Jonah Keri Article on Playoff Spoilers

[Paulus88]

Kind of surprised I didn't find this here already. Keri lists the Brewers as the best playoff spoiler. The theory is kind of weird (lets take out all the teams that people think are good and then rank the teams that actually are good) but it does take a pretty good look at the Brewers strengths. I still am suspicious of the claim that the Brewers play average defense.

 

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[Dragonbait]

Well written article..... Enjoyed it more than the ones over on the 'BIG 4' sports sites.

[jjkoestler]

I enjoyed the article although it should be called "Teams that will make the playoffs not named the Phillies, Yanks, Sox, or Giants."

[DuWayne Steurer]

Good article. I did find it hilarious that he says the one thing that could potentially de-rail a deep playoff run is Yuni B. Got a nice chuckle out of that.

[Glennron]

I still am suspicious of the claim that the Brewers play average defense.

 

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I was pretty shocked by that as well, though I suppose Carlos Gomez helped out that number a ton.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I still am suspicious of the claim that the Brewers play average defense.

 

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I was pretty shocked by that as well, though I suppose Carlos Gomez helped out that number a ton.

Gomez, Morgan, certainly Counsell, and maybe to a lesser extent, Weeks. The other thing is that some of the metrics showing Casey and Hart as being 'above average' this year, but again, they say defensive data takes a good 3 years to get a solid sample size big enough to draw correlation from. Statistically, the Brewers might be 'above average' defensively this year, but I think that we can all take that data with at least a small grain of salt.

[RightFieldCoder]

Aren't our defensive numbers also helped out with the shifts we do? That might be why the Brewers decided to go with bad defense. They figured the efficiency of their shifts would outweigh the deficiencies of the players' talent.