Royals Record by the Numbers
Now that the 2017 MLB season is winding down and we’re hearing all the experts’ opinions and analysis, the “I told you so’s” and the second guesses are beginning to surface. The first call for dismantling the Royals appeared last week. The customary cry for a new general manager and a field manager as well as a new ownership group was made in the KC Star last week. This will set the tone for others, including the Star’s own staff, which will soon follow. Get rid of everybody and send all the players to Omaha – that’ll show ’em.
One of the greatest benefits of winning is that silence from the “experts.” When you participate in two World Series’ back to back it’s hard for them to come up with much criticism. This bunch will think of something but it rings hollow when you’ve had success and it’ll take a few years of losing seasons to lose this new breed of Royals fans who, for now, keep the faith and the spirit win or lose.
No matter how many new performance measurements are introduced the only numbers that are truly meaningful and really matter are those at season’s end – how many games won and how many games lost. These actual final numbers rarely (almost never) jibe with the “expert’s” prognostications and why they are offered, or even worse, given any credibility beats me. But these tell the year’s story – how the team fared and how their season compared with the 29 other teams.
So what I’ve done is rate the performance for the past five years for each of the 30 teams in MLB. Where they finished and how they compared to the competition at the end of the year. We awarded the most points to the year’s champion – the World Series winner; and next the runner-up. Winning the division title is the next highest accomplishment and the best league record should get noticed. Participating in the playoffs is the first goal in the spring and the first measure for a successful season and should get rewarded as well as a winning (82 wins) season. We also gave one point for a 100 wins and we deducted one point for 100 losses.
I did not realize the Royals would rank as high as they did and that’s not why I did all this number crunching. I was just curious as to how MLB teams compared over a period of time and who was the best long term operation, Also, octogenarians in retirement do the strangest things to stay awake.
Interesting findings: the Yankees just celebrated 25 straight years of winning seasons (82plus). Only the Dodgers, Cardinals and Nationals and the Yankees, of course, had winning seasons the past 5 years. Only the Yankees had 10 or more – they now have 25. That’s how hard that was to accomplish. Love ’em or hate ’em that’s a professional operation.
I was not so surprised by the Cardinals being the most successful team in the past 5 years, but the margin over the second place Nationals (and the rest of the pack) was startling. The Red Birds were only in one World Series (which they lost) but were in the playoffs 4 out of 5 years, division winners 3 out of 5 and won 82 or more games all 5 years. The Nationals (well ahead of every team but the Cardinals) did not make it to the World Series at all, but had 5 winning seasons and won their division 3 out of 5 times. Another interesting fact: the National League had the 4 top teams and the bottom 5 teams. A bigger spread between the haves and the have-nots. I don’t know what this means, but it’s hard to imagine that 5 teams have not won a point in five years and the Marlins were actually a minus one for their 100 losses in 2013.
Here is my scoring matrix:
Points Finish
10 World Series winner
9 World Series runner-up
7 Division Title
5 Best League Record
4 Playoff Participant
3 Winning Season – 82 wins or more
1 100 Wins
-1 100 Losses
The results for the five seasons 2012 – 2016 are as follows:
American League
1. Kansas City Royals | 48 |
2. Boston Red Sox | 43 |
3. Detroit Tigers | 36 |
4. Oakland Athletics | 35 |
5. New York Yankees | 35 |
6. Baltimore Orioles | 31 |
7. Toronto Blue Jays | 28 |
8. Cleveland Indians | 27 |
9. Texas Rangers | 19 |
10. Los Angeles Angels | 18 |
11. Tampa Bay Rays | 10 |
12. Houston Astros | 8 |
13. Seattle Mariners | 6 |
14. Chicago White Sox | 3 |
15. Minnesota Twins | 2 |
National League
1. St Louis Cardinals | 72 |
2. Washington Nationals | 58 |
3. Los Angeles Dodgers | 52 |
4. San Francisco Giants | 51 |
5. Chicago Cubs | 36 |
6. New York Mets | 30 |
7. Atlanta Braves | 21 |
8. Cincinnati Reds | 21 |
9. Pittsburgh Pirates | 13 |
10. Milwaukee Brewers | 6 |
11. Arizona Diamondbacks | 0 |
12. Colorado Rockies | 0 |
13. Philadelphia Phillies | 0 |
14. San Diego Padres | 0 |
15. Miami Marlins | -1 |
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