Monday, August 22, 2005

A Numbers Post: Which Cities are the Biggest Losers in Baseball (Part 2)

(Continued from here.)

Now we see where all those collective wins in Chicago came from in 1906 -- the Boston Beaneaters and Boston Pilgrims had a collective 207 losses between them, to the Chicago teams' 209 wins. However, that's the only 200-loss season for the town - though the late 1920's were not kind to Boston, hitting 190+ loss seasons in 1922 and 1926-1929, topping out at 199 in 1928.

To their credit, the Boston teams never combined for 200 wins, either - their highest combined win season was 1948, when the Red Sox were second in the AL with 96 wins, and the Braves were first in the NL with 91 wins, but lost to the Cleveland Indians in the World Series -- the last Series the Indians ever won, as a matter of fact. In the Red Sox monster 1912 year, with their 105-47 record, the Braves had almost as horrendous a losing year with a 52-101 record, so go figure.

Boston had two major league teams for 52 years, and they had 21 seasons of being collectively over .500, and 31 seasons below, for 40%, which is bad, and certainly entitles Boston to some of their hard-luck feeling, but is still above Philadelphia's 32%.

St. Louis, which hosted the Cardinals and the Browns together for 52 seasons between 1902 and 1953, never endured a season of a collective 200 losses, amazingly. Despite the St. Louis Browns having some truly atrocious runs, such as three consecutive 100+ loss seasons from 1910-1912, and a truly awful year in 1939 when they won 43 and lost 111, the Cardinals seem to have made up the slack for the most part. In 6 out of the 8 100+ loss seasons for the Browns, the Cardinals finished over .500.

St. Louis also never got a 200+ win season together. However, the highest combined win total for the city is 194 wins in 1944, when the Cards went 105-49 and the Browns went 89-65, and the two teams met in the 1944 World Series, with the Cardinals, of course, winning.

Unfortunately, St. Louis had 16 seasons where the two teams were collectively over .500, and out of 52 years, that gives us 31%, which is slightly under the 32% for Philadelphia. Who knew?

Los Angeles is pretty average. Their worst combined season is 189 losses, in 1992, and their best combined season is 191 wins, in 2002. The Angels have never suffered a 100-loss season. And aside from the 99-loss season in 1992, the Dodgers haven't lost more than 89 games since they moved to Los Angeles. 2004 is the only year they both made the postseason, and both were knocked out in the division series.

The city has had a collective over .500 winning percentage in 30 of the 44 years they've had two teams, for a whopping 68%, which is second only to New York so far.

Wow, the Bay Area is almost as average. Their worst collective season was 1979, when the Oakland A's hit their only 100+ loss season, going 54-108. The Giants went 71-91 for a combined 199 losses, which is not 200 or over. To their credit, they also have never had a 200+ win season, with the closest being the last few years -- 2002 with 198 wins, 2003 with 196 wins, and 2001 with 192 wins.

An impressive feat is that they've had 5 years where both teams made the postseason, too - 2003, 2002, 2000, 1989, and 1971. 1989 was the impressive subway series in the Bay Area, though I guess it's best remembered for the earthquake that suspended the series for ten days.

The Bay Area has had seasons better than .500 for 22 of the 37 years they've had both teams there, or 59%.

So, to sum up, so far, our cities' collective over .500 seasons:

New York: 77 out of 98 years (78%)
Los Angeles: 30 out of 44 years (68%)
Bay Area: 22 out of 37 years (59%)
Chicago: 59 out of 104 years (57%)
Boston: 21 out of 52 years (40%)
Philadelphia: 18 out of 55 years (32%)
St. Louis: 16 out of 52 years (31%)

Cities losing a collective 200 games or more:
Philadelphia: 8 seasons
Boston: 1 season

Cities winning a collective 200 games or more:
New York: 3 seasons
Chicago: 1 season


Oh, just for fun, here's a count of in each city, how often both teams had a winning season, how often one or the other had a winning season, and how often neither of them had a winning season. As you can see, Philadelphia is the winner in losing:

City          : Both Win : One Wins : Neither Wins : Total
Philadelphia : 9 / 16% : 24 / 43% : 22 / 40% : 55
Boston : 12 / 23% : 21 / 40% : 19 / 36% : 52
St. Louis : 8 / 15% : 29 / 55% : 15 / 28% : 52
Bay Area : 16 / 43% : 13 / 35% : 8 / 21% : 37
Chicago : 24 / 23% : 62 / 60% : 18 / 17% : 104
Los Angeles : 12 / 27% : 28 / 63% : 4 / 9% : 44
New York : 48 / 49% : 43 / 43% : 7 / 7% : 98


So, what's my point? I'm not sure. This sort of started out as a "It's really not that bad in Seattle, imagine what it'd be like in a city where it sucked so much that even with TWO teams, you couldn't remember the last time you had a local team worth rooting for, period?" thing, but it sort of turned into some sort of Philly anti-pride, or maybe some sort of "Move to California" drive. Hmm. I really didn't know that the St. Louis Browns sucked so much, though, so I at least learned something along the way. I mean, they couldn't win a pennant with George Sisler on the team, and we've got Ichiro.

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