I’ve been surveying the acute seasons — the perfect and worst performances — by a unique pair of ballclubs every Friday.
I merely decide the following two groups from an alphabetical record of nicknames, although I’m normally capable of finding a better connection. The Braves and Brewers both have Milwaukee roots, for instance, and the Cardinals and Cubs have been fierce rivals for greater than a century.
However I’m drawing a clean this week. If yow will discover a stable hyperlink between the Baltimore Orioles and San Diego Padres, I salute your perceptivity. The 2 franchises are in numerous leagues, they’re on reverse coasts, and their nicknames begin with completely different letters. I’ve acquired nothing.
So let’s go on to the rankings, that are based mostly on staff scores (TS). Scores are plotted on an equalized 100-point scale, permitting comparisons of the relative power of groups from completely different years. (Click here to learn more.)
Rankings are confined to golf equipment that performed in baseball’s Trendy Period, which started in 1961. Listed here are the golf equipment at each extremes for each franchises:
Finest yr for the Orioles: Baltimore followers entered 1966 with excessive hopes. The O’s had completed third within the American League the earlier two years, tantalizingly near a pennant. The offseason acquisition of proper fielder Frank Robinson from Cincinnati made all of the distinction. Robinson gained the Triple Crown (49 homers, 122 RBIs, .316 BA). Namesake Brooks Robinson drove in 100 runs and gained a Gold Glove at third base. Jim Palmer, simply 20 years outdated, led the pitching workers with 15 wins. The Orioles breezed to the AL title with a nine-game cushion, then swept the favored Los Angeles Dodgers within the World Sequence.
Worst yr for the Orioles: The destiny of Baltimore’s 1988 squad was decided by its first 21 video games, all of which resulted in defeat. A 54-107 document plunged the Orioles into final place within the AL East, 34.5 video games behind first-place Boston. First baseman Eddie Murray paced the membership with 28 homers and 84 runs batted in. Shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. was shut behind at 23 and 81.
Finest yr for the Padres: San Diego notched 98 victories in 1998, a determine that is still a franchise document to today. The Padres got here away with the Nationwide League title that yr, however had the misfortune of reaching the World Sequence towards the ’98 Yankees, thought-about one of many biggest groups of all time. New York gained all 4 video games. San Diego pitcher Kevin Brown long-established an 18-7 document with a nifty 2.38 ERA. Proper fielder Tony Gwynn batted a stable .321. Left fielder Greg Vaughn emerged as an sudden energy supply, swatting 50 homers and driving residence 119 runs.
Worst yr for the Padres: The franchise wallowed under .500 in every of its first 9 seasons after becoming a member of the NL in 1969. San Diego reached its nadir in 1973, posting a 60-102 document and ending 39 video games out of first place within the Nationwide League West. The membership’s slugger was first baseman Nate Colbert, who hit 22 homers. Steve Arlin topped the pitchers with 11 wins.
Scroll all the way down to see the highest and backside 10 seasons for each franchises between 1961 and 2022 (or 1969 and 2022 in San Diego’s case). Comparable rankings for all different golf equipment may be discovered within the print version of Baseball’s Best (and Worst) 2023 Yearbook.
Every staff is listed under with the yr in brackets, adopted by regular-season win-loss document, postseason leads to parentheses, margin between runs scored and allowed per recreation, and Trendy Period percentile.
These are the postseason abbreviations: P signifies {that a} membership made the playoffs, L signifies that it gained a league championship, and W signifies that it gained the World Sequence.
The Trendy Period percentile is the share of all 1,656 major-league golf equipment from 1961 by 2022 {that a} given staff outperformed, based mostly on TS comparisons.
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1. Orioles [1966], 97-63 (WLP), plus-0.96 margin, 99.6% in period
2. Orioles [1970], 108-54 (WLP), plus-1.35 margin, 99.5% in period
3. Orioles [1969], 109-53 (LP), plus-1.62 margin, 99.0% in period
4. Orioles [1971], 101-57 (LP), plus-1.34 margin, 98.3% in period
5. Orioles [1983], 98-64 (WLP), plus-0.91 margin, 97.6% in period
6. Orioles [1979], 102-57 (LP), plus-1.10 margin, 96.2% in period
7. Orioles [1973], 97-65 (P), plus-1.19 margin, 92.3% in period
8. Orioles [1997], 98-64 (P), plus-0.81 margin, 89.2% in period
9. Orioles [1980], 100-62, plus-1.02 margin, 88.6% in period
10. Orioles [2014], 96-66 (P), plus-0.69 margin, 85.7% in period
1. Orioles [1988], 54-107, minus-1.48 margin, 0.4% in period
2. Orioles [2021], 52-110, minus-1.83 margin, 1.0% in period
3. Orioles [2018], 47-115, minus-1.67 margin, 2.1% in period
4. Orioles [2009], 64-98, minus-0.83 margin, 4.3% in period
5. Orioles [1987], 67-95, minus-0.93 margin, 6.2% in period
6. Orioles [2010], 66-96, minus-1.06 margin, 6.5% in period
7. Orioles [2019], 54-108, minus-1.56 margin, 6.8% in period
8. Orioles [2011], 69-93, minus-0.94 margin, 11.2% in period
9. Orioles [1991], 67-95, minus-0.68 margin, 11.4% in period
10. Orioles [2008], 68-93, minus-0.54 margin, 11.6% in period
1. Padres [1998], 98-64 (LP), plus-0.70 margin, 91.2% in period
2. Padres [2020], 37-23 (P), plus-1.40 margin, 90.0% in period
3. Padres [1984], 92-70 (LP), plus-0.32 margin, 89.3% in period
4. Padres [1996], 91-71 (P), plus-0.55 margin, 85.6% in period
5. Padres [2006], 88-74 (P), plus-0.32 margin, 80.8% in period
6. Padres [2007], 89-74, plus-0.46 margin, 79.8% in period
7. Padres [2010], 90-72, plus-0.52 margin, 75.2% in period
8. Padres [1989], 89-73, plus-0.10 margin, 68.7% in period
9. Padres [2004], 87-75, plus-0.39 margin, 63.6% in period
10. Padres [2022], 89-73 (P), plus-0.28 margin, 62.2% in period
1. Padres [1973], 60-102, minus-1.37 margin, 0.6% in period
2. Padres [1969], 52-110, minus-1.72 margin, 0.8% in period
3. Padres [1974], 60-102, minus-1.78 margin, 1.6% in period
4. Padres [1972], 58-95, minus-1.16 margin, 4.4% in period
5. Padres [1971], 61-100, minus-0.77 margin, 5.6% in period
6. Padres [1970], 63-99, minus-0.66 margin, 6.8% in period
7. Padres [1981], 41-69, minus-0.66 margin, 7.2% in period
8. Padres [2003], 64-98, minus-0.94 margin, 7.5% in period
9. Padres [2002], 66-96, minus-0.94 margin, 8.8% in period
10. Padres [2018], 66-96, minus-0.93 margin, 8.9% in period
