Why am I grounding into so many double plays during postseason gameplay?

[bigd51]

It's a trend I started to notice not long ago. For reference sake, according to Team Rankings, the league average for double plays per team was .90 in 2017.

Through 40 postseason games:

My GIDP total: 47 --- Avg. per game = 1.175
Opp. GIDP total: 26 --- Avg. per game = .65

As you can see, I'm averaging nearly twice as many GIDP's as my opponents during postseason gameplay. In fact, I'm seeing so many GIDP's that it's gotten to the point where I can correctly predict when I'm about to see a double play about 50% of the time before it happens.

I could probably say the same about regular season games during gameplay.

Through 40 regular season games:

My GIDP total: 38 --- Avg. per game = .95
Opp. GIDP total: 28 --- Avg. per game = .70

Though they're more in line w/ the real life average and not as egregious as the postseason totals, it's still a significant difference in the amount of GIDP's I'm getting compared to the CPU.

[BIG17EASY]

Because funny things happen in small samples. You're comparing your 40 games to approximately 2,430 games played in 2017. Trends that appear over very long stretches of time -- in this case, a full season -- are not always going to be readily apparent in tiny samples -- in this case, 1.6 percent of a full season.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

Because funny things happen in small samples. You're comparing your 40 games to approximately 2,430 games played in 2017. Trends that appear over very long stretches of time -- in this case, a full season -- are not always going to be readily apparent in tiny samples -- in this case, 1.6 percent of a full season.

Agreed.
And, without knowing anything about your team or your opponents, in 40 games it is possible that some specific skills on your team and/or your opponents teams in this small sample size made the numbers skew even more. In other words, did you possibly face a greater than average number of good groundball pitchers during this stretch and/or teams with very good dp combos up the middle? Or is your team possibly more prone to hitting ground balls and do you have several slow runners? I think small sample size is likely the main culprit but it would only take a few other small factors working in conjunction to make the numbers look more extreme within a small sample size.

[bigd51]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

Because funny things happen in small samples. You're comparing your 40 games to approximately 2,430 games played in 2017. Trends that appear over very long stretches of time -- in this case, a full season -- are not always going to be readily apparent in tiny samples -- in this case, 1.6 percent of a full season.

I know the whole small sample size deal, but this isn't about the regular season. I'm mostly talking about the 40 games I've played in the playoffs, hence why I said postseason in the title. I only included the 40 regular season games to compare the difference in playoff gameplay and regular season gameplay.

Again, I'm referring to the playoff totals I've tallied over 5 postseasons.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by bigd51

I know the whole small sample size deal, but this isn't about the regular season. I'm mostly talking about the 40 games I've played in the playoffs, hence why I said postseason in the title. I only included the 40 regular season games to compare the difference in playoff gameplay and regular season gameplay.

Again, I'm referring to the playoff totals I've tallied over 5 postseasons.

It's still small sample size. It doesn't matter if it's postseason or regular season. With such small samples, you're going to see results that vary widely.

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by bigd51

I know the whole small sample size deal, but this isn't about the regular season. I'm mostly talking about the 40 games I've played in the playoffs, hence why I said postseason in the title. I only included the 40 regular season games to compare the difference in playoff gameplay and regular season gameplay.

Again, I'm referring to the playoff totals I've tallied over 5 postseasons.

So, if I'm understanding correctly, your team looks to be (again, based upon a small sample size) more likely to hit into ground ball double plays than your opponents during the regular season.
But over the course of five postseasons that discrepancy is even much greater.
If that is correct, that makes perfect sense to me. You are going to be playing much better teams in the post-season and much better teams tend to have great defense up the middle and often pitchers who induce gb dp's. Post-season play does tend, IRL as in OOTP, to magnify small differences. My sense is that the real question is what can you do to improve your team's overall deficit in this area. Once that is accomplished, post-season numbers should stabilize.

[andyhdz]

And that's why no one ever considers WS rings when deciding if a player was great or not unlike basketball and football.

[UltimateAverageGuy]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

It's still small sample size. It doesn't matter if it's postseason or regular season. With such small samples, you're going to see results that vary widely.

You actually had to explain this, smh

[NoOne]

not only is it a small sample size, it's a different animal from the regular season.

level of competition is different. you only play against the top X-teams. 'league average' at some aspect in the playoffs translates to below average.

stratagies are different (like 4-man rotation etc)

more days off / rest

so, we can't even use what we are used to seeing nor the larger chunk of data that is the regular season over time. (time has it's own obstacles that interfere with relevance)

while it may be similar, it'd be unwise to assume it is the same. break-even points will all shift due to different dynamics of the postseason.