On October 27, 2011, the Texas Rangers were one strike away from their first World Series championship. They carried an impressive resume to that point: a franchise-leading 96 wins, their second consecutive division title in 12 seasons, and a six-game showdown against Detroit that culminated in a 15-5 finale for the league title.
Anyone glued to his TV last autumn knows how this story ends. David Freese ripped a triple off Neftali Feliz and the Cardinals shifted both the momentum and the result of the Series.
On September 27, 2012, the Texas Rangers are three games away from taking the AL West again. This year will mark their third succedent run at a postseason slot, an unprecedented event in club history. While it’s entirely possible that the Rangers could choke in yet another playoff push, they wouldn’t be the first to do so. In fact, nine MLB teams have clinched their division in 3+ consecutive seasons without locking down a World Series title:
Atlanta Braves, 1991-1993, 1996-2005
New York Yankees, 2001-2006
Cleveland Indians, 1995-1999
Philadelphia Phillies, 1976-1978, 2009-2011
Kansas City Royals, 1976-1978
Pittsburgh Pirates, 1990-1992
Houston Astros, 1997-1999
Minnesota Twins, 2002-2004
Los Angeles Angels, 2007-2009
During this 35-year span, the teams completed 340 playoff games out of a potential 679. Four teams—Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, and Cleveland—qualified for the World Series, but the Braves were the only ones to fall short in back-to-back seasons (1991-1992).
Less rare are the teams who froze in the Championship Series, or worse, barely toed the starting line in the Division Series. The Royals, Astros, and Pirates all failed to advance past the first round of playoff games, with Houston seeing just 11 of a possible 51 games, and Kansas City and Pittsburgh posting their respective losses in a pre-NLDS era. Only the Angels managed to improve their streak with each attempt, reaching the ALDS in 2007-2008 and the ALCS in 2009.
While it’s unusual for a team to suffer for very long in the postseason, these droughts overlapped from the get-go. Twelve times, one division champion from each league faltered in the playoffs in the same year. From 1991-1992, the Braves and Pirates squared off in the NLCS, with both match-ups resulting in a Game 7 heartbreaker for Pittsburgh. A decade later, the Yankees and Twins met in back-to-back ALDS. Sporting an identical 101-61 record in both seasons, the Yankees went 4-1 in each series, putting up three straight wins after surrendering the series opener to the Twins.
The unluckiest team by nearly a decade is the Atlanta Braves, who watched ten consecutive seasons roll by without winning a single Fall Classic. They made two bids for the title in 1996 and 1999, the first a six-game wrestling match against the New York Yankees, and the second a rematch and clean sweep by New York. In the latter half of their quest for a World Series trophy, the Braves fell in the NLDS five times, pushing the series to five games from 2002-2004 and finding themselves unable to muster more than a single run in each game—save for the 2004 ALDS, when they surrendered to a 12-3 whipping by the Astros.
Since their playoff streaks concluded, only two of nine teams have clinched a World Series championship. Most successful were the Yankees, who needed just three years to make their comeback in the 2009 Series, while the Royals took seven years to bounce back to postseason success. Of the six teams who are still vying for another World Series berth, the Astros remain the only franchise without a championship to their name.
Take heart, Rangers fans. Your team may have ill luck in the playoffs, but the streak is bound to end eventually. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go finish watching the 72-83 Mariners spoil the Angels’ chances of grabbing that second wild card.
Note: As graciously pointed out by John, the previously listed 2000-2002 Cardinals did not clinch the NL Central title in 2001. They tied the Astros with a record of 93-69, and were booted to a wild card spot due to Houston’s superior head-to-head record.
This is pretty nitpicky, but the Cardinals didn’t technically win the 2001 NL Central. They tied the Astros (for best record in the league) but got the wild card.
That would really stink if it happened today with the Wild Card playoff.
Ah, thanks for catching that. I’ll fix it when I get a chance.
I don’t know that I’d call the Rangers’ postseason luck “ill.” Last year, was there any reason to believe they were really the best team in the AL? I don’t think there was. And the prior season, they had the worst record of any AL playoff team… so couldn’t one actually argue that their postseason luck has been good?
As far as reaching/surviving the postseason goes, yes, their luck has been extraordinary. Ill luck only refers to their inability to clinch a title.
Regarding the Rangers, is failing to win the World Series after winning a division crown for three straight years the new definition of choking? What about a team that in the past made the postseason for three straight years, but didn’t win their division, but also didn’t win the World Series? Are they choking less?
