I think the excuse that the team sucked the last 3 months was legitimate. And had much more impact on the WC attendance than the start time/short notice.
Elias has done a great job of constructing a lot of this organization. He has not done a good job of building a complete roster. He has ignored too many important things…things that can be a detriment in October.
It’s like the Ravens. You can build a team that wins a lot of games in the regular season but you have to do a lot more than that to win in the postseason. This is also something the Yankees have learned for most of this century.