Weakest post-WWII World Series Winners

Here's the piece.

Will have to think about this. My first instinct would be not to list teams like the '00 Yankees or '06 Cardinals that were weaker versions of a core team in the middle of a great run (or even the '64 Cardinals, the core of a team beginning a great run). But that's without checking--he might be right.

From memory: at the time, I thought the '83 Orioles were pretty unimpressive.

'96 Yankees were probably about the 7th- or 8th-best team that year

(ditto '06 Cards)

i would have to go with the '06 Cardinals. think they were only a couple of games over .500 and won their division. got hot in the playoffs and won it all.

I can't believe the 88 Dodgers are not on that list, especially considering how injury decimated they were by the time the playoffs came around.

That club won it all with guys like Mickey Hatcher and Rick Dempsey being the big playoff bats with one swing exception by Kirk Gibson.

I'd rate them below most of these clubs that I know on the list.

at least the 06 cardinals scored more runs than their opponents on the season, something which that twins team failed to do

are there any other world series teams besides that one with a negative run differential?

Nice question! I agree that the 2006 Cards don't belong, you have to consider them as part of the 2004-6 juggernaut. And the 1982 Cards don't belong either -- I'm not sure how Pos can say they didn't pitch particularly well when they led the league in team ERA. And the 80's Cards offenses are underrated, everyone remembers them for the SB's and not hitting home runs, but they were OBP and run scoring machines during the years they won.

I'd forgotten how bad the '85 Royals' lineup was. They were 2nd last in the league in scoring and they were OLD. But at the time I remember them being a fairly serious threat because of their pitching.

I think Pos' article underrates the '87 Twins. He says they couldn't get on base but the team OBP was only a few points below the league average. They could hit for power and had legit stars at three positions (at least). Their pitching wasn't good overall but Frank Viola was probably the best pitcher in the league besides Clemens in '87-'88. I'm almost positive that they were the only team to be outscored during the regular season and win the WS, but I don't think they're the worst team on the list. In a short series they could cut out most of the fluff in that pitching staff and just use Blyleven and Viola as much as possible (which is what they did, and that's why they won).

I'm tempted to go with one of the older teams or the '96 Yankees. And yeah, the '88 Dodgers should probably be listed here too.

83 Orioles were 98-64 (one game behind the White Sox), the league MVP in Ripken, a still solid Eddie Murray, a good staff (Boddicker, Davis, Flanagan, McGregor) and a respectable bullpen. They also must have had a very good defense cuz no one on the staff struck anyone out it looks like.

I'm inclined to go with the 87 Twins who were really not a very good team at all outside of Viola, Blyleven, Puckett and Hrbek.

I was tempted to suggest the '01 DBacks who I remember as being an awful team outside of about four or five guys, but then I checked the numbers and couldn't believe that they were 3rd in scoring and 2nd in ERA that year.

I have grudge against two of the teams listed: I think most Jays fans think we had the best team in '85 and (definitely) '87.

The '96 Yankees do not look good on paper--they were like a clearing house for past-expiry-date vets (Fielder, Boggs, Sierra, Raines, Strawberry, Gooden, Cone, even Steve Howe!...a couple of these guys did have a few more productive years). I'm still reluctatnt to include them because the core of the '98-'01 team is there: Jeter, Pettite, Rivera, and Bernie Williams all had good-to-great years, Tino Martinez and Paul O'Neill had very good years (they were part of that core initially), and Posada got in some time too. I wouldn't argue the point strenuously, but it doesn't feel right.

The '88 Dodgers are a lot like the Giants this year; they should be listed, and listed high, for their hitting (they gave 350 AB to Alfredo Griffin, worth a .199/.259/.253 line, plus I bet lots of bizarre baserunning), but their pitching was great, beginning with Hershiser's epic year, and with much more than just him.

The '80 Phillies only won 91 games, and I think James once wrote that they relied more on Schmidt, Carlton, and McGraw than any WS winner had ever relied on three players before. Their third starter third and fourth starters were a combined 15-21, with an ERA near 5.00. They might be my choice.

"Their third and fourth starters..."

I don't see how you can claim a team that has the hands down best position player and the best pitcher in the league is the worst WS team ever.

Well...because it's a team. The '87 Twins had Puckett, Blyleven, and Viola; every team listed had stars and HOF players. To me, as the gap between the two or three best players and the rest of the team widens, that's something to take into consideration. I mean, what does it say if the team with the hands-down best position player and the best pitcher managed to win all of 91 games? (Also, I said might be my choice.)

I'm inclined to go with the 87 Twins who were really not a very good team at all outside of Viola, Blyleven, Puckett and Hrbek.

