A-Rod, the playoffs, and small sample sizes

Critics of Alex Rodriguez took much enjoyment in pointing to his substandard postseason stats, noting that he hit just .159 in his last three postseason series prior to this year’s ALDS. However, as Jack Moore shows at FanGraphs writes, sometimes the sample size just isn’t big enough to conclude someone sucks in the postseason. At the same time, we must also acknowledge that one scorching hot series doesn’t mean someone’s got the monkey off their back and has transformed into a payoff god. I’m not going to bet against him, are you?