Was tired of reading lazy BS from some friends about the Braves lacking a "playoff mentality" etc., so did a little research on what might have caused the Braves recent playoff struggles. (As shown here, and despite the narrative, Braves were very solid in the playoffs pre 2002, just ran into some bad luck/good teams in the World Series). Thought I would share here. (And, I know CYA voting is not the best "stat" to use, but it was the quickest and serves to illustrate my point).
Prior to 2002, we were actually pretty solid, 12-9 in playoff series, but an unfortunate 1-4 in the World Series. (When you think about how close some of those series were, easily could have been 3-2). Since, then, we are 0-6 (Personally, I dont count the one game playoff loss to the Cards as a loss).
As I was watching our game, and then the Game 5s of the Cards and Tigers series, I admired just how good Verlander and Wainwright were, which obviously followed admiring/being frustrated by Kershaw against us. Made me thing that maybe it was our lack of GREAT pitching (plenty of good pitchers) since 2001 had been our main hindrance in the playoffs. As I am wont to do, thought I would check some stats, and what I found was truly incredible.
From 1991-2001 (the years we were 12-9 in the playoffs with 5 World Series appearances) we had:
6 Cy Young Winners
3 guys who finished second in the voting
5 guys who finished 3rd
2 guys who finished 4th
1 who finished 5th
In other words, in that 11 year stretch, 31% of the guys who got votes in the top 5 of the Cy Young Voting were Braves starting pitchers.
Since In the 11 years since then, we have had 3 starters who finished in the top 5, with all three finishing fourth (Huddy, Vazquez, and RUSS ORTIZ!). Kimbrel and Smoltz both finished in the top 5 as relievers.
So, after 31% in the 11 year stretch of relative playoff success, We are at 5% in the top 5 in the 11 year stretch of playoff futility, and ZERO percent in the top three!