Since Major League Baseball went to an alignment of three divisions in each league, back in 1994, there have been a total of 550 post-season games played. A simple list of the number of those games won by each franchise is after the jump. Nothing complicated, just a format for expressing recent baseball history in a somewhat different manner than usual. Starting at the beginning of the six-division era represents a particularly harsh dividing line for Toronto. The Blue Jays were coming off back-to-back World Series Championships just when MLB shifted to the current three division per league alignment, but they haven’t been back to the post-season since.
Post-Season Games Won, By Franchise, In the Six-Division Era
NYY 96
STL 50
ATL 49
BOS 39
CLE 35
PHI 27
SFG 23
FLA 22
LAA 21
NYM and TEX 19
ARI 17
HOU and SEA 15
DET 13
CHW 12
OAK and TBR 11
BAL, LAD and COL 9
SDP 8
CHC, MIN and MIL 6
CIN 3
KCR, PIT, WAS and TOR 0
The players who have played in the most post-season games won by their teams during the six-division era:
1. Derek Jeter 94
2. Mariano Rivera 78
3. Bernie Williams 76
4. Jorge Posada 72
5. Tino Martinez 67
6. Manny Ramirez 63
7. Paul O’Neill 53
T8. Kenny Lofton and David Justice 49
10. Chipper Jones 48
The reason Derek Jeter’s total is 94, while the Yankees team total is 96, is that Derek did not play in the 1995 Divison Series, which Buck Showalter’s Yankees lost to the Mariners 3 games to 2. Jeter spent most of 1995, his age 21 season, at AAA.
After Mariano’s 78 appearances in post-season wins since 1994, the highest figures for any other pitchers since ’94 are 32 such appearances for Jeff Nelson and 28 for John Smoltz. Unlike Jeter, Mariano’s post-season participation does go back to 1995. In Game 2 of that Divison Series against Seattle, the young Rivera came in to replace John Wetteland to get the last out of the top of the 12th inning, then held the Mariners scoreless in the 13th, 14th and 15th innings, allowing Jim Leyritz to hit a walk-off homer for the Yankees in the bottom of the 15th. Mariano’s .471 Win Probability Added for that game remains the highest WPA he has ever had in a post-season game. Indeed, he’s had only three games in his entire regular season career with a WPA higher than that.
