All the work that the North Pole elves put into making toys 364 days per year is rendered meaningless if Santa Claus has sleigh problems on Christmas Eve.
Professional sports took another major step in the direction of that lopsided equation for evaluating success — when failure in one highly pressurized situation outweighs all else — this weekend when the NHL’s Rangers fired head coach Gerard Gallant and the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks fired head coach Mike Budenholzer.
The subtext to both moves was clear: The regular season doesn’t matter except as a way for franchises to make money and earn a lottery ticket into the championship-or-bust tournaments.
Warning to the Knicks’ Tom Thibodeau and other head coaches still alive in both sports’ playoffs: Ignore the cliché that an 82-game season is a marathon and not a sprint. Only Mile 26 really matters and there is no room for a bad night or the bad luck of facing a hot goaltender.
Gallant’s .662 winning percentage is the best in franchise history among head coaches who lasted at least 100 games.
His first season ended two wins shy of reaching the Stanley Cup Finals — losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning dynasty — and his second ended with a first-round playoff exit at the hands of the higher-seeded and favored Devils in Game 7.
The Rangers’ 110- and 107-point regular seasons were tops most in back-to-back years since 1970-71 and 1971-72.
If that résumé doesn’t buy a head coach Year 3, what does? A championship?
You can almost hear Budenholzer scoffing.
When the Bucks became just the sixth No. 1 seed to lose a No. 8 in the history of the first round of the NBA playoffs last month, it wasn’t further proof of some narrative that Budenholzer can’t win the big game. It actually just showed that the Miami Heat — led by Jimmy Butler, one of the great playoff performers of this generation — were under-seeded.
In July 2021, Budenholzer led the Bucks to their first championship in 50 years by winning a road Game 7 against the super-powered Nets and four straight games to overcome a 2-0 series hole against the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Finals.
After arriving in 2018, Budenholzer won eight playoff series — the same number that the Bucks won from the 1983-84 through 2017-18 seasons combined.
If that track record doesn’t buy a head coach a third year post-championship, what does? Consistently out-maneuvering your bench counterpart?
No one plays in-game chess better than Mets manager Buck Showalter. But there were calls to WFAN this week suggesting that Showalter’s end should be near even though he has a .599 winning percentage — the best in franchise history over Davey Johnson (.588) — less than 200 games into his Mets’ tenure.
Every complaint about Showalter being too loyal to the slumping hitters Daniel Vogelbach and Mark Canha is really just masked frustration that the Mets were in first place for 176 days last season but didn’t win the division because of a September sweep by the Braves followed by a Game 3 home elimination loss to the San Diego Padres in the 2022 Wild Card Series.
They were 1-5 in the six biggest games … so nothing else should matter, some would reason.
Put the NFL aside because it’s 17-game regular-season format and one-game playoffs still place an emphasis on regular-season success — all four teams in the NFC South were separated by one game in the standings last season, for example.
The Budenholzer and Gallant firings and hot seat occupied by Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts (.631 winning percentage, seven division titles and three National League Pennants and a World Series title in eight years), however, continue mixed messages sent by NBA, NHL and MLB owners.
In the case of the NBA, let’s approve rules that discourage resting players so that the regular season is not de-valued … but then fire coaches entirely based on playoff performance, even if the Bucks have to play two games without two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo.
In the NHL, let’s change the playoff format to increase the frequency of rivalry series in the playoffs … and then overreact because the Rangers losing to the Devils is more painful than dropping a Game 7 to, say, the Florida Panthers.
And in baseball, let’s expand the playoffs and make it more difficult for the best teams to survive … and then hold managers accountable for not carrying over regular-season success in the playoffs.
In the first year of MLB’s expanded 12-team playoff, the worse-seeded team won six of 11 series. The “advantage” of a bye for regular-season success looked more like the disadvantage for a cold team facing a hot one when the National League’s top two teams lost their first series.
For every coaching change made by a winning team that looked like the magic button — Joe Torre replacing Showalter with the Yankees or Nick Nurse replacing fired NBA Coach of the Year Dwayne Casey with the Toronto Raptors — there is a be-careful-what-you-wish for tale like the Vancouver Canucks’ irrelevance since firing Alain Vigneault or the Nets’ karmic punishment for firing Byron Scott after back-to-back NBA Finals appearances.
So, what’s next?
If Butler continues to stay hot tonight in Game 4 and eventually knocks out the favored Knicks, does Thibodeau need to worry about his job security despite leading the franchise out of a decade (or longer) of irrelevance?
Should the Boston Bruins fire Jim Montgomery this week because the winningest season in NHL history ended with a first-round playoff exit?
