Loser Scores
On September 5, 2012, the Texas Rangers jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in Kansas City, and managed to hang on late for a 7-6 win that gave them their 81st victory of the season. Although I am sure that no one on the field was aware of it, this victory also maked a franchise milestone. By clinching their fourth consecutive season of .500 ball or better, the Rangers guaranteed that they would start 2013 with a Loser Score of zero for the first time since the franchise came into being as the second incarnation of the Washington Senators in 1961. Huh? What is a Loser Score? Glad you asked…
Loser Scores were developed by Bill James in 2010, after the Pirates set the record for consecutive losing seasons by a major professional sports team in the United States. James was asked by a Pittsburgh sportswriter to compare the Pirates’ string of futility with others, and took this approach an an effort to balance out all of the aspects that go into making a team a true Loser. James figured these through 2010; the article he wrote was published in the book Solid Fools Gold in 2011.
Loser Scores are computed differently, based on whether the franchise had a losing record or a winning record in the season in question. If the franchise had a losing record, you compute its Loser Score as follows:
Take the Loser Score from the season before;
Add the number of games below .500 that the franchise finished in the current season;
Add 1 for each consecutive season that the franchise has finished below .500.
So in the case of the 2012 Pirates, for example, their Loser Score as of the end of the 2012 season is their Loser Score from 2011, plus 4 since they finished 79-83, plus 20 since they now have 20 consecutive seasons below .500.
If the franchise has a .500 or better record in the current season, you compute its Loser Score as follows:
Take the Loser Score from the season before;
Multiply it by .9 if this is the first .500 or better record in succession, .8 if the second, .7 if the third, and so on;
Round to the nearest integer;
Subtract the number of games that the franchise finished above .500 in the current season
Zero out the Loser Score if the franchise wins the World Series.
Loser Scores cannot be negative; the Yankees, Cardinals, and Giants all had Loser Scores of zero entering 2012. The Tigers, thanks to their run of poor teams in the late 90s and early 00s, had a positive loser score entering 2012; they still need a WS victory to wipe it out even though they are working on a string of four consecutive seasons of .500 or better. If they don’t win this year, they will need to finish at least 97-65 in 2013 to get to zero.
Let’s look at the Rangers in depth. In 1961, the American League allowed the existing Washington Senators to move to Minnesota, and replaced them with an expansion team that took on the Senators name. That team finished ninth in the now 10-team AL, going 61-100. Its Loser Score after its first season in existence was 40 - representing a zero Loser Score entering the season, plus 39 for the number of games under .500, plus 1 for the initial season in an under-.500 string.
From 1962 through 1968 the Senators continued with a string of under-.500 finishes, building up the Loser Score:
Season W L Under Consecutive Loser Score
1961 61 100 39 1 40
1962 60 101 41 2 83
1963 56 106 50 3 136
1964 62 100 38 4 178
1965 70 92 22 5 205
1966 71 88 17 6 228
1967 76 85 9 7 244
1968 65 96 31 8 283
In 1969, Washington hired Ted Williams to manage the team, and Williams presided over a dramatic turnaround as the Senators posted their first over-.500 season in franchise history, finishing 10 games over .500 at 86-76. The franchise Loser Score went down by 38 points:
283 * .9 = 254.7, rounded to 255
255 - 10 games over 500 = 245
The turnaround lasted exactly one season, however. Over the next four seasons, as Williams’s magic wore off, attendance plummeted, and Bob Short moved the team to Dallas, the franchise returned to its losing ways, and the Loser Score followed suit:
Season W L Under Consecutive Loser Score
1969 86 76 -10 245
1970 70 92 22 1 268
1971 63 96 33 2 303
1972 54 100 46 3 352
1973 57 105 48 4 404
The Rangers hired Billy Martin at the end of 1973, and Billy worked his usual turnaround trick in 1974, giving the franchise its second winning season. Over the next few years, the team oscillated back and forth between good and bad seasons, posting the best record in franchise history (bettered only twice since then) in 1977 under four different managers, and chopped its Loser Score down to a level not season since the very early days:
