No, not always. Look at 2006. The Cardinals and Tigers were both very cold to finish the season. St. Louis lost 9 of their last 12 and 14 of their last 22, nearly blowing a big lead to the Astros. Then they went on to win it all. The Tigers limped into the playoffs. They only won 19 of their last 50 games and lost their last 5 games to fall from first in the division to the Wild Card, then they won the pennant defeating the much hotter Yankees and A's.

You have to be consistenly good to get into the playoffs, then get on a roll once they start.

Obviously, you'd rather be on a hot streak heading into the post season, than not, but if had not been for a two out, ninth inning hit by Tony Gwynn, Jr against the Padres, the Rockies hot streak would have been meaningless.

Really solid answer. Nice work. Report It

Yes.

And it has shown the last couple years.

No...Baseball is always about the hot teams and pitching.

Go Roclkies You bet

i think there should be two more wildcard teams. just like football.

Having a team that won their division start the playoffs on the road isnt very fair.

Not to mention, after 162 games, what is the advantage of having games 1 4 and 5 at home?

What is happening with the rockies is cool and all, but i cant see the world series being very competitive this year.

There is really no difference between winning a division or going as a wild card. The AL wild card Yankees had the same record as the Angels and the NL wild card Rockies was tied for the best record in the NL. The wild card entries were just as consistently good as the division winners. Since "consistently" good applies to all playoff teams the only conclusion we can all come to is that the team that gets hot in the playoffs is going to be the winner.

Good question...............and being hot obviously does matter - however, the Rockies were only .5 (1/2) games back in their division.

Yes, without a doubt.

The team that wins the World Series isn't always the "best" team, but the one that plays the best during the month of October. It's almost unfair to crown a champ for a few weeks of hot play at the expense of a 162-game division winner, but such is the nature of playoffs.

Well...

Seeing that the Yankees got their azzes handed to them by my Indians,

NOPE!

That what this time you year is all about!

They discussed this on Rome is Burning not that long ago and it was very close to a 50-50 wash of the team finishing off the season stronger winning the series. So it really was not an advantage going into post season.

good point

Yes, but you could make the same argument for playoffs. If you wanted to base who wins on consistency, there would be no playoffs. The best team doesn't always win.

Every team in the playoff had a streak at one point or another in the season. The wild card teams have to be good to even be in consideration. Also, as is the case with the NL West, almost all of those teams had better records than the other teams in the NL. I think the wild card is good because it adds excitement to the end of the season.

Absolutely. But the Rockies are BOTH hot and good. They finished only a half game back of the DBacks.