And this is different from what I'm saying about the '80 Phillies how?!

"The '87 Twins had Puckett, Blyleven, and Viola; every team listed had stars and HOF players."

Come on the years that Schmidt and Carlton had in 1980 were not comparable to the years that any of those dudes had in 1987. Both were probably 2 or 3 wins better than the next best players in the NL. Not that I necessarily take much stock in MVP voting, but these guys completely dominated the MVP and Cy Young voting.

completely dominated the MVP and Cy Young voting for a reason, ahem.

So why didn't they win more than 91 games? Possibly because the rest of the team was even worse than the rest of the '87 Twins?

But who cares? The question isn't which is the weakest team minus their best players!

Jesus, that's the point--they weren't that impressive a team [i]with</> their best players. It's you who's fixated on the Phillies' best two players, like that automatically eliminates them from consideration. You might also want to think about eliminating the '06 Cardinals from the list, who had hands-down the best position player in the game.

They weren't that impressive a team, but they were significantly better than for example the 1987 Twins.

Fine--according to you. I disagree.

I.e., I disagree that the Twins were significantly better. They may have been marginally better--I'd have to compare them more closely. I simply threw out the '80 Phillies as another possibility.

That 88 Dodgers team also knocked off the Mets and I think you could say that was the best club they ever had. They were freaking loaded and really deep. I'd say that was even a bigger upset than them beating the A's, who got skunked twice by teams in the World Series by teams that on paper they greatly out classed.

I don't see why the 85 Royals are here. That club was the tail end of a long good run of KC clubs and definitely not the best one of the bunch, but they were more than solid at the plate and had pretty deep starting pitching to go with a very good and real closer.

That said, the AL East was freaking beastly during the 80s, there were some clubs that finished 2nd or 3rd in the east that were usually better than the team that won the west.

I can see this in the knock on the 87 Twins especially, as the East was really tough that year. Yanks won 89 games and finished 4th in the east that year, where the Twins only won 87.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/1987.shtml

Being a big fan of 70s and 80s baseball, I'd definitely like to have saw how some of those seasons might have played out with use of the modern expanded playoff system.

As a reflexive Giants homer, I voted for them before I figured out what this poll was about.

I don't see why the 85 Royals are here. That club was the tail end of a long good run of KC clubs

This is one of the points I've been trying to make (I agree with you)--that winners who are at the beginning, middle, or end of a very successful era should be given an automatic edge over clubs that appear out of nowhere to win. (Which, yes, would include this year's Giants.) The '85 Royals had Brett and White and Wilson and McRae, key guys from their excellent '70s teams, plus a great young pitching staff that appeared, at the time, to be a bridge to the next era.

Of course, I'm completely contradicting my dismissal of the '80 Phillies, who were also part of a long, successful run. Damn, this stuff's complicated.

It's a bit of a stretch to connect the '85 Royals to their '76-'80 teams, they hadn't been serious contenders for years. That's not the same as the '06 Cards.

Not comparable to the '06 Cardinals, agreed, but neither is it a wholly new team. Brett, Wilson, McRae, and White are still there in the starting nine from the '80 team that lost to the Phillies; the pitching staff is new, as I mentioned above. I don't think it's accurate to say they hadn't been contenders for years, though. Between '80 and '85, they went to the playoffs twice and finished second the other two teams. Weak division, granted, and two of those years they were under .500...

"Two times."

When BP did their "THE BEST PLAYER IN BASEBALL" thing a couple of years back I was kind of surprised at how Mike Schmidt completely outclassed everyone in the mid-70 to mid-80s, but looking even at the conventional #s (i.e. not WAR) he was clearly amazing. He outslugged the next highest guy in '80 by almost 100 pts!

And did it all over again the following year, when he was within shouting distance of a Triple Crown. (Minus the strike, his BA would have almost surely come down from .316, though.)

'87 Twins vs. '80 Phillies:

C -- Tim Laudner vs. Bob Boone: Laudner had more homers (16-9), Boone "hit for a higher average" (.229 to .191). Boone had a much better career, advantage Phillies.

1B -- Hrbek vs. Rose: That particular year, clear advantage Twins.

2B -- Steve Lombardozzi vs. Manny Trillo: clear advantage Phillies.

SS -- Greg Gagne vs. Larry Bowa: Gagne had more power, Bowa was presumably a better fielder, although sometimes you'll read he was overrated. More or less a draw.

3B -- Gaetti vs. Schmidt: Duh, but Gaetti did have 31 HR and 109 RBI that year. So even though Schmidt was probably the greatest third basemen ever at that point (and may still be), it's not like Gaetti was a hole in the lineup. Still, clear advantage Phillies.

