Because nobody asked for it, I will now continue my series and determining which city is the lamest sports city in North America. Today we're looking at baseball, my personal favorite of the big four leagues in America. As you can tell, I like stats, and if you like stats, then baseball is the sport for you.
Of course, I am also a Mariners fan, which means I'm quite familiar with the concept of futility.
My spreadsheet wasn't quite giving me the flexibility I wanted, so I created an application to do more in-depth number crunching. This means I was able to come up with some new stats. Here they are:
Best/Worst in Division: Percentage of when a team finishes at the top or bottom in their division. For baseball, only considers after divisional play began in 1969.
Best/Worst in Conference: Percentage of when a team finishes at the top or bottom of their conference. For baseball, "conference" means either AL or NL.
Best/Worst Overall: Percentage of when a team finishes with the best or worst record in all of Major League Baseball.
A few additional notes for baseball: 1904 and 1994 did not have a world series or postseason, so those years are not considered possible years for postseason stats. 1981 had a double-season due to a strike in the middle of the season (but only one postseason). For that reason, every team playing that year had two opportunities to finish at the top/bottom of their league/conference/division.
There is only one city in my data that no longer has a professional baseball team: Montreal. I've decided I'm going to include them, since they only lost their baseball team relatively recently.
Finally, for most of baseball's history until 1969, there was only one round in the postseason: the World Series. Up until 1969, I consider winning the world series to be the same as "advancing in the playoffs" and indeed, that was the only way to advance in the playoffs up until that point. Likewise, reaching the world series was the only way to make a playoff appearance (I do not consider tie-breaker series for this). I may revisit this later. On the other hand, pre-1969 world series data greatly skews the reaching finals per playoff appearance and advancing in playoffs per playoff appearance stats, so for those I only consider years with multi-round playoffs.
Let's get to it.
Regular Season
Best/Worst in Division
Since divisional play began in 1969, there have been two cities that stand out at being unable to finish at the top of their division: Denver and Miami. This is particularly impressive for Miami, given that they've managed to win two World Series since their club's inception in 1993. Montreal, my poor Seattle, and San Diego follow.
City | Best in Division |
|---|
# | % |
|---|
| Denver | 0 | 0.00% |
| Miami | 0 | 0.00% |
| Montreal | 2 | 5.41% |
| Seattle | 3 | 6.25% |
| San Diego | 5 | 9.09%
|
The "best" city at losing their division: the Tampa Bay area, whose Rays have finished last in their division 10 times in 25 opportunities. San Diego, Washington, Seattle, and Miami follow.
City | Worst in Division |
|---|
# | % |
|---|
| Tampa Bay | 10 | 40.00% |
| San Diego | 21 | 38.18% |
| Washington | 8 | 38.10% |
| Seattle | 15 | 31.25% |
| Miami | 9 | 30.00% |
Best/Worst in Conference
When it comes to finishing at the top of their league, things change a bit. San Diego joins Miami and Denver, having never finished with the best record in their league (the National League, in this case). Following them are Dallas and Seattle, each of whom have had the best record in their league only once.
City | Best in Conference |
|---|
# | % |
|---|
| San Diego | 0 | 0.00% |
| Miami | 0 | 0.00% |
| Denver | 0 | 0.00% |
| Dallas | 1 | 1.92% |
| Seattle | 1 | 2.08% |
The best at being the worst in their league: Philadelphia, mired by years of futility by the Phillies and Athletics in the first half of the 20th century. Tampa Bay, Washington, San Diego, and Miami follow.
City | Worst in Conference |
|---|
# | % |
|---|
| Philadelphia | 47 | 27.17% |
| Tampa Bay | 5 | 20.00% |
| Washington | 17 | 19.54% |
| San Diego | 10 | 18.18% |
| Miami | 5 | 16.67% |
Best/Worst Overall
A full seven cities have never had their team finish with the best overall record in baseball. Of those, San Diego has had the most seasons, so we'll use that as a tiebreaker and put them at the top. At least my Mariners had 2001, even though they didn't reach the World Series. Poor Montreal had the best overall record one year, but that was 1994 - no postseason due to a strike. That's a hard-luck city (well, at least in terms of success at baseball).
