It should be pointed out that not a SINGLE sabermetrician has shown the "facts" in this post to be true. BPro used a similar concept called "secret sauce" that had many of these ideas in them, and it was routinely debunked years after it was published.
The A's are almost certainly the victim of variance, the likes of which apparently even Hacker News readers can't grasp. For them to have the record they do in the playoffs given their expected talent level is something like a 17% shot on chance alone.
Ever see something happen that was an 83% underdog? No?
"For them to have the record they do in the playoffs given their expected talent level is something like a 17% shot on chance alone."
Not an expert on the subject, but baseball doesn't have and explicit chance component, so please explain what you mean when you say "on chance".
I assume, embedded in your definition, will be statistics about the same teams playing each other or something. However, it seems like it would be hard to apply these statistics to refute someone who is saying both that "the A's are different" and "championship games are different".
For instance, if Michael Jordan wins 100 one-on-one games of basketball against me, I could come out an say "Yes, but if we played on the International Space Station, then I'd win. ISS games are different.". To refute that you'd need a body of evidence of basketball games on ISS. Let's say you have 5000 games of history on the ISS, where the players' success rates are almost identical to those on Earth's surface. I could still say "But I'm different. Everyone else tries to play ISS basketball like Earth basketball, but I have these cool tricks.". Controlling for both of those things seems to require having lots of data about me playing on the ISS.
None of that means the post to which you responded is right. But if the claims "the A's are different" and "the championships are different" both seem plausible; and if the A's record in championships is poor compared with the regular season; then you should dial back the confidence a bit.
The A's are almost certainly the victim of variance, the likes of which apparently even Hacker News readers can't grasp. For them to have the record they do in the playoffs given their expected talent level is something like a 17% shot on chance alone.
Ever see something happen that was an 83% underdog? No?