Thursday, October 15, 2009

Doubly Bad Seasons

At the end of this season, the Washington Nationals finished as the worst team in baseball, with a record of 59-103 (0.364). To add insult to injury, the Baltimore Orioles finished as the worst team in the American League, 64-98 (0.395). So if you had the misfortune to watch all the Orioles and Nationals games on MASN, you saw a combined record of 123-201 (0.380).

This set me to wondering how bad this really is. In most two-team markets, when one team is up, the other one is down, right? Well, not always. I went looking through the season standings in Retrosheet, searching for two teams in the same market that finished at the bottom of the division.

For our purposes, I defined a market as two teams close enough together so that TV viewers could watch both teams over the air, even if TV didn't exist in the year in question. Thus we include Baltimore/Washington, Los Angeles/Anaheim, and San Francisco/Oakland, not to mention Chicago/Chicago, and, historically, St. Louis/St. Louis, Boston/Boston, and New York/New York/Brooklyn.

The table below shows all the years I found two teams in the same market being at the bottom. You'd think divisional play would have increased the chances for this sort of thing, but in 40 years it has only happened three times, and neither Baltimore 2008 nor San Francisco/Oakland 1995 were at the bottom of their respective leagues, only their divisions.

Looking at this list, I begin to understand why Philadelphia fans have a reputation for being so mean.

Year Worst Team W L Pct. Other Team W L Pct. Tot. W Tot. L Pct.
1919 Phil. AL 36 104 .257 Phil. NL 47 90 .343 83 194 .300
1942 Phil. NL 42 109 .278 Phil. AL 55 99 .357 97 208 .318
1906 Bos. AL 49 105 .318 Bos. NL 49 102 .325 98 207 .321
1945 Phil. NL 46 108 .299 Phil. AL 52 98 .347 98 206 .322
1938 Phil. NL 45 105 .300 Phil. AL 53 99 .349 98 204 .325
1921 Phil. NL 51 103 .331 Phil. AL 51 103 .331 102 206 .331
1940 Phil. NL 50 103 .327 Phil. AL 54 100 .351 104 203 .339
1941 Phil. NL 43 111 .279 Phil. AL 64 90 .416 107 201 .347
1936 Phil. AL 53 100 .346 Phil. NL 54 100 .351 107 200 .349
1913 StL NL 51 99 .340 StL AL 57 96 .373 108 195 .356
1920 Phil. AL 48 106 .312 Phil. NL 62 91 .405 110 197 .358
1929 Bos. NL 56 98 .364 Bos. AL 58 96 .377 114 194 .370
1922 Bos. NL 53 100 .346 Bos. AL 61 93 .396 114 193 .371
1948 Chi AL 51 101 .336 Chi NL 64 90 .416 115 191 .376
2009 Wash. NL 59 103 .364 Balt. AL 64 98 .395 123 201 .380
2008 Wash. NL 59 102 .366 Balt. AL 68 93 .422 127 195 .394
1995 SF NL 67 77 .465 Oak. AL 67 77 .465 134 154 .465

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