City | Seasons | Best Overall |
|---|
# | % |
|---|
| San Diego | 54 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Dallas | 51 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Toronto | 46 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Denver | 30 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Miami | 30 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Phoenix | 25 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Tampa Bay | 25 | 0 | 0.00% |
As for finishing worst overall: we don't need a tiebreaker for this one. Tampa Bay has only had a team for 25 years, but they finished with the worst overall record 4 times, a higher percentage than any other city. Washington and Philadelphia weren't quite as unsuccessful, but they've also had more opportunities.
City | Worst Overall |
|---|
# | % |
|---|
| Tampa Bay | 4 | 16.00% |
| Washington | 13 | 14.94% |
| Philadelphia | 25 | 14.45% |
| Phoenix | 2 | 8.00% |
| San Diego | 4 | 7.27% |
Postseason
Winning percentage in finals
This only applies to cities whose teams have made the finals (sorry, Seattle and Montreal). We've got a four-way tie for first here, between Dallas, San Diego, Tampa Bay, and Denver. Denver has only had 1 finals appearance, so that could change whenever their next one is.
City | Made Finals | Winning % in finals |
|---|
# |
|---|
| Dallas | 2 | 0.00% |
| San Diego | 2 | 0.00% |
| Tampa Bay | 2 | 0.00% |
| Denver | 1 | 0.00% |
| Atlanta | 6 | 33.33% |
| Cleveland | 6 | 33.33% |
| Milwaukee | 3 | 33.33% |
Reaching the finals per playoff appearance
Only applies for seasons beginning at 1969. Montreal and Seattle laid an egg on this one. After them, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis also have a lousy record of reaching the finals (though Twins fans may not care too much, since the times they did make the world series, they tended to win in epic fashion).
City | Reached finals per playoff |
|---|
| Montreal | 0.00% |
| Seattle | 0.00% |
| Chicago | 11.11% |
| Milwaukee | 12.50% |
| Minneapolis | 15.38% |
Advancing in playoffs per playoff appearance
Only applies for seasons beginning at 1969. My Mariners look a lot better here, being one of the best teams in advancing in the playoffs in years they qualify. On the other spectrum: Washington only advances 1 out of every 5 playoffs they qualify for. Minneapolis lack of playoff success in the early 2000's probably tells most of their story here.
City | Advanced in playoffs per playoffs |
|---|
| Washington | 20.00% |
| Minneapolis | 23.08% |
| Dallas | 25.00% |
| Pittsburgh | 27.27% |
| Chicago | 27.78% |
Qualifying for the playoffs, per season
Montreal is the most futile team here, having only qualified once in their existence, for a meager 2.86% rate of qualifying for the playoffs. Following them are Washington, Miami, Seattle, and Pittsburgh.
City | Made Playoffs |
|---|
# | % |
|---|
| Montreal | 1 | 2.86% |
| Washington | 8 | 9.30% |
| Miami | 3 | 10.34% |
| Seattle | 5 | 10.87% |
| Pittsburgh | 15 | 12.71% |
Advancing in the playoffs, per season
Washington surpasses Montreal here. But wait, how did Montreal advance in the playoffs without ever qualifying for the world series? Well, there was a multi-round playoff in 1981, and they advanced in one round, but not the next. Note to self: I'm not sure if this is factored into the calculations properly, I'll need to check on that.
City | Advanced in Playoffs |
|---|
# | % |
|---|
| Washington | 2 | 2.33% |
| Montreal | 1 | 2.86% |
| Chicago | 9 | 3.81% |
| Dallas | 2 | 4.00% |
| Minneapolis | 3 | 4.92% |
Reaching the world series, per season
Seattle does not stand alone here, and once they reach the world series (they will one day, I swear) only Montreal will remain.
City | Made Finals |
|---|
# | % |
|---|
| Montreal | 0 | 0.00% |
| Seattle | 0 | 0.00% |
| Denver | 1 | 3.45% |
| San Diego | 2 | 3.77% |
| Dallas | 2 | 4.00% |
Winning the world series, per season
This is a title shared by six cities. I'll include the next two after them for good measure. I'll use total seasons as a tiebreaker. Congrats San Diego, you are the worst at winning the world series.
City | Seasons | Titles |
|---|
# | % |
|---|
| San Diego | 54 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Dallas | 51 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Seattle | 47 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Montreal | 36 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Denver | 30 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Tampa Bay | 25 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Milwaukee | 66 | 1 | 1.54% |
| Cleveland | 120 | 2 | 1.69% |
I could spend some extra energy typing at which teams were the best, but...I'm not going to.
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