World Series history/observations

[BOZ]

Got curious about how long each team has gone since they've won the World Series, and how many times each team has done so. This all came from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Series_won

The first number in parenthesis is how many years since the team's most recent victory and the second number is how many total WS championships each franchise has had since 1903.

(List EDITed to reflect current WS champions)

Chicago Cubs (98 years since their last WS victory, and they have won a grand total of 2 championships. what's really embarassing is how far the next guys are down the list from here... they've only got 2 more years to keep that number from getting to 3 digits!)
Cleveland Indians (58, 2, pretty bad for a team that old, they need to take a lesson from the Red Sox and White Sox about ending ridiculously long streaks)
San Francisco Giants (52, 5 - but have not won since they left New York)
Texas Rangers (46 seasons of existence - oldest expansion team without a championship)
Houston Astros (45 seasons of existence, no championships yet)
Washington Nationals (38 seasons of existence for franchise including years as Montreal Expos, no championships yet)
Milwaukee Brewers (38 seasons of existence, no championships yet)
San Diego Padres (38 seasons of existence, no championships yet)
Seattle Mariners (28 seasons of existence, no championships yet)
Pittsburgh Pirates (27, 5)
Philadelphia Phillies (26, have only won the WS once - for a team that's more than 100 years old, in a lot of ways that's worse than the Cubs!)
Baltimore Orioles (23, 3)
Detroit Tigers (22, 4)
Kansas City Royals (21, 1)
New York Mets (20, 2)
Los Angeles Dodgers (18, 6)
Oakland Althetics (17, 9)
Cincinatti Reds (16, 5)
Minnesota Twins (15, 3 franchise championships, including 1 as Washington Senators)
Colorado Rockies (14 seasons of existence, no championships yet)
Toronto Blue Jays (13, 2)
Altanta Braves (11, 3)
Tampa Bay Devil Rays (9 seasons of existence, no championships yet)
New York Yankees (6, 26 - poor fellas; they have to wait another year to get that up to 27!)
Arizona Diamondbacks (5, 1)
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (4, 1)
Florida Marlins (3, 2 - since they've only been around for 14 years, that's pretty damn good - compare to the top of the list if you don't believe me!)
Boston Red Sox (2, 6)
Chicago White Sox (1, 3)
St. Louis Cardinals (0, 10)

 

[drothgery]

Cleveland Indians (58, 2, pretty bad for a team that old, they need to take a lesson from the Red Sox and White Sox about ending ridiculously long streaks)

Of course, this one should have been ended in 1997; the Indians were ahead in the 9th inning of game 7, when Jose Mesa blew it...

 

[BOZ]

shoulda, woulda, coulda... on the bright side, they have at least 40 years before they reach the worst-streak-ever record, so they can rest on that.

 

[kenobi65]

One interesting thing is to compare that list with when the last time that team even made it to the Series...(or, in other words, when's the last time they at least had a fighting chance)

Chicago Cubs -- last WS appearance was in 1945, IIRC. It looked like they were going to make it in 2003, until the Bartman incident.

Cleveland -- made it in '97, as drothgery notes; had a pretty good team through most of the '90s.

San Francisco -- made it in '89 (lost the "Earthquake Series" to the A's)

Texas -- never

Houston -- lost to the White Sox last year

Washington / Montreal -- never; had a promising team in '94, but those playoffs were lost to the strike / lockout

Milwaukee -- made it in '82, but lost to St. Louis

San Diego -- made it (and lost) a few years back; also made it in '84, when they lost to the Tigers

 

[Steve Jung]

Phillies-1993 lost because of Joe fricking Carter

 

[BOZ]

well, it's never too late (just too long) - just look at some of the recent WS winning teams, including whoever wins this year. a long drought doesn't mean a championship is out of the question, it just makes finally getting it that much sweeter.

 

[drothgery]

shoulda, woulda, coulda... on the bright side, they have at least 40 years before they reach the worst-streak-ever record, so they can rest on that.

Maybe. But I don't think it's actually possible to get closer to winning the World Series without actually doing it than the '97 Tribe did.

 

[dragonhead]

The Yankees need to enter a streak of losing and let other teams win some WS.

 

[kenobi65]

The Yankees need to enter a streak of losing and let other teams win some WS.

Now, don't get me wrong...I abhor the Yankees...but...

Before their run from '96 to '00, in which they won 4 World Series in 5 years, the last run of significant success they had was in the Bronx Zoo era ('76-'81 or so; 2 WS championships in that era).

Granted, they seem to win the AL East every year now (no doubt, a significant frustration to Red Sox fans), but they haven't won the WS in 6 seasons now, despite an insane payroll...which just amuses me no end. It reminds me a bit of the Yankees of the '80s, which would pay huge (for the time) salaries for free agents, every one of whom would come to the Bronx and play like poodoo.

If you really wanted to be sick of the Yankees, go back to the postwar era. Between 1947 and 1964 (18 seasons), they won 15 AL pennants and 10 World Series. Now that would have been tiresome...

 

[drothgery]

Now, don't get me wrong...I abhor the Yankees...but...

Granted, they seem to win the AL East every year now (no doubt, a significant frustration to Red Sox fans), but they haven't won the WS in 6 seasons now, despite an insane payroll...which just amuses me no end. It reminds me a bit of the Yankees of the '80s, which would pay huge (for the time) salaries for free agents, every one of whom would come to the Bronx and play like poodoo.

Spending a lot of money reasonably well can give a team excellent odds of making the playoffs (and that's what the Yankees, and, to a lesser extent, the Red Sox have been doing). But there's too much randomness in baseball -- winning 60% of your games (that's 97 games) will almost guarantee a division title, and winning 70% (113) is almost unheard of; compare to the NFL, where division winners routinely win 75% of their games, or the NBA, where a division champ that wins 70% of their games (57) is pretty typical, despite far more mechanisms in place to keep the talent levels even -- to guarantee success once you're actually in the playoffs. Especially in the best-of-5 first round.

My loony idea for dealing with this is to go back to a 154 game season, and make all three rounds of the playoffs best-of-9. Unfortunately, this would mean the Yankees win the World Series more often -- until they realized that yes, the Yankees do have unfair advantage, and put in a real salary cap.