When I Say My Team Stinks, I Mean It - Baseball Edition

So this is why your team is good (or lousy).

I decided to crunch the numbers for all 30 MLB teams from 1960 onward, similar to what I did for the NFL a year ago.  Here are the stats:

Year	Regular Season Wins	Regular Season Losses	Regular Season Winning Pct.	95+ Win Seasons	95+ Loss Seasons
New York Yankees	4992	3925	0.5598	23	1
Los Angeles Dodgers	4798	4131	0.5374	10	1
St. Louis Cardinals	4731	4186	0.5306	10	0
Boston Red Sox	4708	4219	0.5274	11	1
Cincinnati Reds	4651	4272	0.5212	9	3
Baltimore Orioles	4637	4274	0.5204	13	7
Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves	4621	4282	0.5190	11	6
San Francisco Giants	4634	4297	0.5189	6	2
Chicago White Sox	4499	4422	0.5043	5	4
Kansas City/Oakland Athletics	4491	4438	0.5030	10	8
Los Angeles/California/Anaheim Angels	4403	4377	0.5015	5	2
Detroit Tigers	4462	4469	0.4996	6	7
Philadelphia Phillies	4425	4444	0.4989	5	10
Pittsburgh Pirates	4439	4475	0.4980	9	8
Toronto Blue Jays	3078	3115	0.4970	4	4
Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins	4430	4495	0.4964	5	5
Arizona Diamondbacks	1444	1482	0.4935	2	4
Houston Colt .45s/Astros	4206	4413	0.4880	3	9
Cleveland Indians	4344	4569	0.4874	4	6
Kansas City Royals	3623	3852	0.4847	3	9
Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals	3610	3868	0.4827	3	7
New York Mets	4128	4480	0.4796	6	13
Texas Rangers	4182	4582	0.4772	2	11
Seattle Pilots/Milwaukee Brewers	3569	3912	0.4771	3	5
Chicago Cubs	4244	4679	0.4756	3	10
Florida/Miami Marlins	1714	1944	0.4686	0	4
Seattle Mariners	2898	3295	0.4679	1	11
Colorado Rockies	1709	1955	0.4664	0	4
Tampa Bay Devil Rays/Rays	1352	1562	0.4640	2	7
San Diego Padres	3472	4016	0.4637	1	11
Year	Post-season Game Wins	Post-season Game Losses	Post-season Winning Pct.	League Champs (Pennants)	World Series Champs	Average Seasons In Playoffs
New York Yankees	138	106	0.5656	16	9	48.21%
Los Angeles Dodgers	59	67	0.4683	8	4	33.93%
St. Louis Cardinals	103	90	0.5337	10	5	33.93%
Boston Red Sox	66	66	0.5000	6	3	26.79%
Cincinnati Reds	40	36	0.5263	6	3	21.43%
Baltimore Orioles	52	39	0.5714	6	3	21.43%
Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves	63	71	0.4701	5	1	32.14%
San Francisco Giants	57	46	0.5534	6	3	19.64%
Chicago White Sox	15	14	0.5172	1	1	8.93%
Kansas City/Oakland Athletics	58	57	0.5043	6	4	32.14%
Los Angeles/California/Anaheim Angels	27	37	0.4219	1	1	18.18%
Detroit Tigers	39	37	0.5132	4	2	16.07%
Philadelphia Phillies	48	46	0.5106	5	2	21.43%
Pittsburgh Pirates	32	39	0.4507	3	3	23.21%
Toronto Blue Jays	26	26	0.5000	2	2	15.38%
Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins	25	39	0.3906	3	2	19.64%
Arizona Diamondbacks	17	16	0.5152	1	1	27.78%
Houston Colt .45s/Astros	24	38	0.3871	1	0	18.52%
Cleveland Indians	35	34	0.5072	2	0	14.29%
Kansas City Royals	39	34	0.5342	4	2	19.15%
Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals	9	11	0.4500	0	0	6.38%
New York Mets	51	37	0.5795	5	2	14.81%
Texas Rangers	21	28	0.4286	2	0	12.73%
Seattle Pilots/Milwaukee Brewers	14	18	0.4375	1	0	8.51%
Chicago Cubs	12	27	0.3077	0	0	12.50%
Florida/Miami Marlins	22	11	0.6667	2	2	8.70%
Seattle Mariners	15	19	0.4412	0	0	10.26%
Colorado Rockies	9	10	0.4737	1	0	13.04%
Tampa Bay Devil Rays/Rays	12	17	0.4138	1	0	22.22%
San Diego Padres	12	22	0.3529	2	0	10.64%

