The Yankees led the AL in OPS, were 4th in BA, and 14th in K’s.

The Blue Jays were 2nd in OPS, 1st in BA, and 2nd in K’s.

I think you just sort of accidentally stumbled into the correct answer of the problem. The #1 wRC+ team in baseball lost to the #4 wRC+ team. That is incredibly unremarkable.

Did Toronto win because they have a contact-oriented lineup? Or is because they were a *very similarly good offensive team* that performed better in a four game sample?

Baseball has more variance than other sports. The best teams win about 60-65 percent of their games. A .600 team beats a .500 team about 54% of the time in a single game. In a three game series, the .600 team wins 57% of the time.

By random chance the .500 team is going to win the series 43% of the time. Now flatten that to a .600 team playing a .580 team, or a .600 team playing another .600 team. You might as well have a coin flipping contest to determine the winner.

Variance is just very high in baseball. The 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks, a mediocre 84 win wild card team, knocked off the 100 win LA Dodgers in three games. Was that because of Arizona’s October-optimized roster, or was it because fluky shit happens constantly in baseball playoffs? I know my answer, because I know how often a .500 team will tend to beat a .600 team, which is surprisingly often.

Fluky shit has happened to the Yankees with remarkable consistancy the past 25 years and when they had a team that batted +/- .280 fluky shit seldom happened.

https://athlonsports.com/mlb/jeter-arod-rip-yankees-offensive-plan

The Yankees led the AL in OPS, were 4th in BA, and 14th in K’s.

The Blue Jays were 2nd in OPS, 1st in BA, and 2nd in K’s.

I think you just sort of accidentally stumbled into the correct answer of the problem. The #1 wRC+ team in baseball lost to the #4 wRC+ team. That is incredibly unremarkable.

Did Toronto win because they have a contact-oriented lineup? Or is because they were a *very similarly good offensive team* that performed better in a four game sample?

Baseball has more variance than other sports. The best teams win about 60-65 percent of their games. A .600 team beats a .500 team about 54% of the time in a single game. In a three game series, the .600 team wins 57% of the time.

By random chance the .500 team is going to win the series 43% of the time. Now flatten that to a .600 team playing a .580 team, or a .600 team playing another .600 team. You might as well have a coin flipping contest to determine the winner.

Variance is just very high in baseball. The 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks, a mediocre 84 win wild card team, knocked off the 100 win LA Dodgers in three games. Was that because of Arizona’s October-optimized roster, or was it because fluky shit happens constantly in baseball playoffs? I know my answer, because I know how often a .500 team will tend to beat a .600 team, which is surprisingly often.

The Blue Jays were 2nd in OPS, 1st in BA, and 2nd in K’s.

My “crazy take” is that the 400 extra strikeouts and the 15 point lower BA was too high a cost for the extra .26 in OPS.

The Royals were 1st in K’s but they had a lower BA than the Yankees and a whopping 80 pt difference in OPS. I would not expect the Royals to beat the Yankees just because they strike out less. The 80 difference in slugging more than makes up for the 400 extra strikeouts.

There’s a balance somewhere, and the Yankees organization hasn’t been able to find it. Except, it should be noted, last year. Last year was the only year of the Boone era they were not in the bottom half of the league in strikeouts. And not coincidentally it was their best postseason. Random, right?

Low offensive K% should really be dominating in the playoffs then over the last 25 years then!

Another silly statement. A team of Mark Bellangers would he just as useless as a team of Dave Kingmans

Just because a high K% is likely to fail doesn’t mean a low K% is likely to dominate. A low K%/weak power approach is as unlikely to succeed as high K%/high power one.

No one’s advocating for small ball here. Just more hitters who can make contact.

Oh what’s that, they don’t? Hmm, weird

Another F minus take.

Whatever you say. One for twenty five isn’t very good, unless you root for the other team in this town.

The Yankees should definitely continue with this philosophy, lol.

My take on baseball is if you don’t make contact enough, you don’t win very often. Your orgasmic team of 9 Dave Kingmans won’t win very often.

Yes, modern baseball is all just teams sending out lineups of Dave Kingmans, because that was the lesson that was learned from statistical analysis.

Another F minus take.