Will World Series winner Brian Snitker be in jeopardy if the Atlanta Braves don’t advance for a second straight postseason?
Or should you watch a movie with your spouse instead of your favorite team’s next regular-season game? Just catch them in the playoffs when the games actually matter.
It’s all starting to sound as unbelievable as flying reindeer.
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When Gerrit Cole started the bottom of the fifth inning Sunday by striking out Christian Bethancourt, the Yankees had a 97-percent win probability, according to Baseball Savant. Makes sense for a 6-0 lead with an ace who had not allowed a home run in 51 innings this season on the mound and only 14 outs to go.
Final score: Rays 8, Yankees 7.
Here’s the analytical autopsy of a meltdown that is the worst Yankees’ loss of the season:
95 percent win probability after Jose Siri’s home run makes it 6-1.
88 percent after Gleyber Torres’ run-scoring throwing error makes it 6-2.
93 percent after Cole strikes out Brandon Lowe to end the fifth and preserve a 6-2 lead.
87 percent after Harold Ramirez’s leadoff double in the bottom of the sixth.
78 percent after Isaac Paredes’ RBI double makes it 6-3.
73 percent after Manuel Margot walks to bring the tying run to the plate with no outs.
43 percent after Bethancourt’s three-run home run ties the score at 6-6.
27 percent after Siri scores from second base on a groundout to pitcher Jimmy Cordero to give the Rays a 7-6 lead during the five-run sixth.
48 percent after Harrison Bader scores the tying run on Jose Trevino’s groundout in the seventh.
50 percent after the Rays strike out to end the seventh, eighth and ninth innings.
51 percent after Anthony Volpe’s flyout advances Aaron Hicks to third with one out in the top of the 10th.
19 percent after Anthony Rizzo strikes out to end the top of the 10th.
30 percent after Ramirez flies out for the first out of the bottom of the 10th.
0 percent after Parades’ walk-off single.
So, the last-place Yankees and first-place Rays played three games in Tampa. Each was decided by one run.
But the Rays won two of the three, so there’s no comfort in the small gap between the teams. The real margin that matters is the Rays’ 10-game lead over the Yankees in the American League East Division standings.
Forget the baseball adage about trying to win a series. If ever there was a must-sweep in May, it starts tonight in the Bronx when the Athletics (8-27) bring their no-name $59 million payroll into Yankee Stadium for three games before a series rematch with the Rays.
For most participants in an NFL rookie minicamp, it’s the intersection of a dream fulfilled and a dead end.
Players invited for a tryout accounted for 40 of the 61 bodies in Jets rookie minicamp and 52 of the 68 in Giants rookie minicamp this past weekend.
Other than a handful of unsigned veterans trying out at each camp, these players are fresh out of mostly FBS college programs but just went undrafted and then were passed over a second time in the wave of post-draft free-agent signings (14 by the Jets and nine by the Giants).
In the majority of cases, these two unpaid practices will be a tryout player’s only time spent in the NFL before moving on to a secondary professional football league or settling into a post-football career.
Yes, he made it to the NFL in a technical sense, but to get to playing in a game he would have to be signed to the 90-man roster, survive the post-training camp cut to 53 and then be one of the active 46 players during a regular-season game.
“You’ve got a tremendous amount of empathy for these guys that come out here and are doing everything they’re asked to do,” Giants head coach Brian Daboll said, “and there’s only so many spots on an NFL roster.”
Defensive lineman Ryder Anderson joined the Giants on a tryout basis last spring and made it all the way to seven games played and two starts as a rookie.
It’s that one in however many,” Daboll said, “so it’s hard to do, no question about it.”
Like Daboll, Jets head coach Robert Saleh wasn’t even invited to a rookie minicamp after playing in college.
“I never got to put on a helmet, so just the idea that for at least three days a lot of guys are living and fulfilling their dream with regards to being an NFL player [is something to remember],” Saleh said. “It’s never easy because you know a lot of guys are probably never going to be able to touch a field, but the fact that they are out there working their tails off and giving themselves a shot is pretty cool.”
How does a player do the impossible and get noticed in the crowd?
“There’s just something that stands out. We already have a really good idea based on the film,” Saleh said. “A lot of guys are here because of the evaluations that our scouting department puts in so much work.”
Saleh was part of one of the all-time success stories: As an assistant coach with the Seahawks in 2013, he called defensive lineman Benson Mayowa and offered him $1,000 to sign as an undrafted free agent. But, when that money went elsewhere, Saleh convinced Mayowa to come to minicamp anyway for a tryout.
Mayowa made the roster for the eventual Super Bowl champions and he still is in the league 10 years later, with $17 million career earnings, according to spotrac.com.