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.

San Francisco Giants Sign Denard Span to Three-Year Contract

This one is a puzzler to me.  The Giants have signed former Washington National Denard Span to a three-year agreement (pending a physical), according to CBSSports.com (their source is their former correspondent Jon Heyman, via Twitter).

Span's a very good player, but he'll be 32 by the time next season starts.  He had a pile of injuries last year, missing 101 games overall.  He's a good leadoff hitter (lifetime .352 on-base percentage), but doesn't have a ton of power.  And he has good speed, having stolen 152 bases in 193 tries.  A few Met fans may be upset about this - the hope was they'd grab Span for a one-year deal, but they wound up settling for Alejandro De Aza instead.  I don't think anyone thought Denard Span would get a contract this large.

Basically, this reminds me a lot of the Michael Bourn signing of three years ago.  Michael Bourn was an up-and-down outfielder with the Phillies, Astros, and Braves who had a pretty good year in 2012, the option year of his contract.  He hit the free agent market, and for a long time the Mets were debating signing him, but held off because he would apparently cost them a draft choice.  So Cleveland signed him to a four-year, $48 million dollar deal -- and Mets fans and sportswriters went nuts ("We lost Michael Bourn!  How could this happen?")

The subject hasn't been discussed much in the last few years, however, because once Michael Bourn put on the Indians uniform, he instantly became an old man, becoming slower and more injury prone.  He was finally dealt back to the Braves this past season (along with Nick Swisher, another free agent disappointment from the same year); the Indians are on the hook for $5 million of the $14 million he'll make next year.  It's possible he'll play every day for Atlanta next year, but having hit .238 with a .592 OPS in 2015, it's more likely he'll be a very expensive pinch runner and defensive replacement.

This tends to happen to guys whose primary values are their speed and defense -- those are the first things to go as they age.  (In fact, Span's defensive metrics have dropped significantly in the last three years, to the point where he's almost a liability in center -- but if he can't play there, he'll be a liability in left or right field because he's not productive enough.)  I'll be interested to see how things turn out.

Jeff Samardzija Is Now Signed As Well, Five-Year Deal With the San Francisco Giants

Per CBS Sports . com.

The Giants didn't wait long after losing out on Zack Greinke, so perhaps they had Samardzija in mind to begin with.  The bad news is this guy is a big drop from Greinke - he had a lousy year last year with the White Sox, leading the league in home runs allowed.  In fairness, U.S. Cellular Field (a.k.a. Comiskey Park) is prone to home runs, so it might not have been all his fault. 

The Giants really didn't have great starting pitching last year other than Madison Bumgarner (4.8 WARP) - Chris Heston and Jake Peavy checked in at 1.5 WARP apiece, and the rest of the starters (Mike Leake, Tim Lincecum, Tim Hudson, Ryan Vogelsong, Matt Cain) combined for 0.1 WARP.  Of those five, only Cain is signed for next year (Hudson retired and the other three are free agents), so there were holes to fill no matter what.  Still, Samardzija is a guy who's had one really good year (2014, with a 3.7 WARP, or Wins Above Replacement Player), so it wouldn't be shocking to see buyer's remorse kick in within a year or two.

Here are his stats on Baseball Reference.

Zack Greinke to Sign With Arizona Diamondbacks

Again, per CBS Sports . com.

This is a big surprise; it was assumed for a long time the Dodgers and Giants were going to be the two main bidders.  Greinke had a huge year last year (9.3 WARP, or Wins Above Replacement Player) and has had 21.1 WARP over the last four years overall.  He is 32 years old, but he's been pretty solid (he's only had two seasons in the last eight where he made less than 30 starts, and both of those seasons were 28 apiece), and he doesn't seem prone to injury.  He had some issues with social anxiety disorder in 2006, but that hasn't been a problem since then.  Should be a good pickup for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Greinke's career stats are here on Baseball Reference.

Chicago Cubs Sign John Lackey to Two-Year Deal

Per CBS Sports . com.

