Encore Performance: Playoff Guarantees

At the risk of falling into the sea while admiring my reflection, I present an encore performance from 2008 that has particular resonance this time of year.

It's easier than writing something new.

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With respect to the playoffs, some guarantees:

1. Baseball "analysts" will predict series outcomes based on which team was hotter in September. Research by Baseball Analysts found that there is absolutely no correlation whatsoever between a team's September record and its playoff performance. Hey, who needs facts when you have opinions to publish!
 
2. A team that loses game 1 of a five-game series with its ace on the mound will be written off by the baseball media. It helps increase the excitement when they come back to win.
 
3. A team down 1-0 and facing the other team's ace will be written off, as if the ace is a guaranteed win, even though he went 17-11 on the year.
 
4. The underdog in a series will take game 1 on the road and the baseball media will pronounce that it has the "momentum." When it loses game 2, the baseball media will announce that the momentum has "shifted," as if it were a paradigm, or a continental shelf.
 
5. One team's ace will get lit up. Another team's slugger will take the collar twice. The baseball media, now practicing psychiatry, will determine that they "choked" or "felt the pressure" or weren't "clutch."The media will be unable to process the notion that even great players have bad days.
 
6. Baseball "analysts" will "analyze" an upcoming series by assigning wins and losses according to pitcher and home field, because as we all know, the team at home with the better starting pitcher wins in the playoffs 85% or 90% of the time. Or maybe its 52%, I forget.
 
7. Once again, some knucklehead will run out the statistic that the winner of game 1 in a five-game series wins the series 75% of the time. Of course, since the average series goes four games, the winner of any game you choose wins the series 75%.