The mistaken impression that observed proportions mean the same thing irrespective of the sample size (that is, 10-6 has the same information in it about inherent quality as does 100-60, so they're "worth the same") is one of the fallacies described by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in their work on cognitive biases, for which Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 (Tversky would have shared it with him, but he was no longer alive). It is called the "insensitivity to sample size" bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insensitivity_to_sample_size), and is an example of the kinds of mistakes that come from the representative heuristic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representativeness_heuristic). The problem is that there is a lot more information about quality in 10 baseball games than there is in 1 football game, simply because the variability in the observed proportion of those games won is much higher for one game than it is for 10 games (in fact, about 3.2 times as much information, the square root of 10). The further away from .500 you get, the harder it is to have that high a winning percentage in baseball even if you have the same true chance of winning a game, simply because it is based on 10 times as many games. A way that you could actually try to quantify how much one game in the NFL is "worth" in MLB is as follows: Look at 8-8 or worse NFL teams and 81-81 or worse MLB teams and ask what the chances are that either make the playoffs under the current systems. The answer is obviously close to 0 for both, so in that sense the two records can be considered equivalent. We'll no longer consider any teams that are .500 or worse. Now look at 9-7 NFL teams and ask what the chances are that they make the playoffs under the current system, which goes back to 2002. The answer is about 35%. Find the number of wins in MLB that corresponds to a 35% chance of making the playoffs if you win that many or less. The current MLB system only goes back to 2012, so there isn't much data, but it appears to be about 87 wins (since 2012 30% of the teams with between 84 and 87 wins made the playoffs). In a very real sense, a 9-7 record is "equivalent" to an 87-75 record. Thus, for an "average" team, one extra win in the NFL (going from 8 to 9) is worth about 6 extra wins in MLB (going from 81 to 87) in terms of getting into the playoffs, so you could call it "equivalent" to a six-game winning streak in some sense, I guess. Now look at 10-6 NFL teams and find the chance that they make the playoffs; it's about 83%. Find the corresponding 80% probability point of making the playoffs in baseball; it would appear to be somewhere around 90 or 91 wins (it's hard to tell with so little data). In a very real sense, a 10-6 record is "equivalent" to a 91-71 record. Thus, for a team that was expected to win 9 games, an extra win in the NFL (going from 9 to 10) is "worth" about 3 or 4 wins in baseball (going from 87 to 91), in terms of your chances of making the playoffs. Now look at 11-5 (or better) NFL teams; every one of those teams save one (the 2008 Patriots, ha ha) made the playoffs. What number of wins has (virtually) guaranteed making the MLB playoffs under the current system? The answer is 92. In a very real sense, an 11-5 record is "equivalent" to a 92-70 record. Thus, for a team expected to win 10 games, one extra win (going from 10 to 11) is worth about the same as one extra win in baseball (going from 91 to 92). This analysis isn't really correct, of course, since an 11-5 record is likely to give you home field in the first round or even a bye in the NFL, while a 92-70 record has a very good chance of getting you into a one-game wild card game in MLB, so they're not really the same, but I hope it demonstrates that in no way is a 10-6 record "equivalent" to a 100-62 record.
It's not an over reaction, it's an under reaction. Great baseball teams lose a ton of games. Bad Baseball teams win a ton of games. You expect teams to both win and lose in baseball. You are actually conditioned to lose games even if you root for a great baseball team. Football doesn't have enough games to allow us to be comfortable losing games. We instinctively know that a 3 game losing streak is death and you're going to be dying for at least 3 weeks. It's like comparing Crack to a nice Cabernet.
I just had two beers, I’m now kind sure I’m completely smashed in football beers... I better call Uber
In baseball, most teams lose 60 games and win 60 games every season. It's what they do in the other 42 games that counts.
Were they football stadium PRICED beers? If so, they should be 40oz craft IPAs, so maybe an uber's not a bad call
but what I really want to know is, how long has it been in Hamster years? Seems like theyre always running on that wheel so....
