The M’s at L: Won-Loss Records After 50 Games

It's getting harder and harder to discount the performance of the 2001 Seattle Mariners.

With a 3-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles last night, Lou Piniella's boys improved their record to 38-12. Quite clearly, that's a pretty good start—one that has opened up a 14-game lead over their nearest division rivals.

Just how good is that in terms of major league history? How many teams have posted a 50-game stretch where they've won at least 38 games? And how many of them started off the season with such a performance?

As it turns out, teams have won at least 38 games during a 50-game stretch a total of 875 times since 1901. (Thanks, as always, to Dave Smith at Retrosheet for supplying the raw data that made this finding possible.)

Only 13 teams, however, have begun the season with such a performance. The 2001 M's are the most recent. Prior to them, the 1984 Tigers (39-11 from April 3rd to June 4th of that year) were the last team to do it.

Here's the complete list of teams since 1901 with at least 38 wins in their first fifty games:

Tm    StartDate  EndDate   W   L   RS   RA  WPct   PWP   Diff
CHC     4/11/07  6/17/07  39  11  193  135  .780  .658  -.122
NYG     4/11/12  6/18/12  38  11  316  177  .776  .743  -.033
PHA     4/10/13  6/13/13  39  11  281  187  .780  .678  -.102
NYY     4/11/28  6/12/28  40  10  328  203  .800  .706  -.094
PHA     4/17/29  6/15/29  39  11  347  185  .780  .760  -.020
PHA     4/14/31  6/13/31  38  12  304  185  .760  .713  -.047
NYY     4/20/39  6/17/39  40  10  313  166  .800  .761  -.039
NYY     4/14/42  6/9/42   38  12  267  158  .760  .723  -.037
BOS     4/16/46  6/10/46  40   9  301  180  .816  .719  -.097
NYY     4/14/53  6/13/53  39  11  305  187  .780  .710  -.070
BKN     4/13/55  6/6/55   38  12  311  205  .760  .682  -.078
DET     4/3/84   6/4/84   39  11  279  165  .780  .723  -.057
SEA     4/1/01   5/29/01  38  12  296  209  .760  .654  -.106

All twelve of the teams who previously posted this level of performance over the first 50 games of the season won their division and/or league.

And they did so by posting an aggregate winning percentage of .671 in the seasons with this type of white-hot start. (That's an overall record of 1232-605, by the way.)

How well did these teams play after their early-season blitzkrieg? There's been some talk about how the 1984 Tigers just coasted into the playoff, and it's true enough: Detroit posted only an above-average .580 mark  in the last 112 games of the year.

They're not the team with the worst "after the blitz" performance, however. That distinction goes to the 1913 Philadelphia A's, who finished up 57-46 down the stretch (a .552 winning percentage).

All in all, however, teams posted a .617 winning percentage (765-464) in the games that followed their 50-game "blitzkrieg."

Of some interest to the sabermetrically-besotted is the Pythagorean Winning Percentage of the team during the 50-game stretch. There has been some discussion of the Mariners being "over their heads" as a result of comparing their actual won-loss record with the Pythagorean projection (which, simply put, is a formula using runs scored and runs allowed).

It turns out that the Mariners are playing over their heads, and that they have the worst Pythagorean Winning Percentage of all the teams who started a season in "blitzkrieg" mode. However, that projected "true" winning percentage is still .654. If that figure is an accurate representation of the Mariners' level of play, it means that Seattle would end the season with around 105 wins.

I mentioned earlier that teams have had 50-game streaks where they've won at least 38 games a total of 875 times. When we remove multiple occurrences within the same season, however, it turns out that only 77 teams have managed the feat. Sixty-one of those teams won either a pennant or a division title. The aggregate winning percentage for these seventy-seven teams is .646 (7673-4209).

Here's the complete list of those seventy-seven teams:

Team   Year    W   L  Win
PIT    1901   90  49    x
PIT    1902  103  36    x
PHA    1902   83  53    x 
PIT    1903   91  49    x
NYG    1904  106  47    x
CHC    1906  116  36    x
CHC    1907  107  45    x
CHC    1908   99  55    x
PIT    1909  110  42    x
CHC    1910  104  50    x
NYG    1911   99  54    x
NYG    1912  103  48    x
BOS    1912  105  47    x
CHC    1912   91  59     
PHA    1913   96  57    x
NYG    1913  101  51    x
BSN    1914   94  59    x
PHA    1914   99  53    x
BOS    1915  101  50    x
CIN    1919   96  44    x
NYY    1920   95  59     
CIN    1923   91  63     
CIN    1923  108  54     
BRO    1924   92  62     
NYY    1927  110  44    x
PHA    1927   91  63     
NYY    1928  101  53    x
PHA    1928   98  55     
PHA    1929  104  46    x
CHC    1929   98  54    x
STL    1930   92  62    x
PHA    1931  107  45    x
NYY    1932  107  47    x
CHC    1935  100  54    x
DET    1935   93  58    x
NYG    1936   92  62    x
NYY    1937  102  52    x
NYY    1938   99  53    x
NYY    1939  106  45    x
NYY    1941  101  53    x
NYY    1942  103  51    x
STL    1942  106  48    x
STL    1944  105  49    x
CHC    1945   98  56    x
BOS    1946  104  50    x
NYY    1947   97  57    x
BOS    1948   96  59     
BOS    1949   96  58     
BOS    1950   94  60     
CLE    1951   93  61     
NYG    1951   98  59    x
NYY    1953   99  52    x
BRO    1953  105  49    x
CLE    1954  111  43    x
NYG    1954   97  57    x
NYY    1954  103  51     
MLN    1954   89  65     
BRO    1955   98  55    x
BOS    1955   84  70     
NYY    1957   98  56    x
NYY    1961  109  53    x
BAL    1966   97  63    x
STL    1968   97  65    x
BAL    1969  109  53    x
NYM    1969  100  62    x
BAL    1970  108  54    x
CHC    1977   81  81     
NYY    1977  100  62    x
KCR    1977  102  60    x
BOS    1978   99  64     
KCR    1980   97  65    x
CHW    1983   99  63    x
DET    1984  104  58    x
ATL    1992   98  64    x
ATL    1993  104  58    x
NYY    1998  114  48    x
ARZ    1999  100  62    x

Those 1977 Cubs stick out like a sore thumb from this list, don't they? Some enterprising reader out there might want to check the aggregate Pythagorean Winning Percentage for this group of teams and see if those with a "blitzkrieg" segment wind up with a better record than their runs scored/runs allowed ratio would indicate.