With the ever increasing number of rounds and teams in the playoffs, the odds of the best team winning the World Series really aren’t all that high. We saw that last year. The Wild Card era has been good financially for the game, but something was sacrificed in the process. If the Rangers win their division again but fail to take home the World Series trophy, something that is quite likely, I won’t view them as chokers.
Mike, I agree with you. As I’m sure we’ll see with the two extra wild cards in play this year, the best team doesn’t always win in the postseason. I’m more inclined to think that the true “winners” of a season are determined in the 162 games they play before October begins.
In general, no, I wouldn’t consider making the playoffs and failing to clinch a title “choking.” With regard to this piece, however, the only barometer of success I was using was a World Series win for division winners.
I understood. The word “choke” gets a bit overused, so I was taking offense for Ranger fans out there!
Now if you want to talk about Ron Washington’s bad managing, which totally did cost the Rangers the World Series last year… 🙂
Two teams towards the top of the list of also-rans really give lie to the old adage that pitching is what wins in the post-season. Say what you like about Billy Beane but he was spot on when he said that luck plays a huge part in who wins a 5 or 7 game series. Still, if I were to put down a bet on who’s going to win it all this year my money would be on the Rangers.
Unless my Tigers make it of course in which case I’m going with my heart and not my head- and keeping it to an amount I can afford to lose.
Luck does have a lot to do with it. I was pulling for the Rangers in 2011, but with my Giants back in the hunt this year, can’t say the same if they make it to the World Series a third time.
Congrats on your Tigers’ 1.5 game lead over the White Sox, by the way. I just noticed the standings this year and was happy to see Chicago had been sent down to second place.
Hartvig:
Bill James—naturally—might have been the first to point out the at-best middling performance of top pitching staffs in the WS, notably the 1954 Indians, but several others, such as the Orioles’ four 20-game winning staff in 1971. Atlanta’s playoff record in the last twenty years is a slightly different situation, but it supports the notion that good pitching is for the long haul, not necessarily the short series. I disagree with the idea that “luck” is the major factor in short series, though. Quite often a player simply gets hot at the right time. Example: the 1954 Series is remembered now for the Cleveland fold-up and Mays’s stupendous catch. At the time, though, the major story was Dusty Rhodes, the Giant’s back-up outfielder and PH, who came off a phenomenal year to make several big hits in the Series. Other factors: in a close series, who wants the final game more; injuries; pitching match-ups, a mixture of these and other things.
NSB: We seem to have differing definitions of “luck”. You seem to be saying that “a player getting hot at the right time” is something other than “luck”, whereas I would categorize it as a classic example of luck.
The bottom line is, even the worst team in the majors will beat the best team in the majors once in every four games or so. No team is good enough and no team is bad enough, that every game between them will come out the same way. Thank goodness, otherwise baseball would be pretty boring. But that does mean that every once in a while the bad team will even beat the better team three games out of five, or four out of seven (the longer the series, the less likely the bad team will win enough to take the series). That’s just the nature of how things happen in an uncertain world.
To me, the always present chance that the lesser player or the lesser team will triumph in any particular moment or game is very definition of the “luck” element in baseball. On important corallary of that luck element is that in a short series of games, as compared to a long series of games, the chances are higher that a lesser team will win a majority of the games over the better team. That the lesser team happens to win one short series doesn’t change the fact that it is still the lesser team (which I define as the team that is less likely to win any particular game between the two teams). When that lesser team wins that short series, I think it is fair to use the phrase “it got lucky” to describe the result. That’s not intended to suggest the series victory is illegitimate or undeserved. The fact is the team was good enough to have a fighting chance to win and it did — and it deserves every title and reward that the rules of the game grant it.
Time and chance happeneth to them all. Can’t disagree, except on what to call it, but I don’t believe in determinism, so Dusty Rhodes to me wasn’t an instrument of fate. He had the opportunity to fail but didn’t. Chance may have put him there, but he swung the bat.
b-com, how about the luck element in a one-game playoff series?
C’mon, Bud, next year please make the wild-card round 2 out of 3. At least.
“You seem to be saying that “a player getting hot at the right time” is something other than “luck”, whereas I would categorize it as a classic example of luck.”
Praytell…WHY?
If a hitter went to the plate blindfolded and ripped a double off the wall, then yes, I’d attribute that to luck (blind luck in that case). But when a player “gets hot” he is simply displaying his ability to perform at a level that, well, he’s by definition capable of performing at. Without a single exception, any player who “gets hot” in a playoff series is only carrying out actions that he has likely been practicing since he was a teenager, at least, been coached on by numerous people, and which he has honed to a high degree through many years of experience. And we’re going to call that “luck”???!
