Post-season predictions certainly are a staple of pages. Every one loves them, it seems. Sportswriters enjoy them as, afterall, they are in the business of giving their investigation of up coming events. Sports media like them because fans gobble them up. Fans enjoy predictions because they supply can’t-miss reading enjoyment.
Think of it: have you ever known any sports enthusiast sports prediction a post-season forecast at a newspaper and quit hope in their group fortunes? If the writer picks the fan’s team, she or he receives validation of their hopes. If the writer does not pick the fan’s team, then it creates an”us against the whole world” feeling. You’ll find nothing that makes a fan feel more part of this team than sense like”everybody” lacks admiration for their team.
In a feeling, therefore, postseason predictions do not need to be wrong or right. Nevertheless, how often do the sports experts receive these predictions directly? The new Divisional Series in base ball offer a good opportunity to examine this. With 2-2 writers giving four predictions each, enough of a sample is available to form some conclusions about the truth of expert postseason predictions.
Out of these 8 8 predictions, 41 times each writer called the winner of this collection. The experts did better when predicting the Red Sox-Angels series, where 15 authors (68%) picked the winner. The Yankees-Indians show was predicted correctly by only 10 (45%), and also the Diamondbacks and Rockies were both under-appreciated, only 8 writers (36 percent ) went for every one of these. Simply take away the comparative success the writers had in forecasting the Red Sox victory, and also the experts selected the ideal team only 40 percent of this full time.
If we believe calling not just the winner of the series, but the variety of matches, the results are worse. Nearly every writer tried calling the number of games each series could survive, e.g.,”Yankees in 4″. Just one writer, Sean Devaney of The Sporting News, properly predicted this effect for any set. This might be because these divisional series were unusually short, with 3 sweeps and yet another series moving to four games. Writers are probably hesitant to predict sweeps, as well as in fact only five authors predicted a sweep in any sequence. Unfortunately for them, they picked the specific opposite of the actual results. Again, a random selection would have predicted the correct result more frequently than the experts.
So, what does this reveal? Do not put much faith in postseason predictions is one answer. There is no fantastic revelation, clearly, but it’s somewhat startling to see just how poorly wrong expert investigation can be. Sportswriters and analysts can also be readers and audiences, and a bit of groupthink may possibly install. Each of them viewed the Yankees lineup and late-season resurgence, and only 10 were prepared to buck the exact consensus. Much fewer gave the Rockies and Diamondbacks their thanks, again over-thinking that the manners that the Cubs and Phillies were still bound to win.
Many sports fans believe that the sports media is biased towards the East Coast, and such predictions can even bear that out. The only series where the range of correct predictions surpassed random opportunity was that the Red Sox-Angels series, won with an East Coast team. In every other show, the majority of writers chose the team located farther to the east, and also the club located farther west won.
Whatever the reasons, and there are probably several including ones not mentioned , the lesson is clear: sports pros don’t have any better idea than the others of us as to who will win at the postseason.