When you're talking about the performances of teams and their managers, has anyone ever stopped to think about one thing that stands out for me - the fact that it's much harder to win a pennant or World Series today than it was years ago?
From 1901 to 1960 the major leagues had 16 teams; now there are 28 teams, with two more teams to be added in 1998. It stands to reason that it must be 28/16 (1.875) times harder to win a pennant or World Series now than it was from 1901 to 1960. When Arizona and Tampa enter the majors in 1998 and raise the number of teams to 30, that will make a pennant almost twice as difficult to win.
This makes us look at records of teams, managers, and players in a whole new light. Also, when hockey fans talk about the great era of hockey from the 1940s to the 1960s, do they ever stop to think that from 1942 to 1967 there were only six teams in the National Hockey League? A team would have been expected to win the Cup every six years, and to be in the finals every three years. Montreal won 10 Cups in that 25 years, but Toronto won nine and the Detroit Red Wings won five. A team should have won 4 Cups in that 25 years; fans in Detroit harken back to the "glory days" in that era of five Cups, but the Wings were really just winning one more Cup than they were supposed to win.
This concept of "expected wins" is what I want to talk about. Is Sparky Anderson's record of five pennants as impressive as John McGraw's ten or Connie Mack's nine? How would Casey Stengel's 10 pennants translate into modern terms?
I got to thinking about this while reading Leo Durocher's entertaining autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Last. Leo managed for 24 years and won three pennants. Impressive? Well, in an eight-team league, a manager should win a pennant every 8 years, or 3 in 24 years, so we could say that Leo managed to win as many, and no more, flags than he should have. Well, the last eight years of Leo's career were spent in a 10-team league, so that drops the expected flag total a bit.
I decided to study the matter this way:
From 1901 to 1960 in the AL, and from 1901 to 1961 in the NL, each team and manager had a .125 (one eighth) chance to win a pennant. Why? Because there are 8 teams and only one pennant available. In 1961 and 1962, the leagues became 10-team leagues, making the chance of winning .100 (one tenth).
1901-60 (AL), 1901-61 (NL) 8 teams .125 1961-68 (AL), 1962-68 (NL) 10 teams .100 1969-76 (AL), 1969-92 (NL) 12 teams .083 1977-now(AL), 1993-now(NL) 14 teams .071So Leo Durocher's managerial career looks like this:
Expected Actual
Team Years Chance Pennants Pennants
Dodgers, 1939-46 8 .125 1.000 1
Giants, 1948-55 8 .125 1.000 2
Cubs, 1966-68 3 .100 .300 0
Cubs/Astros, 1969-73 5 .083 .415 0
Total 24 2.715 3
Durocher was expected to win 2.715 pennants in his career. He
won 3, slightly more than he should have. Durocher was a good
manager; was he a great one? Should his record of three pennants
in 24 years have put him in the Hall of Fame?
Sparky Anderson's record looks like this:
Expected Actual
Team Years Chance Pennants Pennants
Reds, 1970-78 9 .083 .750 4
Tigers, 1979-95 17 .071 1.214 1
Total 26 1.964 5
A bit more impressive, no? Though he won only once in 17 years
with Detroit, and the Tiger slide from 1989 to 1995 weighs
against Anderson's record, he still won 2.5 times more pennants
than he should have.
Or, how about Connie Mack?
Expected Actual
Team Years Chance Pennants Pennants
A's, 1901-50 50 .125 6.25 9
We're not counting the years from 1894 to 1896 when Mack managed
the Pittsburgh Pirates; those years would raise the expected
pennants slightly. Mack did OK, but he won only 1.4 times as
many flags as he was expected to win; Sparky Anderson won 2.5
times as many.
I'll refer to this calculation in the future, but I'll close with one more manager. In his book, Leo Durocher barely hides his contempt for one of his sucessors with the Dodgers, Walter Alston, and it must have galled Leo that Alston got in the Hall of Fame before Leo did.
Here's Walter Alston's record:
Expected Actual
Team Years Chance Pennants Pennants
Dodgers, 1954-61 8 .125 1.000 3
Dodgers, 1962-68 7 .100 .700 3
Dodgers, 1969-74 6 .083 .500 1
Total 21 2.200 7
Alston won 3.1 times as many pennants as he was expected to win;
Durocher won 1.1 times as many as he should have. Now do you see
why Alston got in the Hall first?