Quote:
Originally Posted by tschock
To put it another way: If a statistician's model is good at analyzing the past, then it should be reasonably good for predicting the future. Otherwise your model needs adjusting to consider other factors. That didn't seem to play out very well when 'the best team in baseball' this year didn't even get close to winning the World Series (as one example).
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At the end of the regular season, every statistical model worth its salt would have said that the Dodgers were the best team in baseball this season. They also would have given the Dodgers a mere 25% chance of winning the world series despite being the best team because there is a tremendous amount of short term luck involved in baseball. This doesn't happen in football, basketball, hockey, or soccer. The best teams in those sports win the championship far more often.