I think people are *really* loose with their use of the terms luck and chance in discussing these issues. In many cases, it can’t even be demonstrated with high confidence that any particular observed event or set of events is necessarily *random*, let alone due to “luck”.
When a player rips a line drive up the gap
Jim,
I think the crux of all our arguments come down to how to define “luck.” And I’m in the birtelcom camp here. Baseball depends far more on what I call “luck” than any other sport. Larry Bird demonstrated over many seasons that he could hit free throws at 90% rates and field goals at 50% rates, Peyton Manning that he can complete passes at 67% rates. But the best baseball players contact the ball for gain (i.e., hits), what (and here you have to factor in swings and misses and foul balls of course), once out of every 7 or 8 swings? And of those instances of gain from contact, you have to deduct, what, 15% 20%? 25%? for unintentional nubbers, high bouncers, Texas Leaguers, wounded ducks, late swings that result in opposite field liners, etc.
Baseball players simply can’t exhibit the same intentional repeatability as Michael Jordan shooting 15-foot fadeaways or Tom Brady throwing crossing patterns to Wes Welker; whether a batted ball lands fair or foul is often a matter of pure unadulterated luck; whether it lands in a glove or in a gap is, again, often due to luck. Which is why even the 1927 Yankees could not win at anywhere near the rate the ‘90s Bulls did or recent Patriots have.
No one is saying that baseball players aren’t incredibly skilled and aren’t capable of exhibiting that skill. We only have to ask the aforementioned Mr. Jordan. Just getting around on today’s fastballs is far beyond mere mortals. But when and how they display their skills can’t be predicted as easily as in other sports. It’s in the nature of the game that “luck” plays an inordinate role.
I mean, watch a HR derby. Bird used to hit 3-pointers in those All-Star competitions at 85% rates, shooting under intense time pressure. The best home run hitters, who have all the time they want in their exhibitions, can’t come anywhere near that rate getting grooved pitches. When you can’t intentionally repeat something in a sport at very high percentages (and you can’t in baseball because it’s a hard, hard game), then luck becomes a major factor.
tag and others:
One of the problems I have with the free and easy use of the term
Luck on this site is that it so often is used as a label for the unlikely result, or especially the result that contradicts the advanced stats.
Example: In 1996 Clemens had a WAR of 7.4, but a W/L of 10-13, so he must have had bad luck coming out the ears and all other orifices, right? In the spring there was a long post here on the subject, in fact.
I’m no statistician, first to admit it, but I can read and understand stats. In that season, right there for anyone to see in his splits, Clemens 1) had a very poor first half and a second half that seems better than it was because of a hot streak in August; 2) he was fabulous in the games he won, not unusual for a decent pitcher, but in his no decisions his performance wasn’t much better than in his losses, something you wouldn’t expect, especially from a pitcher of his caliber. 3) his record against winning teams was not only 2-8, but also his ERA was 4.65 vs. 2,67 against the under .500 teams. So how much of THIS is luck?
True—Clemens may have had a little bad luck, but by and large he didn’t pitch well for a large chunk of the season, a fact that is masked by how excellently he did pitch when he was on; he beat up on the weak teams and got roughed up by the good ones; and in no decisions, on average, he didn’t exactly shine. The team’s record in his no decisions in fact was 4-7, and that might not be so relevant except for the fact that he wasn’t pitching for a hapless bunch of replacement level fill-ins but a team that finished 85-77 or 71-57 in games he didn’t start. (I know this point can be stood on its head, re Luck, but my view is the correct one.)
I don’t see much luck here. I see a guy who had a poor season by his own standards, except for his hot streak, in spite of the inflated WAR figure, inflated in part because his ERA at Fenway was low, giving him extra points on the Park Factor.
(Public Notice: I won’t be around for the next week to defend this argument, so don’t take my non-response as submission to the higher reason of sabermetrics. Cheers.)
NSB @61 — Re: Clemens in ’96:
The ’96 Red Sox averaged 5.7 R/G over all. They averaged 5.0 for Wakefield, 5.3 for Sele, 7.3 for each of Gordon, Eshelman and Moyer … but 4.3 for Clemens, which was tied for 4th-worst among regular AL starters.
The other AL starters supported by 4.5 R/G or less had a combined record of 67-113 (.372). The other two getting exactly 4.3 R/G went a combined 16-28 (.364). So Roger’s 10-13 (.435) looks damn good just on that level.
