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A Novel Franchise Success Ranking
ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 8, 2023 13:16:52 GMT -5
A cool franchise top 15, counted down. One aspect is screamingly obvious (they are all multiple WS winners); the other, the one that gives the dates, is trickier. Identifying that second aspect is made too easy if #2 is listed, and #1 actually has two different viable answers, date-wise, one with and one without the asterisk the O's have.
15. Giants (1954)
14. Pirates (1960)
13. Orioles (1966 *)
12. Tigers (1968)
11. Mets (1969)
10. A's (1972)
9. Reds (1976)
8. Yankees (1978)
7. Phillies (1980 )
6. Cardinals (1982 )
5. Royals (1985)
4. Dodgers (1988)
3. Braves (1995) 2. ?
1. ?
You can see that this is a pretty hard thing to do, with just 3 teams doing it in the last 30 years. There are four more entries, but they go back to 1924 and older.
If no one gets this by this evening, I'll explain. I may post a clue in the interim.
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Post by foreverred9 on Nov 8, 2023 20:41:49 GMT -5
I can't figure out the pattern with the years, but I believe #2 is the Marlins (1997) and #1 is the Red Sox (2 thousand something). Can't figure out why Blue Jays (1992) and Astros (2017) don't count either.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 9, 2023 5:26:09 GMT -5
I can't figure out the pattern with the years, but I believe #2 is the Marlins (1997) and #1 is the Red Sox (2 thousand something). Can't figure out why Blue Jays (1992) and Astros (2017) don't count either. You got the 2 and 1! That's all I expected.
The Blue Jats and Astros don't count for the same reason that the Yankees' five most recent wins count as 1. I'm looking for multiple WS wins with a completely different set of players. So each entry is the year you have to go back to, to find two different WS winners in each franchise, players-wise. Another way of looking at this is that we count a dynastic pair or set of wins, like Bochy had with Giants in '10 '12, and '14, as one success-entity.
The O's have an asterisk because the only overlap between their '66 and '83 victories was Jim Palmer, but in '83 he had 0.2 WAR and pitched just the 5th and 6th innings of game 3 (and got the win!). I would count that: his absence would have no affect on the WS outcome.
The Sox' date is 2013, with an asterisk for Xander, the only player who made it to 2018. Xander replaced Brock Holt as backup SS / 3B on August 19 and had just 50 PA (nowhere near rookie max) with a .684 OPS, for 0.3 WAR. He did take over from a slumping (since September 10!) Will Middlebrooks starting with game 5 of the ALCS, and put up an .893 OPS ... so maybe you can argue that this shouldn't count at all.
In which case, of course, you just go back to 2007.
Furthermore, the 2004 and 2013 teams had only one player in common. Granted, he was a first-ballot HOF'er, but I looked for other near-misses like that one and all I could find was the '96 to '09 Yankees, but they had Rivera, Jeter, and Petttte in common, plus Posada for the last 4 of the 5.
Do I have to mention that the '04 / '07, '13, and '18 teams had different heads of baseball ops and different managers? I didn't think so.
John Henry is the only constant here.
My original title for this thread was a combo Prince and Sinead O'Connor tribute, "Nothing Compares, Nothing Compares to Us." Sometime in the next few days I'll speculate why.
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Post by lonborgski on Nov 9, 2023 15:06:05 GMT -5
...
John Henry is the only constant here.
...
and Tom Werner and Mike Gordon and Sam Kennedy (dare I include Larry L.?) |
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 12, 2023 3:54:30 GMT -5
...
John Henry is the only constant here.
...
and Tom Werner and Mike Gordon and Sam Kennedy (dare I include Larry L.?) Or course! The business end has been very stable ...
But no, you may not include Larry L.!
Someone in a position of authority used the 2008 recession as an excuse to make baseball ops let go all of their consultants but one, which had to be be Tom Tippett, because he still hadn't finished the Carmince data system. This was in January, IIRC. Baseball ops was not happy.
At the time I was working on a big meta-project: a description of about 10 (more?) cool analytic ideas. My previous year's contract stated that I was to discuss any such idea with Bill James, and any that he deemed worthy would be contracted separately from my monthly pay. I spent a lot of that year mucking about with them, and was gearing up have all the descriptions done before opening day 2009. I suppose I should take a look at whatever work I did finish!
Zack Scott did go to bat for me and got me six months severance pay.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 12, 2023 5:37:54 GMT -5
Here's a table that says a lot. The "Pop" is Population of the team's Metropolitan Statistical Area, plus 1/2 of the extra population in their Combined Statistical Area. For the Sox, the latter goes west to Worcester, south to Providence, and north into NH.
There really is a 3-way tie. (And yes, this is also the average of the two populations. Math!) The last two lines show the team's luxury tax history, beginning with the current system in 2002. 2013 numbers are Sportrac estimates. Tax paid is millions of bucks.
