Thursday, July 1, 2021

The Biggest Declines In Winning Percentage For Pennant Winners, 1901-68

The first table has the AL. W-L%1 is a team's pct. the year they won the pennant and W-L%2 is their pct. the year after. All data from Baseball Reference and Stathead.

The 1914 A's had a pct. of .651 and in 1915 it was .283, for a change of -.368

Tm

Years

W-L%1

W-L%2

Diff

A's

1914-15

0.651

0.283

-0.368

Twins

1933-14

0.651

0.434

-0.217

White Sox

1917-18

0.649

0.460

-0.189

Red Sox

1912-13

0.691

0.527

-0.164

Red Sox

1946-47

0.675

0.539

-0.136

Yankees

1964-65

0.611

0.475

-0.136

Orioles

1966-67

0.606

0.472

-0.134

Yankees

1939-40

0.702

0.571

-0.131

Indians

1954-55

0.721

0.604

-0.117

Red Sox

1918-19

0.595

0.482

-0.113

Now the NL.

Tm

Year

W-L%1

W-L%2

Diff

Cards

1931-32

0.656

0.468

0.188

Pirates

1909-10

0.724

0.562

0.162

Reds

1919-20

0.686

0.536

0.150

Dodgers

1916-17

0.610

0.464

0.146

Dodgers

1966-67

0.586

0.451

0.135

Pirates

1960-61

0.617

0.487

0.130

Giants

1913-14

0.664

0.545

0.119

Phillies

1950-51

0.591

0.474

0.117

Dodgers

1963-64

0.611

0.494

0.117

Cubs

1918-19

0.651

0.536

0.115

The 1914-15 A's are the biggest decliners. But that is because Connie Mack sold or traded away some of his best players. Some had jumped to the Federal League and Mack did not want to get into a bidding war.

Important players who were gone in 1915 include Eddie Collins and Frank Baker. SS Jack Barry played less than half the season with the A's. Star pitchers Eddie Plank and Chief Bender were also gone. See SABR bio of Connie Mack by Doug Skipper

Many other players and pitchers from 1914 were still there. But their team OPS+ fell from 114 to 87 (114 means you are 14% better than average, 87 means you are 13% below average). Their team ERA+ fell from 94 to 68 (they had been giving up 6% more runs than average and it went to  32 more than average). The + sign also means the numbers are park adjusted.

The next biggest fall is the 1933-34 Senators. A quick look at them shows that their personnel did not change much and did not look especially old in 1934. Maybe I will do a future post to figure out what happened to them.

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