November 22, 2009
Order Now The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 is now in development and will ship in mid November! This year's book will feature articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright. If you use this link to purchase the Annual, you will be in the first group to receive it and you'll be supporting THT. 
Rich Barbieri
John Barten Brian Borawski Craig Brown Evan Brunell David Gassko Jonathan Hale Brandon Isleib Chris Jaffe Max Marchi Bruce Markusen Harry Pavlidis Jeff Sackmann Dave Studeman Steve Treder Bryan Tsao Tuck! Dan Turkenkopf Colin Wyers Geoff Young John Brattain And here's the full roster.
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Longest franchise droughts without a 20-game winnerby Chris JaffeAugust 20, 2009 Last night, I presented a list of the most recent 20-game winners for all MLB teams. That got me thinking: what are the longest droughts of all-time for a franchise to go wihtout someone winning 20 games? Having checked, here are the ten longest stretches ever: 33 years: 1975-2007 Indians 32 years: 1918-1949 Phillies 30 years: 1975-2004 Angels 30 years: 1979-2008 Padres 30 years: 1979-2008 Expos/Nationals 27 years: 1983-2008 Phillies 24 years: 1985-2008 Orioles 22 years: 1987-2008 Brewers 20 years: 1977-1996 Mariners 20 years: 1989-2008 Reds Honorable mention: the Royals have 19 straight years (1990-2008) and certainly will reach a twentieth this year. As a keen observer, or even not so keen an observer, will note - current teams dominate this. That makes sense: pitchers throw less innings now than ever before, leading to fewer decisions. Simply put, there are fewer 20-win seasons per team now than ever before. The overall dominance is still striking, though. That makes the 1918-49 Phillies that much more impressive. They were just that terrible. My favorite fact about those Phillies: they never finished higher than seventh the entire time FDR served as president. They went from Pete Alexander to Robin Roberts without one. Only two men even won 19 in that stretch: Curt Davis in 1934 and Jumbo Elliot in 1931. No other team broke 20 years until the expansion Mariners. I might have missed someone, but I think the longest non-Phillies drought before the Mariners were the 1953-70 A's at 18 years closely followed by the 1946-62 Cubs, both at 17 straight seasons. History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for pre-order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. Do you have a general question or comment for one of THT's writers? Send it in to our weekly mailbag We also welcome unsolicited op-ed pieces of approximately 500 words for consideration. We reserve the right to edit for length, clarity and consistency of style. Please include your whole name and location to be considered. If you have a comment about this specific article, please email the writer. |
