Sports Most Improbable Playoff Runs

I wanted this to be published back on June 11th, but apparently something went wrong with WordPress and it obviously was not. Now it is.

Last night the Los Angeles Kings became the first eight seed (the lowest one possible) to win the Stanley Cup. No eight seed has ever won an NBA title. The Kings didn’t just win though. They did it in impressive fashion, finishing the playoffs with only four losses. They took a three games to none lead in each of their four series. Goaltender Jonathon Quick allowed an average of only 1.41 goals per game.

It’s been a good year for improbable runs. The St. Louis Cardinals, New York Giants and the Kings were the lowest seeded teams heading into the playoffs in their respective sports. They all won their league’s championship.

What are the most improbable playoff runs in sports history? Here is my brief list.

New Hampshire Primary Projections

I love election nights. I love them more than discussing policy. Analyzing, extrapolating and examining incoming election returns, stimulates my mind in a way I cannot describe.

Here are my projections, along with the methodology behind them, of how things will shape up in the  New Hampshire primary for the Republicans.

1st – Mitt Romney
Final RCP average: 37.5%
2008 result: 31.5% (pre-election poll average 28.2%)
In Iowa, Romney outperformed his pre-election polling average by 9.3%. In 2008’s New Hampshire primary he jumped up by 9% in the final results. The last three New Hampshire polls have Romney at 37, 37 and 35. This is an easy one. Most of the jump is from undecided committing to the frontrunner.

Romney prediction: 40.3%

2nd – Jon Huntsman
Final RCP average: 14.5%
We can’t look at Huntsman’s Iowa performance to see how he might outperform or underperform his pre-election polling. He essentially forfeited the hawkeye state and choose to focus on New Hampshire. The top two finalists in the 2008 primary outperformed their pre-election polls by an average of 9.1%. Even though Ron Paul is running second right now, he’s unlikely to get that kind of bump. If it happens for Hunstman, he should come in a distant second to Romney.

Huntsman prediction: 17.8%

3rd – Ron Paul
Final RCP average: 17.5%
2008 result: 7.7% (8.2% in pre-election polls)
Ron Paul’s final Iowa result was within 0.1% of his pre-election polling. In New Hampshire his negatives are running very high as he’s topping a 50% unfavorable rating in most of the polls for which crosstabs are available. There’s a clear cap to his support and it’s probably over estimated in the NH polls.

Paul prediction: 17.6%

4th – Rick Santorum
Final RCP average: 11.5%
Rick Santorum needs a strong finish in NH to carry him to a possible game-changing victory in South Carolina. It’s going to be difficult for him to get it tonight. Since his second place finish in Iowa his numbers in NH are up about 80%, but that still puts him in fourth place. What should give us pause is that he outpefromed his pre-Iowa polling by 66%. That’s going to be hard to duplicate in NH, because Huntsman is running a strong third and Romney is eating up so much support. Santorum is very similar to Huckabee from 2008 (surprised in Iowa, similar appeal and then struggles to capitalize on it in NH). Huckbee’s 2008 NH finish was a drop off of 8.2% (from 12.2% to 11.2%). Santorum’s possible drop off will compensated by his momentum from NH. He’s going to stay even.

Santorum projection: 12.2%

5th – New Gingrich
Final RCP average: 10.3%
Gingrich’s support has dropped off a cliff. One month ago he was polling at 24% in NH. Now he’s at less than half of that.
He’s similar to Rudy Guiliani from 2008 (front runner for awhile, dropped off in Iowa, struggles continue into NH). Rudy lost about 9% from his pre-election polls to his final number. The same thing is likely for Newt.

Gingrich projection: 9.4%

Blame of A-Rod is Ignorant and Inaccurate

The paradox of baseball is that in almost every situation failure is the expected outcome.

Alex Rodriguez has a career on-base percentage of .386. His career post-season OBP is very similar (wait, A-Rod isn’t a post season failure – don’t worry we’ll get to that). The probability of A-Rod making an out is 61.4%. His chances of not making an out are 38.6%. These are incredibly reliable numbers, since they are result of 6034 plate appearances between Rodriguez and opposing pitchers.

The expected outcome for every Alex Rodriguez at-bat is an out.

Think of it this way, if you were to gamble on an event and I told you one choice had 60% chance of occurring and the other a 40% chance, you’d put your money on the event with a 60% chance.

All offensive success in baseball revolves around the unexpected. A single up the middle gets the fans clapping. A home run, which occurred in 2.4% of all plate appearances in 2011, often elicits the largest cheer because it’s the most unexpected and has the highest impact.

The improbability of the high impact event is what makes its occurrence so exciting.

When Jose Valverde struck out Alex Rodriguez in the 9^th inning last night, that was the expected outcome.  It was the expected income when Curtis Granderson flew out to center for the first out and when Robbie Cano hacked at the first pitch of his at-bat for the easy second out.

Is it disappointing for the fans? Of course it is. It should be.

But A-Rod is still just one of nine men in the line-up, one of nine men on the field and completely removed from the pitching aspect of the game.  It’s beyond absurd to lay the blame for the Yankees lose at the feet of Rodriguez.

It’s been claimed for years that A-Rod chokes in the post-season. This is absolutely not true. It’s not even remotely accurate. This is a lazy and ignorant claim because it’s simple to refute by examining history.

.277/.386/.498 5.2% HR rate
.307/.374/.465 2.8% HR rate
.275/.371/.480 4.0% HR rate
.248/.358/.387 2.2% HR rate

These numbers are career post-season batting lines (batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage). If you had to choose one of these players to extend a game by not making an out, who would you choose?

