Optimistic Mets Fan presents Unsuccessful Franchises.
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| From MetsStuff |
There are eight teams remaining in Major League Baseball that played in the National League in the 19th century through to today: The Atlanta Braves, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs, the Cincinnati Reds, the San Francisco Giants, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Even though I’m not a basketball fan, I find myself routing for the New Jersey Nets. They’re on pace to break the record for worst NBA season this year, surpassing the 1972-1973 Philadelphia 76ers. It’s my feeling that I want to keep the city of Philadelphia associated with failure. Prior to the Phillies winning in 2008, the city had gone 25 years without a championship in any major sport. The Phillies are the only professional sports team to have lost 10,000 games: an unprecedented level of failure.
This got me thinking about the other older teams that have been around as long as the Phillies. How are those teams doing?
The Braves will be the next team to lose 10,000 games. They have a record of 9854-9883. That’s good for a .499 winning percentage, which is pretty decent. They actually have a shot at reaching 10,000 wins first. They need to win 96 games next season to get above .500 for their history.
The Giants were the first team to 10,000 wins and the Dodgers, Cubs, and Cardinals have joined them.
The Pirates and the Reds both have winning records. The Reds have 9824 wins to 9548 losses, and the Pirates, even after being a joke for the last two decades, have a record of 9753-9579.
The other old team, the Philadelphia Phillies, are in another class altogether. They hold a record of 9038-10,167. That’s good for a .471 winning percentage which is 26th of active franchises. Only the Padres, the Rangers, and the expansion Rays have a worse winning percentage. If the Phillies went 96-66 every season it would take them 38 years to get over the historical .500 mark.
The Mets aren’t exactly in great shape either, although they’ve won as many championships as the Phillies in roughly a third of the time. They only have a .479 winning percentage and a 3655-3981 record. They have a losing record in all three stadiums they’ve played in, but hopefully they can fix that this year.
24 comments
metsfan4decades
2/25/2010-9:21am at 9:21 am (UTC -4)
‘It’s my feeling that I want to keep the city of Philadelphia associated with failure.’ – LOL.
udontmesswthejohan
2/25/2010-9:24am at 9:24 am (UTC -4)
I find this really surprising:
“…the Pirates, even after being a joke for the last two decades, have a record of 9753-9579.”
ceetar
2/25/2010-9:30am at 9:30 am (UTC -4)
I know the Pirates have a storied history, but yeah, that surprised me too.
Still, my favorite part is “If the Phillies went 96-66 every season it would take them 38 years to get over the historical .500 mark.”
DNDJohan aka kistics
2/25/2010-9:54am at 9:54 am (UTC -4)
Me too! I wish them a miserable under .500 mark for the rest of their lives!!!! DIE PHILLIES!!! DIE DIE DIE!!
sorry too much caffeine this morning….. when will this snow end….
metsfan4decades
2/25/2010-9:48am at 9:48 am (UTC -4)
I found this interesting…
Yesterday, on the WFAN Evan and Joe morning show, I caught the tail end of an item they were discussing. It revolved around the latest Manny comments about this being the last year he was going to play for the Dodgers. They were getting a chuckle out of his comments.
They then went on to say could be they were made in response to the leak that came out concerning the Dodger owner divorce where they’re not going to be allowed to raise payroll at all for the next 5 years – but something about they have to increase revenue by some % in that same time frame.
Evan/Joe said if you think being a Met fan with Wilpons as the owners are bad, you could be a Dodger fan right now. Said this makes the Wilpons look like genius owners.
ceetar
2/25/2010-10:03am at 10:03 am (UTC -4)
I view the Wilpons much like Castillo. Hardly inadaquate, probably not going to lead or be the reason the team wins, but probably not a liability either.
saltygary
2/25/2010-11:14am at 11:14 am (UTC -4)
Cool post. The Pirates record was surprising.
GravediggerHebner
2/25/2010-11:31am at 11:31 am (UTC -4)
While there is no denying the historical failure of that city’s sports franchises, having taken this line of discussion with their fans in some friendly back-and-forth razzing in the recent past, most of them will happily note that as (blank) year olds what happened to the franchise 100 years, 50 years or even 25 years ago has little relevance to them.
Unfortunately as Mets fans, what happened to our franchise 25 years ago is far too relevant and needs to be pushed back in our memory banks by more recent triumphs, the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned. “Defending champion” sounds a lot better than “1986 reunion” and I look forward to uttering it soon.
ceetar
2/25/2010-11:38am at 11:38 am (UTC -4)
Agreed. But need something to cling to in the dark months. I’m comfortable that the Phillies will slip back into obscurity soon. (But I’m still going to pump up the rivalry as better than Yanks-Sox this year. That’s a future post)
metsfan4decades
2/25/2010-12:17pm at 12:17 pm (UTC -4)
Oh, this will probably invoke a heated debate. Looking forward to that post.
We’ve had some spirited discussions this off season from the vantage point of those of us who absolutely hate the Phillies more than the Yanks to those of use whose feelings are the reverse.
