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Tuesday October 27, 2015
2015 World Series: At Least One Title Drought Ends in the Battle of the Expansion Teams
Game 1 of the 2015 World Series is tonight and I'll be rooting for the Kansas City Royals; but if either team wins it'll end a title drought of at least 29 years. We haven't seen that kind of matchup since 2010, when the Giants (last title: 1954) played the Rangers (last title: nevah).
For the curious, here's the list, sorted by years since a team's last World Series title. For the eight teams without titles, I went with the year they were founded:
Series Apps | Team | Most Recent Title | Most Recent Appearance | Year Founded | Years Since Title |
10 | Chicago Cubs | 1908 | 1945 | 1874 | 107 |
5 | Cleveland Indians | 1948 | 1997 | 1901 | 67 |
2 | Texas Rangers | n/a | 2011 | 1961 | 54 |
1 | Houston Astros | n/a | 2005 | 1962 | 53 |
1 | Milwaukee Brewers | n/a | 1982 | 1969 | 46 |
2 | San Diego Padres | n/a | 1998 | 1969 | 46 |
0 | Washington Nationals | n/a | n/a | 1969 | 46 |
0 | Seattle Mariners | n/a | n/a | 1977 | 38 |
7 | Pittsburgh Pirates | 1979 | 1979 | 1882 | 36 |
7 | Baltimore Orioles | 1983 | 1983 | 1900 | 32 |
11 | Detroit Tigers | 1984 | 2012 | 1901 | 31 |
4 | Kansas City Royals | 1985 | 2014 | 1969 | 30 |
5 | New York Mets | 1986 | 2015 | 1962 | 29 |
18 | Los Angeles Dodgers | 1988 | 1988 | 1884 | 27 |
14 | Oakland Athletics | 1989 | 1990 | 1901 | 26 |
9 | Cincinnati Reds | 1990 | 1990 | 1882 | 25 |
6 | Minnesota Twins | 1991 | 1991 | 1901 | 24 |
1 | Colorado Rockies | n/a | 2007 | 1993 | 22 |
2 | Toronto Blue Jays | 1993 | 1993 | 1977 | 22 |
9 | Atlanta Braves | 1995 | 1999 | 1871 | 20 |
1 | Tampa Bay Rays | n/a | 2008 | 1998 | 17 |
1 | Arizona Diamondbacks | 2001 | 2001 | 1998 | 14 |
1 | Los Angeles Angels | 2002 | 2002 | 1961 | 13 |
2 | Miami Marlins | 2003 | 2003 | 1993 | 12 |
5 | Chicago White Sox | 2005 | 2005 | 1901 | 10 |
7 | Philadelphia Phillies | 2008 | 2009 | 1883 | 7 |
40 | New York Yankees | 2009 | 2009 | 1903 | 6 |
19 | St. Louis Cardinals | 2011 | 2013 | 1882 | 4 |
12 | Boston Red Sox | 2013 | 2013 | 1901 | 2 |
20 | San Francisco Giants | 2014 | 2014 | 1883 | 1 |
Some interesting numbers. The Cubs, despite not having dipped a toe in the World Series since 1945, have still been to 10 of them, which is more than all but seven other teams.
This year's Series is also the first between two expansion teams. That surprised me. It also surprised me that none of the expansion teams have done well historically. In fact, these two, the Royals and the Mets, are the most successful of the newcomers. The Mets, founded in 1961, have been in the same number of World Series (5) as the White Sox and Indians, founded in 1901. They've won as many titles (2) as the Indians and Phillies and Cubs. If the Royals win this year, they'll join them. If the Mets win this year, they'll share the same number of titles (3) as the Braves, Twins and Orioles.
I guess this is what surprised me most: World Series titles are tough to come by unless you're the Yankees. Only eight teams have five or more titles in their history and only two teams have 10 or more: that would be the St. Louis Cardinals, with 11, and the New York Yankees Suck with ... 27. The Yankees have the same number of titles as the bottom 21 teams combined. And people wonder why I call them the 1% of baseball.
But at least the Yanks won't be adding to that number this year. Here's hoping for a good Series with a Royals victory. Here's hoping for Cubs/Indians sometime in the future.
Don't try this at home: Lorenzo Cain went from first to home on a single for the go-ahead run in the bottom of the 8th inning of Game 6 of the 2015 ALCS.