Talk to The Intelligentsia and they’ll tell you that the Yankees, Dodgers, Nationals, Astros and Indians are all going to make the playoffs. They’ll tell you about talent and pitching and offense and defense and – I don’t care. Talent does not necessarily equal success in sports.
All five of those teams will miss the playoffs, as I predicted.
It isn’t about the individual players. It is about the broader team concept. If the team concept is flawed enough, it doesn’t matter if you have the most talented team of all time – your team will struggle.
Examples abound in all four sports of highly talented teams, teams that were widely praised and favored by The Intelligentsia, that vastly underperformed at least according to The Intelligentsia’s expectations.
A football team is a one man army. It’s all about the Quarterback. If your Quarterback is a Legit Dude then your team has a chance to be a Legit Team. But if your Quarterback is a Whack Dude then your team has no chance to be a Legit Team. This is Basic Math.
Philip Rivers is a Whack Dude. His teams always have plenty of talent but his teams are always Whack Teams.
Matt Ryan is a Whack Dude. Just today the Atlanta Falcons signed him to a $150 million contract extension. LOL! Enjoy at least ten years of mediocrity, Falcons fans.
The Falcons had plenty of talent in 2016. They collapsed. That’s whack. Talent can only take you so far. Leadership Matters.
Matt Stafford is a Whack Dude. The Lions had plenty of talent in 2016. Then Aaron Rodgers woke up. Stafford heard Rodgers’s footsteps creeping up behind him and he slipped. WEAK!
The cream rises to the top.
The 2016 and 2017 Denver Broncos were beloved by The Intelligentsia. Both teams had a plethora of talent. Neither made the playoffs.
The 2016 Panthers, 2017 Cowboys, 2017 Seahawks, 2017 Giants, 2016 Cardinals, 2016 Vikings (LOL Sam Bradford – WHACK; I don’t care what the statistics say; the Vikings were 5-0 in 2016; then they went to Philly where Bradford used to play; they lost and Bradford’s face said it all; “deer-in-the-headlights” would be charitable) and the 2016 Bengals were all teams that were “supposed” to be good teams. All had plenty of talent. All missed the playoffs.
It isn’t about talent. Philip Rivers, Matt Ryan and Matt Stafford are all very talented quarterbacks. So are Kirk Cousins and Sam Bradford. But they are all Whack Dudes.
Joe Flacco is less talented than all of them. But he is a Legit Dude. That’s why he is a Super Bowl Champion and they aren’t. Again, Basic Math.
All of The Cool Kids love to laugh and throw things at Blake Bortles. But Blake Bortles is a Legit Dude. How do you know someone is a Legit Dude? When The Mob hates them as much as The Mob hates Blake Bortles. Pathetic kitty cats always scratch and claw upwards at The Big Dog.
Bortles is less talented than the Whack Dudes mentioned above. But have any of them ever won a playoff game at Heinz Field? Didn’t think so.
John Buccigross of ESPN said that Bortles was “not terrible” in the Jaguars’s win over the Steelers at Heinz Field in the playoffs a few months back. That says it all.
There is more to the game than talent.
How about the NBA?
The Washington Wizards had a lot of talent in the 2015-16 season. John Wall led the way as always. Bradley Beal and Marcin Gortat led a strong supporting cast. The players were pretty much the same as the two prior years when the Wizards made the playoffs. What was the difference?
Randy Wittman is a Whack Dude. One can only put up with a Whack Dude for so long. Scott Brooks is a Whack Dude too, but he is Less Whack than Randy Wittman. Basic Math.
The Wizards were a very talented team that season, but they missed the playoffs.
Coaching Matters.
The Indiana Pacers had a ton of talent in 2015-16 and in 2016-17. Paul George led the way.
George had suffered a gruesome knee injury in the summer of 2014. He made a full recovery and led his team again in the 2015-16 season.
Sports at its best is a giant metaphor. For what? For overcoming adversity and achieving great things.