In 10 of Clemens’s 13 losses, the team scored 3 runs or less, including 6 with 2 runs or less.
They scored 2 or less in 10 of his 34 starts. He lost the 4 games they scored 0-1. In the 6 games with exactly 2 runs, he was 3-2 with a no-decision.
They lost 20 of his 34 starts. In those team losses, Clemens averaged 6.63 IP with a 4.88 ERA. All other Boston starters in team losses combined for 5.36 IP/G and a 7.80 ERA.
If all that doesn’t convince you, just look at Quality Starts:
– All other AL pitchers in QS had a 2.20 ERA and a .788 W% (560-151). They got a win in 60% of their QS.
– Clemens in Quality Starts had a 1.81 ERA and a .571 W% (8-6). He got a win in 42% of his QS.
Nobody had more QS losses than Clemens.
Unless you’re going to argue that he failed to “pitch to the score” — which is, in broad terms, a fantasy — how can you deny that Clemens was unlucky?
JA (@63), I’m beginning to ride the same points like a hobbyhorse on this issue, but my basic thought is that when you get into the areas where “luck” may be the verdict on a serious point, you generally can’t test the proposition through cumulative statistical measures – those can only raise the question. You have to explore the individual cases in terms of single games or game situations.
For example, to take nsb’s argument about Clemens (where I thought the two of you dueled to a draw), I think your arguments had varied relevance.
Specifically, you say that in 10 of Clemens’ 13 losses, the Sox scored <4 runs. For this to relate to the issue of W-L luck, we need to know how many runs the Rocket gave up in each of those games – in some, an average performance by Sox hitters may have made no difference. (The same argument applies for your next point about <3 and 2<; we can't grant him a pass on "luck" till we know what he did with the elements that *were* under his control.) As for his lousy ERA in team losses, I don't think showing that other Sox pitchers' ERA was worse says anything about luck – nor does comparing his lousy W-L pct. with other pitchers who had lousy run support (maybe they were just lousy, losing pitchers).
Your argument about QS seems to me to be much more relevant evidence – this is the sort of thing I like to look at closely for these issues. But even then, to check on just what it means in terms of luck, we'd have to look at those starts – were there unearned runs and, if so, how much control did RC have over them?
nsb's argument on Clemens was a little different from the arguments we've had on luck in general (the '54 Indians in the Series; the O's this year in 1-run games). There, the issue concerns how luck applies to team outcomes and managing choices.
In '54, apart from Rhodes (and thanks for the correction @62): was Wertz unlucky that Mays was in center field when he hit a ball so far it reached the normally undefended area of deep center in the Polo Grounds? He certainly was, but Mays' catch wasn't luck. And – back to Rhodes – when Durocher had Rhodes pinch-hit for Monte Irvin in the *third* inning of Game 3 so he could break open the ballgame and demoralize the Tribe at home (despite the fact that putting Rhodes in LF was like waving a red cape at left-hand hitting bulls), was he lucky that Rhodes drove in two runs (and added a HR later), or was he skillful in recognizing the degree to which Rhodes was responding to pressure situations?
True luck is pebbles on the infield, a gust of wind on a fly ball. There's no accounting for them. In the case of other types of things, the question is "can we account for it?" Stats can answer some questions on some levels (e.g., Every time Pitcher X allowed only one earned run, the team scored none – really convincing evidence of bad luck), but anecdotal data could change even that (Pitcher X wasted so much time on the mound that teammates lost focus, let in unearned runs, and were distracted when they came to bat.)
I don't actually have any problem with anyone saying Clemens was unlucky in '96 or the O's have been incredibly lucky in close games this year. But if that seriously means "and there's no point in looking further for reasons – it's luck like pebbles and wind," I think we're letting a vague idea of luck close off the most interesting aspects of inquiry: for past eras, the stuff you sometimes uncover in interviews and memoirs; for the present . . . well, maybe we should sponsor an ethnographer for the Orioles.
Apparently we read two different posts, epm. JA debunked virtually everything nsb said. We disagree I guess. 🙂
Well, in the case of ’54, luck wasn’t all that random. Rhodes had been doing what he did in the Series all year – walking in to pinch hit and parking bloopers over the extremely short (about 275′) Polo Grounds left field fence (15 HRs and 50 RBIs in 164 ABs). It’s true that his Series OPS of 2.381 was above his norm, but not off-scale for an 1.105 season-long hot streak. (Of course, his skills were generally assisted by a stiff regimen of drugs. As I recall, his PEDs came in a bottles of a fifth, and they turned on him after a couple of years, but I think in ’54 they were ensuring that he was a little less acutely aware than the normal pinch hitter of “opportunities to fail,” to use nsb’s term.)
