The surprising because unlikely World Series teams:

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The first order Pythagorean Winning percentage: .570.

The math presented above is composed of the Pirates record against those likely World Series teams. Oh, and the Pythagorean Expectations Record includes the Verlander games in which the Pirates scored 2 runs and gave up 9. Those results may be considered statistical outliers and, if they are indeed such, surely depress the quality of play captured by the Pythagorean Expectation number.

I often criticize "playoffs are a crapshoot" claims when they appear. I do this because they are often used to justify desperate trades which reflect a very short time horizon and an unrealistic assessment of the current team. But the World Series we are likely to have would have made the Pirates 2012 season look very good if the team hadn't wholly collapsed after the Trade Deadline.

The 2012 team was not as good as it looked during its run to the sun and it was never as bad as it looked when it fell into the bottomless pit.

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