This game takes no prisoners....

I just won a ridiculously lucky playoff series with an 81 win team that needed a tiebreaker to make the playoffs, taking out a 101 win team 3-1 in the first playoff round.

To offset the karma, I just finished a different season with a 92 win team that didn't even make the playoffs.

This game takes NO PRISONERS!

I still remember the 89 win team I had that missed the playoffs.
Normally that's not a huge deal, but it finished 4th in the division!

On the flip side, I've made it all the way to the finals with an 84 win team.

The beauty of RNG!

I'm sure everyone has these kind of stories. Here are two of mine:

First, in the 70's and 80's tourney, with 10 games to go. I am 4 games up on Hailedog with 10 games to play and the winner has the points to get in the Final 12 championship. The loser is out. I own the tie-breaker. I have '84 Blyleven and '84 Stieb pitching 3 times and '86 Clemens pitching 2 times. I go 2-8, losing the last two in head-to-head matchups with Hailedog, losing the division by 1 game with 86 wins. He wins and then wins the entire Final 12 championship league as well.

On the opposite end is a league where I go 14-6 in my last 20 and sweep the 1st place team in the last 3 games (with Bailes, Anderson and Deshaises pitching) to win by 1 game, with 82 wins. That team, of course, goes on to win the championship. Just a positive note for all who start bad, this team started the season 0-11.

Do any SOM players have any hair left after these games??

I go 2-8, losing the last two in head-to-head matchups with Hailedog, losing the division by 1 game with 86 wins. He wins and then wins the entire Final 12 championship league as well.

So now I know I can now blame you for my finals loss to Hailedog.

I'm sure everyone has these kind of stories. Here are two of mine:

On the opposite end is a league where I go 14-6 in my last 20 and sweep the 1st place team in the last 3 games (with Bailes, Anderson and Deshaises pitching) to win by 1 game, with 82 wins. That team, of course, goes on to win the championship. Just a positive note for all who start bad, this team started the season 0-11.

In all three instances where I have won championships, I've had a similar story. I've started off bad, but then I turn around and make it to the playoffs (winning the tiebreaker on some occasions). In some instances, it may be that the right roster move was made (like when I ended up picking up the '72 Steve Carlton for my first championship team), or else you figure out how to platoon your players to get the best use out of them.

While your team may have won only 82 games, it did have to go 82-69 (13 games over .500) in order to get there.