This is kind of a surprise; I knew the Cubs were in the market for an additional starting pitcher, but I didn't know Lackey was in the mix (especially since he's coming from their arch-rivals, the Cardinals).  Pretty decent year last year, and 9.6 WAR over the last three years (he had Tommy John surgery in 2012).  The only down side is he's 37 years old, so it's hard to say when his fastball will slow down.  Seems like a pretty good acquisition, with two caveats:  1) per Ken Rosenthal, the total payment to Lackey over the two years of the deal will be $32-$34 million, which may be a lot if he slows down, and 2) since St. Louis made a qualifying offer, the Cubs forfeit their first round draft pick to the Cardinals.  On the other hand, given the Cubs ineptitude in the draft - between Mark Prior in 2001 and Kris Bryant in 2013, the only 1st round pick over a 5.0 WARP is Josh Donaldson, who never actually played a game in a Cubs uniform (he was dealt to the A's a year after he was picked) - maybe that's just as well.

Lackey's Baseball Reference page is here.

Tigers Reported Ready to Sign Mike Pelfrey

According to Jon Heyman at CBS Sports . com, anyway.

On first glance, this is a gigantic so-what.  Pelfrey will be 32 years old when spring training opens next year.  He's had two pretty good years, where he accumulated a combined 5.7 WARP (wins over replacement player); unfortunately, those years were 2008 and 2010.  Over the last five seasons, he's had a combined 1.6 WARP, and 1.4 of that was last year, when he won 6 games, lost 11, and put up a 4.26 ERA for the Twins.  Frankly, this is a guy that I would be looking at after most of the dust has settled in the winter market, not early on.

Perhaps Detroit, having already signed Jordan Zimmerman, is looking to finish up its starting rotation.  However, Detroit's problem last year was, aside from the now-departed David Price, they got a decent (although not spectacular) year out of Justin Verlander, and a lot of lousy out of everybody else.  The team's starting pitching finished dead last in the majors with a -8.1 WARP, after having finished second in the majors in 2014 at 7.4 WARP (behind the Washington Nationals, who also dropped last year, but not by anywhere near that much).  No Detroit pitcher, other than Price and Verlander, who started more than five games had a WARP above 0.1.  They lost Max Scherzer and Rick Porcello from the 2014 team (Scherzer was still excellent last year, Porcello was not), but Anibal Sanchez and Alfredo Simon, who were expected to be good again last year, both tanked.

Detroit has got to fix this if they have any hope to contend (which is going to be hard in a division that features the World Series champion Kansas City Royals and the steadily-improving Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins); the problem is Zimmerman and Pelfrey may not be anywhere near enough.  I guess the thinking is Pelfrey will be a lock to be decent, but I don't see a lot of evidence to make that guarantee.

Here's Pelfrey's stats at Baseball Reference.

Why Sports Writers Should Be Read Skeptically, Vol. 1

Here's a suggestion the Mets should pickup Everth Cabrera.

That's the same Everth Cabrera who is facing an upcoming trial after being pulled over for DUI (marijuana).  Oh, and there's a resisting arrest charge involved, too.

Also, the same Everth Cabrera who was suspended for 50 games due to his involvement with Biogenesis (PEDs).

And the same Everth Cabrera who was arrested in 2012 due to misdemeanor spousal abuse (the charges were dropped).

He also has a career .652 OPS.  That's a grand total of seven points higher than the guy Mets fans are sick of, Ruben Tejada.

The Mets also have Wilmer Flores, who they plan to start this year.  He's probably going to be below average in the field (to the points where Tejada will probably play about 100 games as a defensive replacement, and start if a groundball pitcher is on the mound).  Flores put up a .935 OPS last year at AAA Las Vegas, then .664 in the majors (.804 in September).

They also have in their minor league system shortstop Matt Reynolds, who put up an .859 OPS between AA and AAA.  And longtime shortstop prospect Gavin Cecchini, who will start this year in AA.  And Amed Rosario, one of the team's top 10 prospects, who will start the season in A ball.  He's 19 years old, by the way.

But no, the Mets shouldn't wait on those guys, or use what they have now.  They should take a guy who's probably going to be suspended again by MLB for drug use - assuming he doesn't go to jail.

In fact, this link (if it works - it was down as I write this) suggests not only the Mets should sign Cabrera, they should give him $3.5 million - which would be a 40 percent raise over last year.

Baseball teams shouldn't make panic moves.  That's how they get untradeable players.  Ask the Phillies, or Diamondbacks, or maybe even Detroit in a year or so.

Don't give in to the stupid.