Quote:
Originally Posted by BWillie
I've always believed this but fans tend to think there is almost no luck in sports.
|
There's a shitload of luck in sports.
Ultimately that's what drives me nuts about the Cardinals and their "We want to be relevant in September" approach. Because if you have ANY bad luck at all when you're targeting 88 wins, then you're going to win 83 and miss the playoffs.
You've gotta build in a luck buffer. Building for 84 wins and lucking your way into 4 more to get to 88 and the playoffs may work for a year, but you're gonna fall back again the next season. And building for 88 wins is going to net you 82 as often as it does a playoff appearance.
Luck is absolutely a part of the game. But ultimately over any reasonable sample size it's likely to even out. Most teams will get about the same amount of good luck and bad luck. Well led teams will fight through the bad. Poor led teams blame it for being poorly run.
4 SB appearances and 3 wins in 5 years is a plenty long sample size. Easily long enough to demonstrate that it ain't luck that led to that.