Season W L Under Consecutive Loser Score
1974 84 76 -8 356
1975 79 83 4 1 361
1976 76 86 10 2 373
1977 94 68 -26 310
1978 87 75 -12 236
1979 83 79 -4 161
1980 76 85 9 1 171
1981 57 48 -9 145
In 1982, things went south again, and the Rangers would have only one over-.500 season in the next seven:
Season W L Under Consecutive Loser Score
1982 64 98 34 1 180
1983 77 85 8 2 190
1984 69 92 23 3 216
1985 62 99 37 4 257
1986 87 75 -12 219
1987 75 87 12 1 232
1988 70 91 21 2 255
Things were about to get better, however, as the franchise rebuild initiated by Tom Grieve took shape. Beginning in 1989, and extending for 11 years, the Rangers were about to embark on the longest stretch of more-or-less sustained success in their franchise history, capped by three division titles in four years, although the Rangers exited in the first round of the postseason each time. Despite this success, however, the team couldn’t quite get its Loser Score to zero:
Season W L Under Consecutive Loser Score
1989 83 79 -4 226
1990 83 79 -4 177
1991 85 77 -8 116
1992 77 85 8 1 125
1993 86 76 -10 103
1994 52 62 10 1 114
1995 74 70 -4 99
1996 90 72 -18 61
1997 77 85 8 1 70
1998 88 74 -14 49
1999 95 67 -28 11
And then the team reversed course yet again, with eight losing seasons in the next nine:
Season W L Under Consecutive Loser Score
2000 71 91 20 1 32
2001 73 89 16 2 50
2002 72 90 18 3 71
2003 71 91 20 4 95
2004 89 73 -16 70
2005 79 83 4 1 75
2006 80 82 2 2 79
2007 75 87 12 3 94
2008 79 83 4 4 102
Note that although the Rangers were posting losing records, they weren’t really terrible, so by the time that 2009 rolled around the Loser Score was just touching triple digits, easily capable of being wiped out with a couple of good seasons. And this was exactly what was about to happen as the franchise entered its second Golden Age:
Season W L Under Consecutive Loser Score
2009 87 75 -12 80
2010 90 72 -18 46
2011 96 66 -30 2
One more win in 2011, either during the regular season or during the World Series, would have brought the franchise to zero. While that wasn’t to be in 2011, the Rangers have now cleared the books.
The Pirates, with their 20 consecutive losing seasons, stand at 632. They were at zero after 1992, wiping out their deficit from the 80s, but since then they have finished a cumulative 422 games below .500 and get an additional 210 points for the string of 20 straight sub-.500 efforts. As you might expect, the Pirates currently have the highest Loser Score among major league teams, but they have been there only since 2006; the Tigers’ run of futility from 1994 through 2005 had put them at 465 before their breakout in 2006. Even with that breakout and their improvement since then, the Tigers still sit at 61 with the World Series possibly pending.
A couple of other notes:
The San Diego Padres have never been at zero in their franchise history. The closest they have come is 23, following the 2007 season. The Padres are currently at 82.
From 1918 through 1978, the Phillies had a positive Loser Score, peaking at 1367 (the highest ever) following the 1948 season. The Phillies had one winning season from 1918 through 1948 - and that was a 78-76 ledger in 1932. They reached triple digits in 1921 and stayed there until 1966.
The Cubs’ last season with a Loser Score of zero was 1946. They have had a positive score after every season since (currently at 127, 66 years and counting). The Cubbies got it as low as 6 after the 1972 season. They haven’t been particularly terrible, mind you - they’ve only gotten above 200 twice since 1972 - but they’ve never really come within striking distance of zero since then either.
After the 2007 season, the Tampa Bay Rays were at 382. Since then, after five straight winning seasons, in four of which they won at least 90 games, they are still at 15.
The Yankees’ last season with a non-zero Loser Score was 1994. They peaked at 81 in 1992, after their last of four straight losing seasons, and it took three seasons after that to wipe out the positive balance.
The largest Loser Score to be wiped out by a World Series win was not the 1969 Mets, but rather the 1914 Miracle Braves, who were coming off a string of 11 consecutive losing seasons that had pushed their Loser Score to 531. The Mets were at only 371.
Mike Emeigh
Posted: October 15, 2012 at 10:36 AM |
15 comment(s)
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1. Foghorn Leghorn Posted: October 15, 2012 at 01:56 PM (#4271121)How many teams are currently above zero? What's the Pirates' score?
-- MWE
There are 21 teams currently above zero, which is close to normal. As I noted in the article, the Pirates are at 632.