Be honest.

Alex Rodriquez is the first player. Derek Jeter is second, Bernie Williams is third and Jorge Posada is last. Not only does A-Rod give your team the best chance of getting on base (and thus extending game) but he gives you the best chance of scoring a run via a home run.

But you say, A-Rod might have great overall numbers but he sucked this year, right?

Yes, A-Rod’s 2 for 18 series, where he drew four walks, wasn’t pretty. His OBP was only .261. Of course the Yankees lead-off hitter wasn’t much better.

Derek Jeter managed to draw just one walk. His five singles and one double resulted in a .280 OBP.  Not exactly what you want from your table setter or a guy who had a .327/.383/.428 line in the second half of the year.

But, you might say, we can forgive Jeter because he’s come through in so many big games.

Remember 2009, when he hit had a line of .389/.472/.841 and hit six home runs, including three in the ALCS and clearly helped the Yankees to another title?

Well you don’t, because that’s what Alex Rodriguez did. Those are his numbers from ’09.

Alex Rodriguez is not the problem. A flawed perception of baseball and lack of knowledge about postseason history is the real problem.

Have a Little Trust in Me: The Heat and Lebron

Imagine that your favorite team has a great year. It finishes its regular season with the best record in its sport. They win nearly 75% of their games. You are proud of them. You are excited about watching them. They come up short in the playoffs, but it was still a great year. The next season is far from the same. They go from having the best record in the league to the worst. They have a record losing streak that makes it difficult for you to even acknowledge you are a fan of the team.  They fail to win even 25% of their games.

Imagine I told you the only significant difference from one year to the next for this team was the departure of one player. You would probably surmise this was a heck of a player and an important leader for his team. You’d say that every success the team had depended on him. You’d probably say that even though they had lost in the playoffs with him, it was better than being the laughing stock of the league.

If you haven’t already guessed it, I just described the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James.

The sports fan needs explanations for things that are difficult to have explanations for. There is too much passion involved; there are too many television hours to fill, to many radio hours for debate and an infinite amount of web space to wax poetically with.

After the result of the NBA Finals this is not a good thing for LeBron James. Despite being named the league’s Most Valuable Player twice, and winning nearly 67% of his career games his recent performance in the Finals has brought into focus his leadership qualities or lack thereof.

It’s Lonely at the Top: The Leadership Qualities of Don Draper

I’ve been thinking a lot about Don Draper lately.

The last week has been very hot. Summer has announced its arrival. Usually this means it’s time to get ready for the new season of Mad Men at the end of July. Sadly, such will not occur this year. Due to a contract squabble between creator Matthew Weiner and AMC, season 5 of Mad Men will not premiere until March of 2012.

Purchase Mad Men on Amazon

It’s going to be an extra long and hot summer.

Without the world of Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce (and Campbell)  I’ve entertained myself by looking at Mad Men in different ways. The leadership qualities of Don Draper is one area that has come into recent focus.

Tressel Take Suffers From Lack of Perspective

We are not all good. We are not all bad. A human being is a mixed bag of the decisions and paths they take in life. Jim Tressel exemplifies this. He has many qualities that appear to make him a good person. He has many qualities that appear to make him a bad person.

After one BCS National Championship and nine BCS Bowl Games, Ohio State University Head Football Coach Jim Tressel resigned on Monday amidst allegations he lied to the NCAA.

Human beings don’t like complexity in other human beings. It makes things too difficult to understand. We want our villains and we want our heroes. In the world of sports, where emotions and rivalry runs high, this is even more true. When it comes to Jim Tressel, the evidence shows a complex man inclined to both integrity and to ignoring blatant rule breaking. We should not be too quick to exclusively apply the label of a person wronged, a scapegoat or an all-out cheater.

According to the much discussed SI article, Tressel  knew about a car and money received by star quarterback Ray Isaac while Tressel was head coach at Youngstown State. Today Isaac runs a coaching business in North Carolina and still calls Tressel a “surrogate dad.” He credits Tressel with teaching him important life lessons like never taking the path of least resistance.

Here we have two potentially contrary behaviors by Tressel. The first is willful ignorance of NCAA law breaking.  The other is of a nurturing parent, teaching life lessons.  Can both approaches exist within one mind? Cognitive dissonance certainly makes it possible. We could argue the duality of man makes it possible.

The SI article goes on to say that Tressel helped Isaac get out of traffic tickets if Isaac read a book and then wrote about its redeeming qualities.  Was Tressel helping out a kid in need, even if it meant a little rule breaking or was he trying to rationalize his rule breaking in his desire to help his star quarterback? The truth probably lies in how you perceive the human psyche (and whether or not you are a fan of Ohio State).

It’s 1994 All Over Again and I Don’t Feel Fine

When the baseball strike of 1994 hit I was absolutely positive it would not last.  I was a young teenager at the time and the idea of my favorite sport being taken away from me was unfathomable.  It wouldn’t happen.  It couldn’t happen. What ever collective bargaining was, it wasn’t going to take away the long standing game of baseball.  They’d been playing this game of baseball for over 100 years; the World Series had seen 93 fall classics.

I couldn’t comprehend Donald Fehr, a pale man with a terrible comb-over, talking about a salary cap.  I just wanted to watch my favorite game.  They couldn’t take it way.  They wouldn’t take it way.  On August 11th, 1994 they did.  It was incomprehensible.

When the player’s strike hit Tony Gwynn was hitting .394.  Matt Williams was on pace to break Roger Maris’ single season home run mark.

Smart Suff Goes Here

Hopefully it will not be full of gramer errors, and mispellings.