Baseball Prospectus released their final Prospectus Hit List for the season. Unfortunately, it is premium content and you have to pay to play in order to read it.
When they got through crunching the numbers the Marlins finished number 14 out of 30. Okay, fine. But when one examines the list a little closer you will notice, if you can see it, that the Braves finished number 8. Let me see if I get this right, the Marlins finished behind a team in the rankings they finished ahead of in the division? Not to mention the Fish won the head-to-head series.
I'm not exactly sure how the Hit List Factor is calculated. (I read how it was when they decided to move to it, and it was an improvement. But I have forgotten the exact details.) But there seems to be a bit of a flaw in the explanatory capabilities of the statistical model. Which is true of all statistical models, since it is impossible to model real life. All you can hope for is to gain some insight into the specific area you are interested in. If you are 70 percent accurate you have done a pretty decent job. Of course adjustments can be made to improve the accuracy but it will never be 100 percent.
Bottom line is this: In the real world the Marlins finished ahead of the Braves.