1) Not surprisingly, the New York Yankees have been the best team during that span.  I was a little surprised by how far in front they were – their winning percentage of .5598 is over 20 percentage points ahead of the next team, the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The Yankees, Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, and Cincinnati Reds currently fill out the top five.

2) Expansion teams are at a huge disadvantage.  Of the fourteen teams that have been added from 1961 on, only one has an overall winning percentage above .500 – the Los Angeles/California/Anaheim Angels, who checked in at #11 with a .5015 winning percentage.  No other expansion team is over .500 overall.  Further, only two of the original 16 teams are below the Arizona Diamondbacks at #17 – the Cleveland Indians (#19) and the Chicago Cubs (#25).

3) The worst teams?  Congratulations, San Diego:  your Padres are horrible!  With a .4637 overall winning percentage, they check in at #30, with Tampa Bay, Colorado, Seattle, and the Florida/Miami Marlins in order as the next worst teams.  The Padres have had a history of misguided owners (C. Arnold Smith!  The Krocs, Ray and Joan!  Tom Werner and Marcy Carsey!), which hasn’t helped.  That said, I expect Colorado to make it to the bottom in the next couple of years, as the Padres seem to be straightening out their issues (slowly), while the Monfort brothers have been and will likely continue to run the Rockies further into the ground.

4) One of the guides to how good or bad your team has been is 95-win or 95-loss seasons.  Obviously, a huge number of bad seasons in a row creates a gigantic hole to dig out of.  My New York Mets are a prime example of this – they lost 95 or more games each of their first six seasons, and had a winning percentage of .348 (that’s not a typo) from 1962 to 1968.  They’re nine games under .500 since then, but that’s an awfully big hole.

5) The Yankees, not surprisingly, have the most 95-win seasons, with 23 out of the 56 seasons from 1960 to 2015.  The Yankees, Dodgers, Cardinals, and Red Sox have combined for 54 95-win seasons during that span, with only three 95-loss seasons in the debit column.  The Mets have the most 95-loss seasons overall at 13 – but they also have the most 95-win seasons among the expansion teams with six.  Feast or famine.  The Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners, and San Diego Padres have eleven 95-loss seasons apiece, which is most embarrassing to the Mariners, given they’ve only been around since 1977.

6) As you might guess, the Yankees have also won 138 post-season (playoff and World Series) games, more than any other team, with the Cardinals in second.  (Those teams also rank first and second in post-season losses, but it’s better to be there than not.)  Win percentage in the postseason is quite different, however – the Florida Marlins actually have the best postseason winning percentage at .667, thanks to their two fluky World Series wins in 1997 and 2003 (they’ve never been in the postseason any other year).  And the Mets, as lousy as they’ve been at times in the regular season, have the second best postseason winning percentage at .580.  Worst goes to the Chicago Cubs (with their three wins and five losses this past year, they were able to bring their winning percentage up to .308), followed by the Padres.

7) The Yankees have also won the most pennants (16) and World Series (9) during this time period, with the Cardinals in second in both categories.  Among the expansion teams, the Mets have won the most pennants with five, and are in a four-way tie with Kansas City, Toronto, and Florida/Miami with two World Series wins apiece.  The Expos/Nationals franchise is tied with Seattle and the Cubs for the futility record – no pennants, no World Series.

8) Finally, the Yankees have been in the postseason an astonishing 48 percent of the time, with the Dodgers and Cardinals checking in by making the postseason 34 percent of the time.  The Arizona Diamondbacks have the best record among the expansion teams by making the playoffs 28 percent of the time – but that’s a bit misleading; their sample size is smaller (18 years) and there are a lot more playoff spots now than there were 30 or 50 years ago.  The Nationals, Brewers, and Marlins bring up the rear – along with the Chicago White Sox, even though their overall winning percentage is over .500.