But birtelcom, your point about what we mean by “luck” is well taken. We’ve had some overly long and instructively inconclusive debates about luck/not-luck lately, and the point of disagreement may just hinge on that issue. (Next, we can try fate/not-fate.)
This doesn’t change munu’s point, but … Only 2 of Rhodes’s 16 HRs in ’54 were as a pinch-hitter.
This was a fun one — see the 6th inning.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NY1/NY1195406200.shtml
I think the different conceived meanings of the terms used contribute to the confusion and disagreements epm, but I don’t think they’re the only thing. It seems to me that there are also fundamental disagreements regarding what counts as evidence and how different types thereof should be weighted/prioritized/synthesized.
Agreed, Jim. Your exchange with tag (#66-67) is the sort of thing that can help us identify more clearly what perspectives are contested here.
Welcome Ashley and congrats on your first post!
Those ’76-’78 Royals faced the Yankees all three years and went 0-6 in games decided by 2 runs or less. Definitely some bad luck/not coming through in the clutch!
Thank you! Game 5 of the ’76 ALCS looked especially heartbreaking, with Chris Chambliss’s walk-off homer overshadowing the 8th inning, 3-RBI home run by George Brett.
Game 5 in 1977 was worse. A 3-1 lead with 6 outs to go at home. Whitey loses his mind and tries to hold the lead with Dennis Leonard on 1 day rest (Game 3 starter) and Larry Gura on 0 days rest (Game 4 starter) That’s the one that has the classic picture of Freddie Patek crying in the dugout after the game.
Ashley, Although divisional play started in 1969, baseball didn’t, and I wonder whether you’d consider adding the Tigers of 1907-9. And although the ’51 playoff wasn’t technically a post-season (since the records were incorporated in regular season stats), it was still a playoff, leaving Brooklyn alone at the altar (as opposed to on it) 1951-53.
In light of the Rangers’ recent run in the postseason, I wanted to narrow my focus to teams that had clinched their division, then fallen short of a championship title. However, there are some great playoff series in the pre-division era–after looking at the 1907-1909 Tigers, I was fascinated to learn that Game 1 of the 1907 World Series ended in a tie.
That game’s got a good story – the Detroits (as my father would have said) had the game won, but the third strike of the third out in the ninth got away from the catcher. Like Mickey Owen in ’41. The Tigers never managed a win in that series. (There’s a lot of randomness in the post-season – the year before, the Cubs were brought down by the Hitless Wonders, despite having gone 116-36 in the regular season.)
. . . and like bstar at #33, I thought this was your second post and neglected to welcome you. Nice debut!
Along with those 1907-09 Tigers, let’s throw an honorable mention to the 1911-13 Giants. I believe those are the only teams to lose 3 straight WS.
Looking forward to Ashley’s succedent posts. 🙂
(Not) Written in the Stars: The Story of the Atlanta Braves
Ashley, you won’t find me pouting about this. For the majority of the last twenty years, the Braves have either made, or had a good chance to make, the playoffs. As far as the regular season goes, no hardcore fan can ask for anything more: a chance. And even though the cumulative mojo of their teams entering the playoffs has dissolved into a pile of crap every year since ’99, a guy can still dream. I’m still watching every game, whether it be live or on fast forward on the DVR right before bed. I’m there every night. To be crude, that’s a six-month hard-on. I love it.
And I’m (almost) fine with their 1-4 WS record. Here’s my blatant rationalization:
1. They matched their worst-to-first counterpart, the Twins, pitch for pitch, right down to the last inning in ’91.
2. Overmatched, they took a deep, obscenely talented Blue Jays team to six games in ’92.
3. They upset, yes upset, one of the greatest teams in recent memory that has slipped through the cracks of our collective consciousness: the 100-44 ’95 Cleveland Indians. Projected 162-game win total for the Tribe: 112
4. In by far the most painful loss, they got up 2-0, then watched as the Yankees jelled into what would become the most lethal postseason machine baseball has seen in decades, losing 4-2 in ’96.
5. OK, they just got their doors blown off by the Bombers in ’99. This one was over so quick it didn’t hurt.
So they played well, in my opinion, in 4 out of 5 series in which they were outmatched in 4, dead even in another(’91).
