Actually, I am on this site everyday

THEN READ MORE CAREFULLY.

I repeat. That was an insulting statement. It thoroughly missed the point everyone here has made about chemistry. AND YOU’RE STILL MISSING THE POINT.

You enjoy insulting the people around here?

Once again, since you seem to be rather slow picking this up:

Saying we don’t have the tools to adequately measure and quantify something is not the same as saying it doesn’t exist.

Teams overachieve and underachieve every season what do you think the reason for this is

There could be any number of reasons that don’t present themselves adequately to statistical analysis: luck, chemistry, injuries, aging effects on players that don’t always manifest as gradual improvements/declines, but are sometimes quite dramatic changes in performance, inadequacy of our statistical measurements, and so on.

The problem is we honestly don’t possess the tools to untangle all of this, on top of the fact that pure, dumb, craps table luck is a confounding element to our analysis- a .500 team is something like a 1-in-20 shot to win 90 games, and then all you need is a bit of luck to win some playoff series…

So, let’s put it this way: since you feel chemistry is a real element that needs to be part of analysis:

I think this site is great, but i always thought it missed the point on team chemistry. I realize it cant be measured or even traded for, but when it does come together it is very recognizable.

How would you “recognize” chemistry in a way that’s independent of a team’s win-loss record and playoff performance after the fact- in a way that tells you BEFORE the season “hey, these guys might have some”? Please note that we can project and evaluate player and team performance using statistical analysis, and do a decent job of it (statistical systems regularly beat writers/”experts” in predicting win-loss records over a season, for instance).

This is the problem- a lot of people use terms like “chemistry” as part of a confirmation bias to explain what happens in baseball (good teams must have chemistry, bad teams don’t). The problem is that without testable hypotheses (like, say, teams with higher OBPs score more runs) that we can confirm through data and observation, we’re not saying anything meaningful in an empirical sense when we say “yeah, that chemistry sure is important”, because we can’t untangle it from any other number of factors like luck… and why should the site authors write about things that basically boil down to “I have no idea how to evaluate this”, when there are lots of other areas to write about that CAN be evaluated, and it’s not like a couple of sabremetrically inclined bloggers would have insight into clubhouse chemistry, anyway?

I think the people making these arguments have never played team sports, and cant measure chemistry so it must not exist.

I played college hockey, and soccer all my life.

Good try though.

So with your theory every good team will go deep in the playoffs and maybe win the World Series?

No, and that’s not my theory. I was just refuting your specific assertion that the ’93 Phillies “didn’t have the best talent” and only got into the postseason because of “chemistry.” I’m not sure why you remember that team as being less than very, very good, because by lots of measures it was one of (if not the) best that year.

We have two contending theories of why the ’93 Phillies had a good run into the post-season. The way we choose between competing theories is to look at the supporting data. I just provided mine; I’m waiting to see yours.

What is the reason that some so called great teams with great players don’t make the playoffs?

Absolutely it’s often (not always) luck — not just injuries but also where the ball falls in a key situation. People love to think everything has a meaning, but some things are just luck.

So with your theory every good team will go deep in the playoffs and maybe win the World Series? What is the reason that some so called great teams with great players don’t make the playoffs? I think the people making these arguments have never played team sports, and cant measure chemistry so it must not exist. Teams overachieve and underachieve every season what do you think the reason for this is good or bad luck? Oh wait that cant be measured either so that can’t be correct. School the dumb jock who actually played sports and saw it firsthand.

I’m sure there were several other teams where every guy going to the plate or the mound had good feelings about his teammates, so why didn’t they end up going deep in the postseason? Perhaps because they didn’t have the talent. That ’93 Phillies may have been warm and happy, but much more importantly, it was good.