Why do the Braves lose in the postseason?

This post was transferred from my original blog

Well, that explanation is wrong. Take a look at the figures since the wildcard began:

Braves record against postseason teams in the regular season 1995-2003: 160-130 (0.552).

Braves post season record in the same period: 43-36 (0.544)

Sure, the Braves have a better record against teams that didn't make the postseason (0.625), but you'd expect them to have a better record against worse teams.

The interesting feature here is that the postseason record and the regulsr season record vs. postseason teams are essentially identical (eight points different is one game in 125).

Actually, the surprise for me was that the Braves post season record was nothing like as bad as I expected.