Interesting World Series Historical Stat

[AstrosFan]

I was scanning Baseball Reference's situational records on which teams played the most games against sub-.500 teams in any given season. I noticed that teams I recognized as being victims of a major World Series upset tended to appear high on the games played list. Defining a major upset as a win over a team that finished 10 or more games better than the WS victor in the regular season, I found nine such examples, and in eight of them, the team with the fewer games played against sub-.500 opponents won the WS. The one that didn't, the 2006 Cardinals, actually tied with the 1984 Padres and 1997 Indians (both WS losers) for most games against sub-.500 teams (1901-2009), with 114.

This data is certainly not meaningful. There are only eight winners. And with 14 total teams that finished 10 or more behind and had fewer games against sub-.500 teams, it doesn't have a great prediction percentage. But then, how often would you expect a team that was 10 or more games better than its opponent to win the WS?

But the major upsets, save the 2006 Cardinals, all have that common theme mentioned above. While it isn't significant, I still find it very interesting.

Here are the eight teams:

1906 White Sox - 22.5 GB
1954 Giants - 14 GB
1912 Athletics - 12 GB
1990 Reds - 12 GB
1985 Royals - 10 GB
1987 Twins - 10 GB
1995 Braves - 10 GB
2003 Marlins - 10 GB

It also predicted the 1988 Dodgers - 9.5 GB, and 1969 Mets - 9 GB, for what that's worth.

[Buzzaldrin]

it's late at night here and so I will only post my very first quick impression, and that is that certain teams that met the ones on the list- most especially the 1906 Cubs- didn't really have much choice about playing sub .500 teams.

The 1906 Cubs were 116-36, for a wpct of .763. They won the pennant by 20 games over New York, whose pct was .632. The only major league team this year to top .632 was the Yankees by one game, meaning they would have finished 19 games out of first in the 1906 NL.

How do these two 1906 teams (and the Pirates who were 93-60, .608) achieve such seasons? Well, the other five teams in the league were well below .500, including two teams below .350 who both finished over 60 games behind.

If you play your season against minor league teams, you shouldn't be the favorite in the post season in the first place.

My second impression is that in 1912 the A's didn't make the series (as you say).

It's a very interesting issue, though, and tomorrow I will try to addres it more thoroughly.

[spark240]

A difference in regular season records, for teams coming out of different leagues or divisions (with unbalanced schedule), does not indicate that one is better than the other. That's what the playoffs are for.

[Beady]

Originally Posted by Buzzaldrin

...The 1906 Cubs were 116-36, for a wpct of .763. They won the pennant by 20 games over New York, whose pct was .632. The only major league team this year to top .632 was the Yankees by one game, meaning they would have finished 19 games out of first in the 1906 NL.

How do these two 1906 teams (and the Pirates who were 93-60, .608) achieve such seasons? Well, the other five teams in the league were well below .500, including two teams below .350 who both finished over 60 games behind.

If you play your season against minor league teams, you shouldn't be the favorite in the post season in the first place.

St. Louis and Boston finished so far behind because the Cubs spreadeagled the entire league, most emphatically including Pittsburgh and New York. You expect a champion to beat the tailenders consistently, and the Cubs were a combined 32-11 against St. Louis and Boston. You don't expect them to to do virtually as well against their strongest competitors, and Chicago was 31-12 against the Pirates and Giants. The White Sox were 24-20 against Cleveland and New York, the second and third place teams in the AL.

The NL was the weaker league at this point, with chronic problem clubs that had still not recovered from AL raids early in the decade, but I don't think anyone would question the strength of the Pirates and Giants. It would have been reasonable to make the Cubs the favorites in the Series.