What Have We Learned?

In 2014 the "experts" expected to see the LA Dodgers win the World Series. Vegas odds were 4-1 at the start of the season. The Toronto Blue Jays looked unbeatable in April & May. By late August my buddy Mad Dog Russo wrote off the KC Royals & Pittsburgh Pirates from making the playoffs. As September started, everyone thought that Baltimore & Anaheim would meet in the ALCS to fight for the right to play the Dodgers in the World Series. All of these assumptions were dead wrong. Baseball has a stat for everything, but stats count for nothing in the long run. Stats give sabermetric folks something to scientifically predict results. But baseball isn't all science. Players slump & get hot throughout the course of a 6-month season. All that matters is getting hot at the right time of the year, a/k/a getting hot in October. We have 2 wild card teams as the last 2 franchises out of 30 still standing. So what do we know about baseball? First, teams win games, not stats. Second, it doesn't matter how you get into the playoffs, just get in. Then anything can happen.