Tuesday, June 14, 2016

The St. Louis Browns And Philadelphia Athletics Were The Only Teams To Finish 7th Or 8th In The AL From 1935-39

I used data from Fangraphs. As far as I can tell, this is the only occurrence from 1901-61, when eight team leagues were used, that there were five straight years when only two teams occupied the last two places in the league.

In only one of these years did either team even come close to 6th place (1935). The table below shows this. In four of the five seasons, the 7th place team could get no closer than 10 games to the 6th place team. It must be hard knowing you don't even have much chance of coming in 6th place.

The A's went 28-78 over those five years against the pennant winners (1935 Tigers, 1936-39 Yankees). The Browns were 29-81. In both cases, that is a .264 winning pct.

In the table below, the 6th place team each year is in Red just for clarity.


Year Pos Team W L Pct GB
1935 6 WSH 67 86 0.438 27
1935 7 SLB 65 87 0.428 28.5
1935 8 PHA 58 91 0.389 34
1936 6 BOS 74 80 0.480 28.5
1936 7 SLB 57 95 0.375 44.5
1936 8 PHA 53 100 0.346 49
1937 6 WSH 73 80 0.477 28.5
1937 7 PHA 54 97 0.358 46.5
1937 8 SLB 46 108 0.299 56
1938 6 CHW 65 83 0.439 32
1938 7 SLB 55 97 0.362 44
1938 8 PHA 53 99 0.349 46
1939 6 WSH 65 87 0.428 41.5
1939 7 PHA 55 97 0.362 51.5
1939 8 SLB 43 111 0.279 64.5

The next table shows the last date each team was not in 7th or 8th place in all five years plus the highest rank they had all year. After May 18, the Browns were in 7th or 8th in every year. There is only one year where one of the teams was not in the last two slots after July 17, the A's in 1935.

Both teams had losing records in April each year except for 1937. When the A's were .500. The 1937 Browns were only in first place after winning on opening day. Then they lost 5 of 6. The A's that year spent 13 days in first place. Their high water mark was 6 games over .500 at 15-9. They then lost 16 of 17 including a 10 game losing streak. They fell from 1st on May 23 to 7th on June 6.


Year Brown's Last Day Not In 7th Or 8th Brown's Highest Rank A's Last Day Not In 7th Or 8th  A's Highest Rank
1935 28-Apr 3 31-Aug 5
1936 14-Apr 5 5-May 5
1937 15-May 1 5-Jun 1
1938 28-Apr 2 3-Jul 6
1939 18-May 2 17-Jul 2

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