And they’ve still got the consolation prize of fourteen straight division titles, the all-time record for any team in any league in all of professional sports. It’s Bobby Cox’s defining accomplishment.
That’s my rationalization, and I’m sticking with it.
Bstar – The ’95 WS between the Braves and the Indians has to rank as one of the all-times greats. Granted, it didn’t go 7 games but 5 of the 6 games were decided by one run (the other was a 3 run affair that was tied 1-1 going into the 7th). The finale was a 1-0 affair with Glavine and Wohlers shutting down the Indians’ powerhouse lineup on a one-hitter. Is it me though or does that WS not get the credit it deserves?
I’m with you on that one, Ed. How ’bout that Indians lineup: Lofton in his prime, Baerga when he was relevant, a young Manny and Thome, Albert Belle at his uber-prime, a 39-year-old Eddie Murray with his 35th straight good year. What a machine.
Yet the Braves pitching staff completely shut the Indians down, holding them to a slash line of 179/273/303. Only Albert Belle had a decent series among the Tribe batters.
True, it was their crowning achievement. I think my heart stopped when Bobby Cox brought out Mark Wohlers for the ninth inning after Glavine’s 8 innings of one-hit ball in game 6.
And, per usual, totally lost in the shuffle, is Greg Maddux’s 2-hitter in game 1. Two unearned runs masked his accomplishment, a game Maddog has always called his finest.
Maddux seems to get unfairly blamed for the Braves’ postseason struggles based on his 11-13 record. Of course the Braves generally give him very little run support. On top of that, a stunning 27.8% of his postseason runs while pitching for the Braves were unearned.
Just noticed that in all three of the games the Indians lost by one run, Carlos Baerga made the final out. In two of those games, the tying run was in scoring position.
Not only that, Ed, but Maddux was more often than not going against the opposition’s #1 pitcher, sometimes twice in a series, while the self-proclaimed Mr. October (Smoltz) was often getting the sloppy thirds.
Maddux postseason ERA w/Atlanta: 2.81
Maddux reg-season ERA w/Atlanta: 2.63
Not much there.
I didn’t know that about Maddux’s unearned runs, Ed, thanks. I’ll add that to the toolbag of arguments I’m forced to use whenever I need to defend his postseason honor again.
Fourteen straight division titles is an incredible record to hold, as is a decade-long playoff run (the Mariners fan in me envies you). After reading the comments by you and Ed, I’m sorely tempted to purchase a copy of the 1995 World Series and watch this for myself.
Where can you buy copies of the past WS?
I’m not sure where you can get DVDs of full game coverage, at least not as far back as 1995. The best I’ve found are World Series highlight films on Amazon.
Looks like you can get the DVDs on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1995-World-Series-DVDS-Atlanta-Braves-vs-Cleveland-Indians-FREE-SHIPPING-/280978461126?pt=US_DVD_HD_DVD_Blu_ray&hash=item416b9f11c6
can’t forget to add in what happened last year to their heartbreak. But yeah, you could do far worse than be a braves fan.
When I think of that stretch of Braves teams I have no bad feelings about them winning only 1 World Series, in the sense that I still rate them as an incredibly strong, well-run, well-coached team.
Margins in baseball are really small. After 162 games, the majority of teams end up within a margin of +/- 10 games. And unlike every other major pro sport, there is a massive variable game-to-game: the identity of the starting pitcher. NFL teams throw the same QB out there each game. NBA & NHL teams send the same lineup of players out there each game. In MLB, so much depends on which pitcher you are throwing.
For these reasons, the MLB playoffs have a bit of a crapshoot aspect to them…so to me, the fact that the Braves were in 5 World Series during that time is wildly impressive, and the fact that they lost 4 of them is disappointing but not much of a mark against them.
Couldn’t agree more. Braves have been the epitome of how to construct and run a baseball team over the last 20 years, and I’ll throw the Twins and A’s in there as well, though each definitely a notch or two below the Braves. What happens in the playoffs is largely irrelevant, and at any rate, they beat an extremely good Indians team in six games.
Unless I am missing something, the 2002-2004 Minnesota Twins should be included on this list.
Evan, I just checked and you’re correct. The Twins did win their division each year, ’02-’04.
Ah man, I don’t know how I missed that. I just updated the post, thanks for letting me know.
Don’t feel bad–I wouldn’t have the patience to research a post like this, and if I did I’d probably miss half of the relevant teams. That’s why I don’t even try anymore.
Welcome Ashley!
Thank you, Andy!
Oh, for some reason I thought this was your second post, Ashley. Congrats and welcome!
