Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

We just finished a 24 team league last night... There were 3 teams which ended up the regular season with more than 100 wins... #1 seed with 105 wins got swept in the quarter-finals in 3 by # 8 seed that had won a mere 87... # 3 seed with 102 wins also got the boot in the quarter-finals in 4 games... # 2 seed with 104 wins got eliminated by # 8 seed in 5 in the semi-finals... finally # 8 seed beat me in the finals in 5 last night... Hal loves underdogs... lol... and like it or not... the CURSE is alive and well... as Stevie Wonder would sing "Very superstitious... Superstition everywhere..."... lol...

I get paranoid about that too. But when I started looking it more closely for my 100 win teams (or 98 and 99)most of the time I didnt have one-sided records against play-off teams. I mean, one just assumes that you should crush that 87-75 team but then it turns out that you split (or close to that)during the season. So it really isnt much of an upset, right? But if the head-to-head records were lopsided during the season then yeah that sucks.

I looked at all my completed ATG 8 and 9 teams. I had 60 teams with 100+ wins, of them 26 won rings. The a priori odds would indicate an expected value of 15 wins. So without getting into convoluted mathematical gyrations. one would expect a 100 win team to perform similarly to mine. Point is, with my sample of of teams there doesn't appear to be any hint of a 100 win curse. I suspect that this belief arose just from small samples of teams and people expecting their 100 win teams to handily win the playoffs and then selectively remembering their dashed hopes.

Probably something to Bruce's inference about selective memory.

I am missing some teams with the username transition, but in a quick scan I have only found six 100 win teams and all lost in the semis.
It doesn't particularly bother me, except this one did feel inexplicable:

https://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/442293

107 wins at 80M...and got swept in the semis by a team with a 72M payroll and 81-81 record. And it wasn't even close--outscored 32-16. That one stung, I will admit. Not meant to disparage the manager on the other side of this. The opposing manager is a good one and was modest--apologetic even--but hey that's the game and no need for saying sorry like in tennis for a net court point.

But I am never one to presuppose anything based on the regular season. It is an unbalanced schedule and that makes a big difference so I would never discount a team with a worse record because that's why we play the playoffs.

So it is tough chaberlal, but maybe aim to be that wildcard team that takes it all when everyone counts you out.

There is no curse if you're in a 6-team winner-take-all league.

Let me be so cursed!

Give me 100 win teams, oh HAL! I will accept quick boots from the playoffs!

By the looks of your insane winning %, I think you are suitably cursed as requested

supertyphoon wrote:There is no curse if you're in a 6-team winner-take-all league.

Don't you mean ... Winner take one (credit)?