These are not inherently better offensive teams. That's the whole point. The 2002 A's were a good offensive team because they were better at evaluating offense

These are not inherently better offensive teams. That's the whole point. The 2002 A's were a good offensive team because they were better at evaluating offense than the rest of the league. The reason the A's didn't win the World Series is the same reason the Cardinals won the World Series in 2011 and 2006, but not 2004. It's the reason the Giants won it in 2010. The playoffs are a crapshoot. It has nothing to do with whether or not sabermetric analysis is valid for regular season games, but not for playoff games.