-- MWE
-- MWE
For a team like the Red Sox, I wonder how much the years in the wilderness really factor in, any more. They were last bad for an extended period in the 1960s, and the 1930s-and-earlier badness is now largely beyond human memory. (Though I do know one living person who says he was a Braves fan till Ted Williams came up; he grew up in the '30s thinking the Red Sox were just endemically terrible.)
BDC: You're probably correct in that. They would have peaked at 142 in 1988 (which was probably about the low point for the franchise in Texas) and then gone to zero in 1999; they would not have gone back above 100 since.
The Red Sox weren't really bad in the 1960s; they peaked at 165 in 1966, and except for the three-year stretch between 1964-1966 they've been below 100 consistently since 1940. It's generally getting harder for teams to stay really bad, which is why the Pirates' stretch is so remarkable in a way. The Red Sox went from 0 to 637 in a span of 15 years (1919-1933), but even with that it was mostly during the last 10 years of that stretch that they were horrible; after 5 years they were only at 95. It took the Pirates 20 years to get to 632.
-- MWE
Franchise Season W L Under WS Loser ScorePIT 2012 79 83 4 N 632
KCR 2012 72 90 18 N 496
BAL 2012 93 69 -24 N 328
WAS 2012 98 64 -34 N 214
SEA 2012 75 87 12 N 161
HOU 2012 55 107 52 N 140
COL 2012 64 98 34 N 136
CHC 2012 61 101 40 N 135
MIL 2012 83 79 -4 N 114
CLE 2012 68 94 26 N 94
CIN 2012 97 65 -32 N 93
SDP 2012 76 86 10 N 83
MIN 2012 66 96 30 N 69
DET 2012 88 74 -14 61
NYM 2012 74 88 14 N 58
MIA 2012 69 93 24 N 53
ARI 2012 81 81 0 N 52
BOS 2012 69 93 24 N 25
TOR 2012 73 89 16 N 23
OAK 2012 94 68 -26 N 19
TBR 2012 90 72 -18 N 15
ATL 2012 94 68 -26 N 0
CHW 2012 85 77 -8 N 0
LAA 2012 89 73 -16 N 0
LAD 2012 86 76 -10 N 0
NYY 2012 95 67 -28 0
PHI 2012 81 81 0 N 0
SFG 2012 94 68 -26 0
STL 2012 88 74 -14 0
TEX 2012 93 69 -24 N 0
Detroit can still go to zero by winning the World Series, as noted earlier.
-- MWE
And there's nothing wrong with that! I mean, the whole subject domain here is subjective: how much of a loser does this franchise seem to be any time? So working the formula to get the results makes total sense. I can't argue with any of the results that Mike E reports above, so it seems to work for me.
I put a spreadsheet together with the current NLW teams, and created this graphic (hopefully the colors are intuitive). It's interesting to see that the Dodgers had a long losing streak that made them as pitiful as the Padres at their worst; and that those lows were pretty atypical.
NL historical "loser scores"
I think this does show the parity since the '60s, with a few long-term losers (the Padres their first 15 years, the Natspos the last 15 years, the Pirates the last 20 years), but things have been much better than the previous 60 years.
How about the Cardinals as perennial losers pre-Gas House Gang? Or the Phillies being so bad historically that they initially threw off the scale for the whole chart?
James covered a lot of this ground in his original article, where he listed the worst teams over time. The Phillies from 1918-1948 had one winning season in 31 years, and that was a 78-76 record in 1932 - because of that they never had 20 losing seasons in a row, but their overall performance was certainly far worse than what the Pirates have done over the last 20 years. Note that the A's during that period had losing seasons 20 times - James speculates that this contributed to the hard-hearted nature of Philadephia sports fans :)
James also notes, both in this article and in a couple of others in the book, that the data is starting to reflect a trend toward decreasing competitive balance in MLB - although it's still modest when compared to the wider fluctuations of pre-WWII baseball.
-- MWE
As a Mariner fan, I wonder what their Loser Score peaked at, given that they started their existence with what I believe is an expansion team record 14 straight losing seasons. If I did the calculations right, they peaked at 443 after the 1990 season; plenty bad but two current teams are worse than that, the Pirates and Royals.
The Mariners are close on the heels of the Padres though in terms of failling to achieve zero Losing Scores. If my calculations are right, the Mariners did reach zero after the 2003 season. But that was their only time at zero. So the Padres have a more futile record than the Mariners in that sense; OTOH they've never had a loser score above 400, as the Mariners have had several times.
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