Too bad the Pacers switched from grit and grind to pace and space. All the talent in the world couldn’t make up for that. The same thing happened to the Chicago Bulls.
System Matters.
The Pacers had a golden opportunity to win the NBA Championship in 2013-14. Then, Larry Bird traded Danny Granger. Granger was certainly not the most talented player on that team at that point in his career, but, he was an integral part of that team’s character and chemistry. They were a more talented team after the trade, having added Evan Turner. But the team collapsed. Yes, they made it to the Eastern Conference Finals again, but they lost, again, to Lebron. That year was their chance to win the Championship. They didn’t.
Chemistry Matters.
The University of Arizona basketball team had two of the most talented players in the NCAA last year, Deandre Ayton and Alonzo Trier. Trier used PEDs and Ayton was implicated by the FBI in a recruiting scandal involving the head coach, Sean Miller. Go figure, the team got bounced in the first round of The Big Dance.
Truth Matters.
How about hockey?
The Colorado Avalanche were far from the most talented team this past season in the NHL. Yet there they were in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, while the Edmonton Oilers, St. Louis Blues, Chicago Blackhawks, Montreal Canadiens, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Panthers, New York Islanders and New York Rangers all sat at home watching on TV.
Is that because the Avalanche hired an analytics guy prior to this past season? Or is it because they built last year’s team without the “progressive thought” that Tom Hunter of SB Nation’s Avalanche blog referenced in the post linked to above.
I don’t know much about hockey.
I do know a lot about baseball, though. So I know that talent does not necessarily equate to success.
The 2013 and 2015 Washington Nationals had plenty of talent. But the 2013 team had to deal with the carry-over from the Strasburg shutdown and the 2015 team had to deal with the carry-over from Matt Williams’s weak decision to take Jordan Zimmermann out of Game 2 of the 2014 NLDS against the San Francisco Giants with one out to go in a game that the Nationals ended up losing in 18 innings on a solo home run by Brandon Belt aka The Baby Giraffe.
Back to baseball where I’m comfortable. Good.
The point is is that those Nationals teams had plenty of talent. The 2013 and 2015 teams had basically the same players as the 2012 and 2014 teams, but both the 2013 and 2015 teams failed to make the playoffs while the 2012 and 2014 teams were both division winners. The Intelligentsia loved the Nationals heading into the 2013 and 2015 seasons. Both years they missed the playoffs.
The Intelligentsia loved the 2012 Phillies. No Postseason for them.
The Intelligentsia also loved the Boston Red Sox going into the 2014 season. They had just won the World Series the year before, so, why not, right?
Well, those Red Sox were a disaster. They sold at the trade deadline and they failed to make the Postseason. Their roster heading into 2014 was basically the same as the 2013 World Series Champion team. Yet one year to the next they had a wildly different outcome.
The Flow of Time Matters.
The Detroit Tigers had as talented a team as you’ll find in baseball the last three seasons. Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander, Victor Martinez, Michael Fulmer, Yoenis Cespedes, Ian Kinsler, Justin Upton, J.D. Martinez and Jordan Zimmermann were all there at times. Yet, the team failed to reach the Postseason each of the last three years.
The San Francisco Giants returned the bulk of the roster from their World Series teams in 2011, 2013 and 2015. They won the World Series in the even numbered years and they failed to make the playoffs in the odd numbered years. More or less the same roster year to year. Wildly different results year to year.
The New York Yankees made the playoffs as a Wild Card team in 2015. In 2016, they returned the bulk of the roster from the year before. The roster was arguably better in 2016. Yet, in 2016 the Yankees sold at the trade deadline, and failed to make the playoffs.
Baseball is a psychological game. Talent alone is not predictive. Yet every baseball writer in this country, except for me, all picked the same seven teams to make the playoffs this year.
The SABRmetrics consensus reached its peak this past offseason. The Yankees, Dodgers, Nationals, Indians and Astros will all miss the playoffs this season. What will that say about SABRmetrics? About analytics in general?
SABR Skeptic 