Gäste Forum » overwhelming teams together.To account for

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- Mackenzie Hughes was the third player to have a putt to win the RSM Classic on Sunday. He missed, and four players will have to return in the morning to finish the playoff.The final PGA Tour event of the year had to go one more day when a sudden-death playoff that began with five players lasted only two holes before it was too dark to continue at Sea Island.The odd man out was Billy Horschel, the highest-ranked player of the group. Horschel missed his birdie attempt by a fraction of an inch on the 18th hole in the playoff. Then he missed a routine, 2-foot putt to stay in the game.MacKenzie, Blayne Barber, Camilo Villegas and Henrik Norlander had to return Monday morning. The winner gets in the Masters. Bart Starr Super Bowl Jersey . "Trying to breathe," he said with a grin. Bernier stopped 42 of 43 shots on Monday night, including all 22 in a hectic middle frame, his heroic performance propelling the Leafs toward an undue point in their final game before the Christmas break. Jimmy Graham Super Bowl Jersey . Luis Suarezs double powered Liverpool to a 4-0 victory over Fulham, and Southampton easily overcame Hull 4-1 to continue the south coast clubs impressive start to the season. Liverpool and Southampton sent Chelsea down to fourth place as the west London club was held to 2-2 at home. http://www.packersonlineteamstore.com/mason-crosby-youth-jersey.html . In Europe, top teams seem to be largely happy with their squads after spending nearly $1 billion in the off-season. And although English league clubs are unlikely to splash cash in January, Arsenal and Chelsea could be tempted to strengthen their squads with new strikers. Dean Lowry Super Bowl Jersey . The FA rejected Wilsheres appeal that the length of his punishment was "clearly excessive" and said Thursday his suspension begins with immediate effect. He will miss league matches against Chelsea on Monday and West Ham on Dec. Aaron Jones Super Bowl Jersey . According to a report from the Vancouver Province, the Lions are expected to replace former DC Rich Stubler with defensive backs coach Mark Washington. For the younger generations of Chicago Cubs fans, reaching the postseason isnt quite the novelty it was for the generations before them. For all the years that have been tacked on to the teams epochal championship drought, the Cubs have more or less been steady crashers of the playoff party in recent years.Between the Cubs most recent World Series appearance in 1945 and their 1984 NL East title, they drew a big, fat goose egg when it came to playoff baseball. Thats why that 1984 team looms so large in the collective memory of North Siders and why players such as Rick Sutcliffe and Ryne Sandburg are now folk heroes.This season will mark the Cubs seventh playoff appearance since 1984. Its not the Yankees or Red Sox or Cardinals or Braves, but once every four or five years isnt bad. Still, all living generations of Cubs faithful are united by the title drought -- and they all hope this years postseason entrant will be different.Is it different? Of course, that remains to be seen. What we know now is that as a regular-season team, this Cubs bunch was good. As it turns out, with a couple turns of the statistical screw, they were very special indeed.As we wrote the other day, the Cubs have sported a run differential that,?translated to wins via the Pythagorean formula, marks them as a 108-win team. Their differential ranks in the top 25 all time in the modern era (since 1901). Thats 2,452 team seasons. However, the Cubs is only the fifth-best run differential (per 162 games) in franchise history. Four pre-1910 Cubs teams did better, including the only two Cubs teams to win the World Series and the 1906 team that established the big leeague record with 116 wins.dddddddddddd.If we are to compare the postseason worthiness of the Cubs teams that advanced past the regular season, we must do a couple things. What were trying to do is estimate how strong each team was compared to the league it was in. To a significant extent, run differential does this.The problem comes when trying to compare teams over different seasons and eras. Baseball was very different a century or so ago, especially in the decades before Jackie Robinson came along. Not only was the talent pool less than what it should have been, but also, in the pre-draft era, the talent major league teams allowed in was not distributed equitably. Those early-20th century Cubs teams might well have been the best of their day, but there was a reason they clustered so many overwhelming teams together.To account for this, we can look at the distribution of wins within each season and adjust that to be era-neutral. After we apply that adjustment to run differential, we should be able to better compare teams from different years. The three years with the widest distribution of run differential were 1909, 1906 and 1942, the year so many big leaguers entered into military service for World War II. The smallest distributions, which in theory are our years of greatest parity, were 1984, 1959 and 1986. This season ranks 89th of 116, so we are very much in an era of parity.Now we can rank the Cubs postseason teams. In case youre skimming, be aware that there is a little surprise at the end. ' ' '