Oh, Those Baseball Postseason Records...

Joe Buck, as he is wont to do, as many baseball analysts are wont to do, will mention a guy like Bernie Williams and discuss his career postseason numbers--he's got 22 HR, which is a record in the playoffs. He will then turn right around and say, "But, due to the addition of the division series and LCS, has many more chances than guys many years ago did."

That's true. But when you talk about Bernie Williams, or John Smoltz, who has 14 wins in postseason, you are talking about guys who under the old rules would have actually been to more World Series in their careers (Yes, even Bernie's Yankees would have been to more). They both, being with the Yankees and Braves, teams that in the nineties always had the best record in their respective leagues, would have been able to put up huge numbers strictly through World Series play. People might be glad to know that the Yankees and Braves during that era had to face other teams to get to the World Series because there was a stretch under the old rules it would have been them every year.

I am not saying that these guys would have the same numbers, but I think they'd have comparable ones, the kind of stats that would at least challenge or pass those guys in the old days. It's obviously too complicated to get into on a broadcast, but no one thinks about it really. These guys just assume, well, there's more games nowadays, these guys couldn't possibly have put up the same numbers. Imagine all those LCS and DS that the Braves and even the Yankees have lost trying to get to the Series. You can substitute those games for actual World Series play if you just want to get down to sheer stats. I dunno. It's one of those observations that bug me on telecasts, because it's not thought out the whole way through, and it makes it sound like it's extremely wise when it's not.