LF -- Dan Gladden vs. Greg Luzinski: They were both pretty bad that year; Gladden was worse, advantage Phillies.

CF -- Kirby vs. Garry Maddox: Maddox had some good years in the '70s, but by '80 he wasn't much. Big advantage Twins--almost as big, I'd say, as the Phillies' at third base.

RF -- Brunansky vs. Bake McBride: Bake McBride is one of the three greatest names ever, so advantage Phillies...Advantage Twins; McBride had a good year, but Brunansky's power numbers and walks were worth more.

Ace -- Carlton vs. Viola: similar to the third base situation--Carlton obviously, but, as NoTime pointed out above, Viola was damn good in the late '80s. In a short series, I could easily see Viola matching Carlton pitch for pitch.

#2 Starter -- Blyleven vs. Dick Ruthven: Ruthven was okay, but advantage Twins.

#3 Starter -- Les Straker vs. Bob Walk: Yikes. That particular year, they look about even.

#4 Starter -- Mike Smithson vs. Randy Lerch. Yikes again. And again, a draw.

Set-Up -- Juan Berenguer/George Frazier/Keith Atherton vs. Ron Reed/Dickie Noles/Kevin Saucier: Adjusted for all the offense in '87, they seem pretty close.

Closer -- Reardon vs. McGraw: Career-wise, Reardon; that particular year, clear advantage Phillies.

Bench -- Hell if I know!

So: I'd give six of these to the Phillies, four to the Twins, and call four of them a draw. So I'd agree the Phillies were better, but a) not a lot better, and Posnanski has the Twins #1, I think the Phillies should at least be listed, and b) I think the Twins would match up very well with them in a short series, where the Schmidt/Gaetti and Carlton/Viola advantages are compressed and not so pronounced.

Uh Gary Gaetti's OBP was .303 in 1987. Not to get all advanced metric-y but his WAR was 2.4/OPS .788 in 87 vs. Schmidt's 9.1/OPS 1.004 in 1980. Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek weren't that much better than anyone on the Phillies (even someone as pathetic offensively as Garry Maddox and Rose were that year.) And while I agree that Viola was great in 1987 (and even better the next year) Carlton was hands down the best pitcher in baseball by a pretty enormous margin in 1980 (he led the league in basically everything that year.)

Finally the proof is 1) the Phillies won five more games (and had the same pythag record) 2) the Phillies were 2nd in runs scored that year and fifth in runs allowed. Meanwhile the Twins had a negative run differential and were below league average in runs scored and won a worse division (the Phillies actually had to contend with a quality team in Montreal, the Twins had the ancient Royals and a year from dominant A's). In this fictional short series anything can happen, sure, but on paper the Phillies were the better team by a not insignificant margin.

You and I approach these things differently. You seem to place great importance on season-to-season fluctuations; I tend to step back a bit. To me, provided you're within a player's window of productivity (i.e., unlike Rose in '80, who is clearly outside of his), Gary Gaetti is Gary Gaetti, and Mike Schmidt is Mike Schmidt. Schmidt's a towering figure, Gaetti's a good career player. So I'll stick with what I wrote: clear advantage Phillies, but Gaetti ain't Garth Iorg.

"The proof"? That voice-of-God thing again--it is possible to see this differently, you know. I actually sent a reader e-mail to James earlier today, soliciting his opinion on where the '80 Phillies might stand. I hope it shows up on his site; I'm very interested to hear what he'd say.

Something I'd totally forgotten...Carlton was on the '87 Twins!

One last thing, seeing as you bring up advanced metrics for Schmidt and Gaetti. Viola's WAR in 1987 was 7.6, the best of his career (even better than '88). Carlton's was 9.4. Their ERA+ were virtually identical: 162-159 in favor of Carlton.

I'd say that's a pretty fair approximation of where they stand in relation to each other.

Alex: This is pretty funny...it's a tie!

Bill -- Sparked by Posnanski's column the other day about worst post-WWII Series winners, my message board has been debating the issue. I suggested that the '80 Phillies are a candidate, in that they were a very mediocre team propped up by two all-time greats and Tug McGraw. Another guy is countering that the mere fact of Schmidt and Carlton being on the team eliminates them from consideration. Any thoughts?
Asked by: Phil Dellio
Answered: November 7, 2010

I think you may both be 90% right. You are certainly correct in saying that that was a fifth-place team that was carried to the top by two fantastic talents and a good reliever. Your counterpoint may also be correct in saying that that's enough to lift them out of the class of truly weak champions.

hahahahaha

This is my new policy, by the way, every time you guys give me a hard time over something: I'm going directly to Bill James to litigate the matter.