Actually, those debates here started with the WS play – of course.
ceetar
2/25/2010-12:32pm at 12:32 pm (UTC -4)
Yeah. As far as that goes, Hate Phillies fans more, hate the Yankees players more.
trs86
2/25/2010-1:36pm at 1:36 pm (UTC -4)
It’s funny. I hate the Yankee BRAND more than anything else. However, I hate the Philly fans and certain players much more than any current Yankee players. Yankee players are arrogant but are not very in your face.
stickguy
2/25/2010-2:24pm at 2:24 pm (UTC -4)
I agree about the Yankee image or brand. Or as I like to think of it, the insufferable arrogance and elitist attitude.
The fans used to bother me more, but not being in NY, I don’t have to deal with them on any regular basis.
Philly fans are another story, but they only existed for the last couple of years, and will all go back into the woodwork of aggonizing over the Eagles soon when the Phils run ends.
njstuckintx
2/25/2010-1:01pm at 1:01 pm (UTC -4)
How sweet it would be to give the Bravos their 10K loss. Maybe Chipper could pop out to Frankie to end it. The thought makes me giddy.
trs86
2/25/2010-1:37pm at 1:37 pm (UTC -4)
“# The team’s numbers showed Jacoby Ellsbury as an above-average center fielder in 2009. Epstein implied that he doesn’t put any stock in Ellsbury’s UZR. ”
Wanny and Case, discuss…
stickguy
2/25/2010-2:22pm at 2:22 pm (UTC -4)
I go back and forth, partly because I don’t know enough about the mechanics to figure out what it really means, or how to apply it.
Actually, I’m thinking about the “so what?” test. That is, if Beltran’s UZR is lower than another CF, what does it really mean?
It goes back to the subjective factor built in (stuff like % of balls in his zone that were caught). Who decides what the zone is, and catalogues every play? How do you account for guys that play overly deep vs. ones that play overly shallow, knowing that they won’t get to the same balls.
Do they have the same zone, and what is the relative merit of playing shallow and getting burned for a triple over your head (but cutting off more dink singles) vs. playing deep, but having more flairs drop in front of you?
I can certainly see a GM or maanger that sees a player all year forming an opinion beyond UZR, accounting for positioning, making plays, making good decisions on where to go with the ball (which I don’t think UZR accounts for, does it?)
Kind of rambling, but not being a fangraphs stat head with access to the data and formula, that’s what I make out of UZR.
GravediggerHebner
2/25/2010-3:32pm at 3:32 pm (UTC -4)
To the best of my knowledge (a/k/a from what I can gather) Epstein doesn’t put much stock in anybody’s UZR.
The Red Sox organization has in house scouts, statisticians (and I guess sabermetricians) and they have developed a system of their own which is proprietary and called CARMINE not because that means anything in particular but as an homage to the Red Sox nickname “Carmine Hose.” Theo mentioned this in some video footage about GMs and player evaluation that Mr. NJ linked to here recently this is how I’m aware of this at all.
So they use advanced data combined with scouting to evaluate players but it’s their own (and it’s their secret) not that of FanGraphs or anyone else.
trs86
2/25/2010-3:43pm at 3:43 pm (UTC -4)
It’s just that it appears as though there are some systems that rank out these players completely differently. Like how Rate1 and Rate2 both have Beltran as above average yet UZR has him at or below average. It’s hard to figure out on my end when to trust what system because it seems so subjective.
GravediggerHebner
2/25/2010-3:54pm at 3:54 pm (UTC -4)
I cannot lend any clarity to your decision making as to what system(s) to trust or follow as I suffer from a similar inability to understand or validate the various systems available.
Sadly, Epstein made it very clear that the system they use involves ‘proprietary software’ so unless they hire you or I we’ll probably never know quite how they go about it, although the fact that they have Bill James on their payroll is perhaps a good clue.
After I was initially “hoodwinked” by UZR I have backed off my previous embrace of it and am doing what you aptly put as using it as one tool in the toolbox of player evaluation. But I am not putting this particular tool in an important spot in my toolbox nor am I using it blindly for every job as I did a few months ago because I’ve found too often to my disappointment and frustration that it wasn’t the right tool for the job.
Kingman 26
2/25/2010-6:07pm at 6:07 pm (UTC -4)
I discovered this last year on Baseball Reference–
From 1918–1948–31 years–the Phils had a winning record ONCE (78-76 in 1932) and finished 4th that year–the ONLY time in 31 years they finished above 5th in an 8 team league. This included 16 8th place finishes and 7 7th place finishes.
Let that sink in.
They won the pennant in 1950 and then had a few winning years, but from 1918–1973–56 years–the Phils finished above 4th place FOUR times.
Unreal and incredible.
ceetar
2/25/2010-6:22pm at 6:22 pm (UTC -4)
The Phillies really are, historically, what the Pirates are viewed as today.
Mr North Jersey
2/25/2010-6:54pm at 6:54 pm (UTC -4)
I let that sink in but 1948 might as well be 1776.
With all those numbers the Phillies can say yeah that’s right but the Phillies have been to 5 World Series in the last 30 years going 2-5 while we have been to only 2 in that same time going 1-1.
Kingman 26
2/25/2010-6:58pm at 6:58 pm (UTC -4)
Well, they have also been to 5 World Series in the last 59 years.
Mr North Jersey
2/25/2010-7:05pm at 7:05 pm (UTC -4)
lol