to really sort out the best from the rest. The NFL season is really just a small sample size in terms of determining the best teams but I understand why it is the length it is -- I'm just talking probability here(if it were the NFL then a team losing 1 game to the Cubs would be hyped as this major shocker) as the season is long enough to absorb the streaks (down & up) where at the end you see where they're really at -- especially in a numbers game like baseball. Its like the "hot hand" in basketball where you'll see several go in a row -- a few made, a few missed -- too a poor shooting night in the end make a less than 50% (league average). Its like flipping a coin 500 times and landing on heads 4 or 5 times in a row but the coin is still 50/50.
Then baseball screws up their regular reason with the worst post season system in sports. The "best team" very likely could lose in the wild card game and they play so many games & so few teams it doesn't really work overall as they favor divisions -- Penent races made more sense and I'd love to see that version over this one just who has the luck, streak, the "hot bat", etc is who this formant favors.
There was this book: Trading Bases: How a Wall Street Trader Made a Fortune Betting on Baseball -- Being as someone who wouldn't touch baseball (and still won't unless I significantly improve my mathematics) for gambling as the easiest to bet on but he made sense when in basketball the true favorite has that double legit lead than the coach empties out his bench or football (not from the book) Geno Smith throwing an interception at the end of the game to give Denver the over when the under was in the bag. Anyways, based on "can't run out the clock in baseball" you can take numbers and piece together a model where he went deeper than standard sabermetrics, would have lineups based on all of these things and establish like over 50%, 45% to low chance and said invest into it like a hedge fund. Like use "2% of the fund on the big favorites vary less as you go lower (at-the-end he probably shouldn't have wasted his money on those but overall it was profitable or he would say brought him a "41 percent return" though it didn't start that way. Moneyball the movie had a lot of fiction in it (though I'd say "Trouble with the Curve" had more -- like the polar opposite with the scout who says this guy "just needs to see his mom" and boom he's hitting again and he can "hear" a curveball strike) though one part of it had to be true is Oakland started the season to mid-season down then the numbers rebounded "regression to the mean".
His model struggled early to mid-season based on the long term averages with the baseball pythagoran theorem so day-to-day bets (with lineup changes watched for because one switched for another would change the probability) but based on best as you can with these sort of the things who the best teams were. I remember very well from the book the Rockies finished far lower than his model or system rated "chances are" and the DBacks were the huge outlier finishing far higher than what he rated (the same year the went to Milwauke
I know about nothing when it comes to the team the Marlins have on their team but barring major injuries, if they were one of the top teams you'll probably see them win more than they lose.
Right now Rockies are about where they are but most of the recent seasons they start on the season on fire with Tulowitzki in the Babe Ruth-Barry Bonds (who dominates the top 10 list) with most home runs hit in a 30-day period Carlos Gonzales is a terrific power hitter & those "5-tool" abilities but lacks the consistency Tulo has and both ended up with the injury bug. The problem is attracting pitchers who want out or stay away from the farm system because of their numbers. Its a different team than it was few years ago but they don't have problems finding hitters all they need are quality pitchers -- I was real excited about Nicasio and now I don't even know where he is when looking at the roster. Wow, Jorge De La Rose & Betancourt only names I remember and De La Rosa was there before Chachin or Jimenez. I don't know anything but if the talent is there it will show -- though this in a division where teams proved themselves over multiple seasons.
Sorry for the long post, the "hot hand" & "momentum" probability stuff is interested and kinda figured as much as it always seemed "choked" was used every time someone misses then it got so bad where for awhile the media would cover every missed shot late from Lebron James or overrate Kobe where he always takes the last shot so there are some that go in but actually is below his average since the defense knows who is taking the "last shot". I remember Awsi Dooger and his "overall form" posts on golfers, the same thing applies here. Another thing similar are SI or Madden "curses" since they come at the peak right before they regress to the mean. Plus in football the injury rate is high.
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