No team that was below the (current) top 15 most populous regions has ever gone over the tax. Rnk Team Pop Tax Paid Years
1 NYY 20.8 386.3 19
1 NYM 148.1 2
2 LAD 15.7 193.8 7
2 LAA 1.1 2
3 ChC 9.6 14.2 6
3 ChW 0.0 0
t4 Tor 8.2 4.0 1
t4 Tex 8.2 0.0 0
t4 Was 8.2 4.4 2
7 Hou 7.5 3.1 1
8 Phi 6.8 9.6 3
9 SF 6.8 8.8 3
10 Atl 6.7 4.0 1
11 Bos 6.6 52.3 12
12 Mia 6.5 0.0 0
13 Ari 5.0 0.0 0
14 Det 4.9 9.0 3
15 Sea 4.5 0.0 0
One of these things is not like the others, no?
We're the #14 team in the #11 market, and until this year we were #3 in tax spent (with a huge gap to #4), and we are still the only team to have paid the tax more often than not.
This is obviously very connected to the success tale in the earlier post, and not just in the simple $ = wins fashion. We are off the scale in money spent relative to market size, and way ahead of everyone in WS success.
Clearly, we can spend the money because the fans are so ardent that they will pay the highest ticket prices in MLB.
It seems as if the the passion of the fan base actually contributes to the success story.
And that is food for thought (e.g, a dog and some cotton candy).
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Post by incandenza on Nov 12, 2023 11:29:46 GMT -5
I'd think CSA would be much more relevant than MSA given that a team's catchment area or whatever you want to call it doesn't just end where the commuters end; it pretty much keeps going until it hits another team's area. E.g., Maine and Vermont are definitely Red Sox country. So actually CSA would undereshoot the relevant geographical zone. Having said that, I think the Red Sox' market definitely punches above the weight of its population.
I wonder what you'd get if you just totaled the population in each of the colored areas of this map.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 13, 2023 0:35:45 GMT -5
I'd think CSA would be much more relevant than MSA given that a team's catchment area or whatever you want to call it doesn't just end where the commuters end; it pretty much keeps going until it hits another team's area. E.g., Maine and Vermont are definitely Red Sox country. So actually CSA would undereshoot the relevant geographical zone. Having said that, I think the Red Sox' market definitely punches above the weight of its population.
I wonder what you'd get if you just totaled the population in each of the colored areas of this map.
I think my algorithm is good enough for ticket sales and concessions. The further you are from the park, the less likely you are to show up. And if a team is drawing more long-distance fans than average, that's a result of their popularity.
Where you might really want to use the above map is in figuring out TV revenues. But again, that's a a function of the team's popularity. The Sox revenues are terrific relative to the potential size of their fan base, and that's because they are popular enough to own their own broadcasting rather than having a deal with a local network affiliate. And that revenue pays for the tax, which gets them better players ... it's a positive feedback loop.
The way to do this right is to know the average breakdown of ticket sales of all franchises, by MSA, CSA, and Other, where the last is a formula based on the size of "other." For the TV revenue, you'd have a formula expressing the average number of viewers as a function of the three locations, and another predicting the average revenue, given the viewers.
All but one of the teams close to the Sox in my version have even bigger areas to draw from than the Sox do (I believe the color strength measures actual fan engagement). If we did the above, I think the Phillies drop down below the Sox. And that's all.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Nov 13, 2023 2:59:50 GMT -5
Wonderful information. IMO the passion of Red Sox fans in relation to most teams is off the charts. Whereas the population of Boston or New England vs most other markets is quite small. I have been to games in a half dozen bigger city stadii where Red Sox fans are a major force in the stands. That is not even considering all the New Yorkers who have bought up Ct., NH, the Cape and Islands, etc.
Also IMO, as my genuine boyhood fandom began in the late 40’s, paying a nickel to ride the MTA to Fenway in the 50’s, following their spring training adventures thru the 60’s, and living thru decades of supporting lovable losers, I stand in awe of and am grateful to John Henry and company at their spending, their winning, their preservation of MLB’s true cathedral, and their commitment to regional charities. They have given us the total package.
Also IMO, I applaud the likelihood of having a contending team as early as 2024. There are certainly problems to resolve and expect them to be resolved. I can’t comprehend the angst.
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Nov 13, 2023 22:28:22 GMT -5
I'd think CSA would be much more relevant than MSA given that a team's catchment area or whatever you want to call it doesn't just end where the commuters end; it pretty much keeps going until it hits another team's area. E.g., Maine and Vermont are definitely Red Sox country. So actually CSA would undereshoot the relevant geographical zone. Having said that, I think the Red Sox' market definitely punches above the weight of its population.
I wonder what you'd get if you just totaled the population in each of the colored areas of this map.
The poor A's... no wonder they want out. |
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