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Post being replied to

Your objection is fair by KeoughCharles05

However, your attempt to define it begs the question ("in a playoff system"). Of course, the point of this whole endeavor is to determine what system to use, so why should we begin from the premise of "in a playoff system"? Playoffs are great at determining a playoff champion. If all you want to do is determine who won the playoff, the playoff is a great vehicle for that.

My objective is broader than that -- it is to crown as champion the team with the best performance over the course of the entire season.

In many regards, this is subjective. At the end of a regular season, reasonable people could differ as to which team's performance was best. But I dare say that the bounds of reasonable disagreement have extended no further than to five or six teams at most, and frequently fewer than that. Among those teams, a playoff is a reasonable method (indeed, it might be the most reasonable method) by which to settle that legitimate dispute.

But if we're trying to crown as champion the team with the best performance over the course of the entire season by means of a single elimination tournament, then all the teams in that tournament should have enough doubt as to their relative performance that the outcome of a head to head matchup should resolve the question. If a head to head matchup would not resolve that question in favor of the victor, then such a team shouldn't be included in the playoff. A 12 team playoff will almost certainly involve any number of teams that would cause this question to be answered in the affirmative.

I don't think a team has anything resembling an objective "quality." But there are objective performance results, even if our ways of measuring them in comparable formats leave something yet to be desired.