That's a catch-up mechanism, that's different than merely smoothing out outlier streaks. Though I think that the reason this feels necessary, isn't that people

That's a catch-up mechanism, that's different than merely smoothing out outlier streaks. Though I think that the reason this feels necessary, isn't that people are irrational and believe in streaks - it's that they used a poor random model in the first place. Maybe a spearman should simply never beat a battleship.