I was hoping to slip my post under the radar a bit, but no such luck. Thanks!
Welcome, Ashley, and nice piece. You wonder what’s harder-to win a championship in the pre-1969 era, or now? It’s just not that hard for even a powerhouse to lose 4/7 or 3/5. Just out of curiosity, of the teams that finished with a regular season winning percentage of .667 or better, what were their longest sub-.500 streaks in season.
Thank you! I’m not sure that the qualifying playoff rounds give teams any more of an edge today than skipping straight to the World Series–postseason results seem equally as unpredictable–but it certainly is nice for the fanbases to have some kind of consolation in the event their team doesn’t make it all the way.
As for your second question, I haven’t had the time to look into the sub-.500 streaks during winning seasons, but it would make for an interesting follow-up post.
Hey, this is an excellent post. The Braves’ inability to win a World Series in the early 90s is particularly dear to my heart, of course. I’m surprised at the length of some of these droughts – New York, Cleveland, etc – after having clinched so many consecutive years. I guess you can’t predict baseball.
Thanks! I definitely didn’t realize I made the same comment to you on Twitter until I read this, but yes, the streaks surprised me as well. Still, I think I’d be satisfied (as some other fans here appear to be) should either of my teams sustain such a long trip to the playoffs, championship or not.
Check oiut the splits for the ’54 Tribe. Despite that 111-43 record, they were only a .500 team against opponents over .500. So, less surprising then that they struggled against the Giants.
The ’54 AL was VERY top heavy. The second place Yankees 103 victories, which would have plenty to win the AL in most years, left them 8 games out. And the 25 game gap between the third place White Sox and 4th place Red Sox may be the largest gap between any two teams in MLB history.
In 1916 The last place A’s were 40 GB the 7th place Senators who were only one game under .500. I don’t know if that is the record but there’s a good chance of it.
Ed, you may not have meant to include divisions, but … My 2003 5th-place Tigers trailed your 4th-place Tribe by 25 games.
I’m sure Richard has the winner, but anyway…
The 1935 Braves were 26 GB the 7th-place Phillies.
Thanks John and Richard! I was mostly talking about the pre-69 divisional split. So Richard is the winner so far. Still I’d be surprised if there are any other 4th place teams that were that far behind the 3rd place team.
How about top-heavy *and* balanced at the top? 1950 AL, 4th-place Cleveland (92-62, 6 games out of 1st) was 25 games in front of 5th-place Washington (67-87).
This is divisional, but a 7-team division: 1977 AL East, 3rd-place Red Sox (97-64) were 23.5 games ahead of 4th-place Detroit(74-88).
On a tangent … In the 1940 AL, with 14 to 17 games left, the top 5 teams were separated by 6 games. Detroit won by 1 over Cleveland, 2 over NYY, with Boston and Chicago fading to 8 back.
Those 25 games separating two teams are more than separated first from last in the NL in both 1958 and 1959. The Phils brought up the rear both times, but also finished just 23 games out each time. The Phils were on top in 1915, but just 21 games ahead of the last-place Giants. The Astros were in 10th place in 1968, but just 25 games behind the first-place Cardinals.
In the AL, the 1918 Red Sox were just 24 games ahead of last-place Philadelphia, albeit in a shortened season. In the Browns’ lone pennant year in 1944, the Senators were last and only 25 games out.
Doug, This came up in a post a couple of months ago, and Ed’s response is to the point. In ’54 there were only two other .500+ teams in the league, and they very high quality teams. The Yankees were .697 against the rest of the league and .500 against the Indians. The White Sox were .629 against the rest of the league and .500 against the Indians. The Yankees and ChiSox were, together, .663 against teams other than the Indians and the Indians made them a .500 pair of teams. The Giants were a .630 team – no reason to expect the Indians to go .000. Of course, anything can happen in a short series, and the Indians had been swept 0-4 in Chicago in July, and lost a 1-3 series to the Yankees at home in June.
It’s a little known fact (and deservedly so), that the Indians were slow out of the gate in ’54. On April 24, they were 3-6 and in the cellar, which makes their subsequent 108-37 seem even more remarkable. By contrast, the next year Brooklyn broke out 10-0 and 22-2, but finished with only 98 wins (plus WS rings, of course).
tag (58),
I think you’ve conflated two fundamentally different concepts there.
