When we last saw our heroes they were dangling on a cardboard precipice, contemplating a litany of photos which involved risqué lobster dinners.  Oh wait, wrong channel!  Last time we took a look the attributes of playoff bound teams here in the City of Kingston softball league (Kingston, NY).  We found that since a little more than half of teams qualify for the playoffs, teams simply have to be slightly above average offensively or defensively to be a playoff contender.  We also discovered the obvious importance of run differential.  But making the playoffs isn’t everything; one team each year will attain the highest reward – the prestige and gratification that comes with being called a champion.  I’m sure you’re all teetering on the edge of your seats waiting to find out just what it takes to win the big one.

Conventional logic would say that the better team should win a playoff series, especially in a best-of-three format.  However, the team with the better regular season record only won 54% of playoff series.  What if we use our “run differential” findings from the previous article?  Teams with the better regular season run differential advance at a 60% rate.  The table below shows the win percentage for teams that were better in each respective category:

This info shows us that teams that are far above average on either offense or defense are more successful than teams with a balanced attack.  The unbalanced teams likely overwhelm their more balanced opponents.  In fact, 87% of teams who won a playoff series were at least 10% above the league average defensively.  On average, teams who won a playoff series were 22% above average defensively.  That’s a huge number.  So in other words, if the league average was 11 runs per game, the average playoff winner only gave up 8.6 runs per game.  And some winners were close to 50% above average defensively!

What playoff teams advance at the highest rate?  Great offensive teams do well, but the teams that excel are the best defensive teams.  If you, like Nigel McGuinness, are “in it to win it”, come armed with a top notch defense or else you may miss your shot at history.