I think Bill James needs to come down more clearly on one side or the other, really. What a wishy-washy answer.

Btw "the proof" wasn't a voice of god thing, it was a look at what they actually did these respective years thing.

Bill James: wishy-washy has-been.

Or as Husker Du might say, black and white is never--never--grey.

Bill James, new ILX mod

New ILB description should be "Bill James suggest ban"

this thread was annoying the shit out of me and i was going to say load both teams into strat-o-matic and duke it out.

but James is a much better arbiter.

Here's a guy who ranks the '87 Twins third-worst, and two other teams from the '40s and '50s as even worse:

http://scoresheetwiz.tripod.com/

(Not sure if this is a permanent link or not.)

Another possibility: '97 Marlins. They won 92 games, nine back of Atlanta (albeit second-most in the league), and only projected to 88 wins. Bottom half in runs scored, although the teams were bunched fairly closely after Colorado; fourth in runs allowed. They did not have a Hall of Fame player, as far as I can tell, unless Sheffield gets in one day (obviously they had a few good ones). And, somewhat infamously, they were a team without a past or a future; they were thrown together for that one year, and dismantled just as quickly. I think I'd go with them ahead of some of the Yankees and Cardinals teams listed above.

That was a good all-around team though. Sure no HoFers, but Alou, Sheffield, Brown and Nen were All Star level talents at that point and they had solid (i.e. no Dan Gladden) position players at almost every position (Conine, Bonilla, White, Johnson all played good ball elsewhere before and/or after) and a lot of young talent (Renteria, Castillo, Floyd, Hernandez). Like all Wild Card teams they definitely beat better teams to win, but looking at the team on paper it's not surprising. There was a lot of talent there.

There was a lot of talent there.

For sure--I bet that's true of almost every team that ever won a Series. It's all relative...Do you think there was more talent on the '97 Marlins than the '96 or '00 Yankees?

It's pretty close, I guess. Obviously star vs. star, no, but both those Yankee teams seem to me to have had a lot more dead weight than the Marlins did in '97.

I'm mostly thinking about which teams are the worst of the best. 87 Twins def. come to mind there. I don't think of the Marlins (or for that matter either of those Yankee teams) as being examples of that.

I was rooting for the Marlins during that playoff round, and I remember thinking they were better than people thought they were. I soured a bit when management had the fire sale next year.

I'm just throwing out ideas when I mention the '80 Phillies or '97 Marlins. I still haven't decided which of the teams above I'd vote for. It's weird--I think I'm struggling to find an alternative to the '87 Twins, even though their record and net negative in runs makes them the obvious choice. I'm having the same trouble naming them that you have with the '97 Marlins; there was a lot of first-rate talent on the '87 Twins.

Yeah the problem is that there are a lot of really terrible terrible players on that team and they also played really really really mediocre ball (esp. on the road where they were actually awful, eek) during the regular season (unlike the Phillies and the Marlins who played reasonably well) and even during the Series (esp. on the road, eek.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I guess I'll be the only non-Twins vote. My top three starting in '70 (first Series I watched) would be: 1. '97 Marlins, 2. '87 Twins, 3. '80 Phillies.

On paper, I can't really make a good case against the Twins. All the things that were thoroughly mediocre about them are detailed above. But they at least seem like a team to me, with a core of players--Puckett, Viola, Hrbek, Gaetti, Brunansky, Gagne--who performed well over an extended period of time. The '97 Marlins were thrown together for one year, got in on a wild-card spot, and they somehow managed to beat a Braves team with awesome pitching and a pretty good offense, and an Indians team with awesome hitting and no pitching. And then, they got dismantled. Maybe what they really were was "Least Distinguished" Series winner of recent years. I'm voting for them anyway...and Alex in SF can't stop me!

It seems a bit mean to vote for the Marlins, considering theirs is an extreme example of what every small-market team has to do to have a hope of winning the WS.

It is a bit mean, you're right--I guess I still have a lingering negativity towards that team based on how management immediately took them apart. But there is another side to that; I think I once read someone who argued that the Marlins' business model that year made perfect sense in this day and age--go on a spending spree for one year, hopefully get a championship out of it, then rip everything up and start aiming for the same thing all over again five years down the road.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Maybe this is Yankee hate or Jeffrey Maier hate. I have a hard time seeing a team with Jeter, Bernie Williams, Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez, Andy Pettitte, John Wetteland, and Mariano Rivera all having good years, and Tim Raines and David Cone having good part-time years, as being a notably weak winner. I'll agree they weren't the best team that year.

Who besides me voted for someone else?

I think I voted for the '06 Cards over the '88 Dodgers (Mets fan).