 games in 5 days, which has the further benefit of favoring the team built for the long haul since you need at least 4 starting pitchrrs in the series, plus a deep bullpen.

5. Division winners then each play a WC winner in a best of 5 (in five days), also all played at their home park.

6. These winners then play a traditional best of 7 series, with the 2-3-2 home/away/home structure. The Division winner will get home field advantage if a WC team manages to make it this far.

7. Make the World Series a real World Series by making it the best of 9, and to be played with only 2 off days. 4 games at home from league with the better inter-league record, day off, 4 games on the road and then back home for the final game if needed. There is plenty of fine-tuning to be done but I like a structure along these lines because it a) makes the regular season "penant" really matter, and b) differentiates the WS from the playoffs while also giving the better long haul team an advantage without totally eliminating the hot hand/luck factor that makes baseball great.

James: "college basketball.....you never know who will win". Ask James why the NCAA has all four finalists as either No 1 or No 2 seeds in 2007.
When James was in KC, he and his man Rob Neyer always knocked Bobby Doerr's selection to the HOF. James who never saw Doerr play would quote a NYC fan who bleated that "Joe Gordon was the better 2B.." Typical NYC, where I grew up, Yankee BS. Joe Gordon got the 1942 MVP in a year that he led the AL in 2B errors and grounding into most DPs over Ted Williams' first triple crown. James followed that NYC line until the Red Sox employed him, now Doerr isn't mentioned.

No one has mentioned the ridiculous idea Bill James put forth - that one can identify the best team at any point in the season. Or, even more absurd, after the season and argue that some other team was better than the Cards. Better at what?? The point of Baseball is to win the World Series, thus the Cards were the best team in 2006. One's statistical analysis carries no weight when compared to the reality of the season.

Phil: The 'point of baseball' is not unquestionably to 'win the World Series'. Your entire post is flawed because your foundational assumption is baldy incorrect.

NB -

I disagree. All Major League Ballclubs start each April with that goal. From a player/personnel point of view (not a business POV), that is all that matters. Obviously in our imperfect world not every club has a realistic chance, and some competitive clubs can legitimately engage in "re-building" so maybe deep down they think they have a shot in a couple years but given that, I stick to my assumption. Now that we've settled that - ha - I re-assert my main point: that the Cards were the best team in 2006 because they won the prize that all MLB teams are gunning for. Arguing otherwise based on some stat you made up is absurd and only a fool would believe it.

re: competitive balance in baseball vs. other sports

actually, there's been an economic study on this by Berry, Schmidt & Brook, the Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport (Stanford Univ Press 2006) in Chapter 5 "The NBA's Competitive Balance Problem". They agree that the NBA is by far the least competitive professional league, and they evaluate all the professional leagues with something called a "Noll-Scully Measure of Competitive Balance". These were their results;

League & Years NollScully Index
NBA 1985-2005 2.86
AL 1986-2005 1.78
NL 1986-2005 1.76
NHL 1984-2004 1.70
NFL 1986-2005 1.49

id. at p. 66 and references cited therein, Table 5.1.

These results show that the NBA is the least competitive league in professional sports by a large margin, a result that the authors explain by the shortage of height, a rare commodity; baseball and hockey have approximately similar levels of competitive balance; while professional football is by far the most competitive of the professional leagues, more than baseball, hockey, football or basketball.

Incidentally, this work has been extended elsewhere and these same authors have found that European & British soccer are even more competitive than the NFL.

any serious sports fan should read this book and read the blogs of these authors.

--arthur j kyriazis, philly