The examples you give are simply reflections of the fact that some activities are harder to succeed at than others for human beings. That is decidedly NOT! the same concept as “luck” (assuming that by that term one typically means random or “chance” outcomes). The fact that it’s harder to hit a hole-in-one on a 300 yard golf hole than to hit a curve ball of defined velocity and break squarely, or throw three consecutive ringers in horeseshoes, or land on a soccer field on a parachute jump from 10000 feet, or whatever, is irrelevant. The issue is rather the *relative* success rates of competitors in these tasks, regardless of the typical or expected success rates over many trials. All of those activities require skill if one wants to increase one’s success rate over any meaningful sample size, either absolutely or relative to a competitor’s success rate.
If I roll a die 48 times the expected number of sixes is eight. If I flip a coin 48 times the expected number of heads is three times that number. That tells me nothing whatsoever about the likelihood that an observed number of sixes, or heads, in 48 trials of the two different items, would have arisen by chance. They fact that it’s “harder” (which is to say, less frequent) to roll a six than to flip a head, has no bearing on the issue of the likelihood of flipping say, four straight heads.
For the most part however, the main issue seems to be that people are simply assuming that sampling error is explainable by, and/or synonymous with, the concept of “luck”. And that’s simply a logical leap that’s unwarranted in any skill-based contest. Sure, if I flip ten straight tails that’s a relatively unlikely event, which we can ascribe to “chance”, because there’s no “skill” involved in the process in any common use of that term. But if I have two teams whose opposing pitchers each throw 150 pitches to the opposition, and some fraction of those pitches are swung at, and some fraction of those are put in play by the hitters, and some fraction of those are fielded and thrown by the fielders…. then in what sense is one warranted in concluding that the blown umpire call in the top of the fourth inning at second base, or the line drive that landed 2cm foul (or fair) down the right field line in the bottom of the eighth, were the “lucky” events that determined the outcome of the game? I mean, how do you know that? Hit me with some epistemology. How do you prioritize those events over the other 299 pitches that were thrown and acted upon by the hitters over the course of the game?
All athletic events are collections of skill-based sub-events, usually many such, each sub-event officiated by an impartial set of judges skilled in making such judgements. They’re not roulette games.
Jim,
I agree with a lot of what you said. But I think you are the one making a fundamental error. The issue is not whether skill is involved; no one’s arguing that. It’s how much, or to what extent, a particular sport rewards the skill-based elements and minimizes the luck factor when it comes to deciding the outcome of a particular game.
The 100-meter dash perhaps, or maybe boxing, minimizes “luck” or randomness the most. Baseball to me is at the upper end of the spectrum in “allowing luck in.”
Among team sports, baseball may be unique in that the offense doesn’t have possession of the ball. The offense doesn’t initiate the sequence of events that leads to scoring. What this means in practice is that the offense can’t “control” its scoring to the same extent that occurs in other sports. Pitchers in fact control the ball and control to a great extent where they place it and at what velocity they do so. So batters are always reacting, not initiating. (Watch Roger Federer serve vs. return serve to see the difference initiating vs. reacting makes in the number of points he wins and the luck involved in each – luck only comes into true play on service returns, when the ball occasionally hits his frame and freakishly kaboings in for a winner or hits the net cord and drops over. That never happens when he serves.)
Now good hitters react better than bad ones, clearly, but even a good hitter (even Teddy F***ing Ballgame by his own admission couldn’t hit every strike) has to rely to a large if indeterminate extent on hitting less than perfect pitches – i.e. “mistakes,” the pitched ball going where the pitcher didn’t intend it to. This might not occur randomly but it doesn’t occur predictably, and it occurs when skill “fails.” The better a pitcher pitches in a game and the fewer mistakes that he makes, the less luck intrudes into it on his side. But of course he still needs help.
On the other side of the ball, when pitchers do make mistakes, hitters only sometimes take advantage of them. Why does a hitter sometimes hit a hanging slider and sometimes miss it? Obviously, skill level plays a major part and better hitters take advantage more often. But even the most highly skilled players miss them, and the mistakes don’t occur according to any pattern. The distribution of when hitting the mistakes vs. missing them occurs can’t be predicted and intrudes meaningfully. This is built into the very nature of the game and often plays a major role in determining its outcome.
There is only so much you can control in baseball, and most of it is on the defensive side (which I think is why the ole “pitching and defense” wins pennant mantra was born; those are the things you can control more than hitting). Now add to this elemental lack of control by the offense all the gazillion other tiny interventions of randomness. Some of these are common to other sports, some not. But to me not initiating the sequence of events that leads to scoring means that luck is going to play a greater role in baseball than it does in most other team sports.
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