Ranking the Races

This post continues The Great Pennant Race Abstract series started several weeks back and references the races discussed in the book It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over: The Baseball Prospectus Pennant Race Book.

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Using the definition in the introduction there have been 312 races (counting the four 1981 races twice because of the split season's two halves as well as the Federal League's two races) beginning with the 1901 season. Not all of them, or for that matter a majority of them, have resulted in the kind of drama and excitement discussed in many of the chapters of this book. And it's difficult if not impossible to quantify what makes up a great race but of course that's exactly our task here. I'll kick off this abstract by ranking the top 100 pennant races of all time.

Analyst Jim Albright, who over the years has been the most prolific analyst of Japanese baseball and writes for BaseballGuru.com, once developed a system for ranking the greatest Japanese pennant races. With a few tweaks, that's the system employed here.

Simply put and following Albright's lead, a great pennant race can be defined as one that contains three components; 1) it is close, 2) it is between good teams, and 3) the more teams involved the greater the excitement.

The first component speaks for itself but the second is a bit more controversial. While some may argue that the 2006 NL Central race was a great race, the limping Cardinals losing seven in a row from September 20-26, almost blowing a 7 game lead with 13 to play, and especially winning the division with just 83 wins, starts to take on a more comical look than it does one characterized by great baseball. The Cardinals did go on take the distinction of the team with the fewest wins and winning percentage (.516) to ever win the World Series (the 1987 Twins at 85 wins and a .525 winning percentage were next) but their regular season race just doesn't rise to aesthetic level of a "Great Pennant Race". The same can be said for the 1973 National League East race as discussed in Race #8 where three teams finished within three and half games and another at give game behind the Mets but where none of those teams finished above .500. The 1984 AL West race detailed in Race #9 is yet another that falls into this category and the list goes on.

The third component should also not engender much controversy as it's obvious that a five team scramble as in the 1964 NL race or the four team jostle in the AL in 1950 does much to add to the drama as the number of what if scenarios and outcomes multiplies.

The methodology therefore comprises three simple steps to calculate a "Race Score" where the higher the score the greater the pennant race.

First, subtract the number of losses from the number of wins for each team in the race (excluding the winning team). Teams with better records will record higher numbers consistent with our first component mentioned above. Although this technique does not capture the dynamic nature of the race it turns out that the position at which teams end is arguably the best determiner of the "closeness" of the race. Using a more dynamic approach ranks races where teams hung around within striking distance but never really challenged the front-runner more highly but don't do as well with races where a furious August or September comeback brings a team back into contention.

Second, raise the number of games behind each team finished to the power of 1.65 and subtract it from the result of the first step. This has the effect of combining our first and second components since teams with better records who finish fewer games behind will receive higher scores. A team like the 2006 Astros who finished 1.5 games behind with a record of 82-80 receives a score of 0.048 while the 1927 Cardinals finishing an equal distance behind but with 92 wins receives a score of 29.05 (Albright originally squared the number of games behind but I found that raising it to slightly lower power allows us to consider more races and be a little more forgiving with regard to the second component).

Next, the teams with negative scores are eliminated and the totals summed up for each race.

Finally, add a bonus for the number of teams (excluding the winning team) in the race. For one team simply multiply the Race Score by 1, for two teams give a 10% bonus and multiply by 1.1, for three teams its 20% at 1.2, four teams 30%, and so on (Originally Albright gave bonuses in increments of 20%, 40%, 60% etc. but this pushed multi-team races too far to the top for my taste since good races like the 1942 NL race between the Dodgers and Cardinals and the 1993 NL West race between the Dodgers and Giants would otherwise fall precipitously in the rankings).

What that leaves us with are 161 of the 312 races or just over 50% that garner a positive Race Score. Without further ado then, here are the top 100 pennant races of all time with those discussed in detail in this book both bolded and italicized.

Rank    Year    Lg      Div        Score Teams  Winner
1       1908    NL                  90.2   3    Chicago Cubs (99-55)
2       1950    AL                  77.8   4    New York Yankees (98-56)
3       1948    AL                  72.0   3    Cleveland Indians (97-58)
4       1920    AL                  71.2   3    Cleveland Indians (98-56)
5       1962    NL                  70.5   3    San Francisco Giants (103-62)
6       1964    AL                  68.0   3    New York Yankees (99-63)
7       1964    NL                  64.6   4    St. Louis Cardinals (93-69)
8       1977    AL      East        62.6   3    New York Yankees (100-62)
9       1927    NL                  61.5   3    Pittsburgh Pirates (94-60)
10      1956    NL                  59.2   3    Brooklyn Dodgers (93-61)
11      1967    AL                  57.4   4    Boston Red Sox (92-70)
12      1924    NL                  53.8   3    New York Giants (93-60)
13      1908    AL                  52.5   3    Detroit Tigers (90-63)
14      1928    NL                  51.7   3    St. Louis Cardinals (95-59)
15      1942    NL                  50.9   2    St. Louis Cardinals (106-48)
16      1940    AL                  46.0   3    Detroit Tigers (90-64)
17      1916    NL                  44.7   3    Brooklyn Robins (94-60)
18      1955    AL                  43.6   3    New York Yankees (96-58)
19      1993    NL      West        43.0   2    Atlanta Braves (104-58)
20      1966    NL                  42.8   3    Los Angeles Dodgers (95-67)
21      1915    FL                  42.5   3    Chicago Whales (86-66)
22      1915    AL                  41.5   2    Boston Red Sox (101-50)
23      1988    AL      East        41.4   5    Boston Red Sox (89-73)
24      1978    AL      East        39.7   3    New York Yankees (100-63)
25      1904    AL                  39.4   3    Boston Americans (95-59)
26      1907    AL                  38.9   3    Detroit Tigers (92-58)
27      1928    AL                  38.5   2    New York Yankees (101-53)
28      1906    AL                  37.0   3    Chicago White Sox (93-58)
29      1949    AL                  37.0   2    New York Yankees (97-57)
30      1949    NL                  37.0   2    Brooklyn Dodgers (97-57)
31      1941    NL                  36.5   2    Brooklyn Dodgers (100-54)
32      1951    NL                  36.0   2    New York Giants (98-59)
33      1916    AL                  34.1   3    Boston Red Sox (91-63)
34      1909    NL                  33.1   2    Pittsburgh Pirates (110-42)
35      1946    NL                  32.9   2    St. Louis Cardinals (98-58)
36      2007    NL      West        32.7   3    Arizona Diamondbacks (90-72)
37      1980    AL      East        31.9   2    New York Yankees (103-59)
38      2004    AL      West        31.8   3    Anaheim Angels (92-70)
39      1930    NL                  31.5   3    St. Louis Cardinals (92-62)
40      1922    AL                  31.0   2    New York Yankees (94-60)
41      1980    NL      West        30.9   3    Houston Astros (93-70)
42      2002    NL      West        30.0   3    Arizona Diamondbacks (98-64)
43      1945    NL                  29.9   2    Chicago Cubs (98-56)
44      1934    NL                  29.9   2    St. Louis Cardinals (95-58)
45      1985    AL      East        29.9   2    Toronto Blue Jays (99-62)
46      1909    AL                  29.1   2    Detroit Tigers (98-54)
47      1905    AL                  28.9   2    Philadelphia Athletics (92-56)
48      1952    AL                  28.9   2    New York Yankees (95-59)
49      1987    NL      East        28.6   3    St. Louis Cardinals (95-67)
50      1935    NL                  28.2   2    Chicago Cubs (100-54)
51      2005    AL      East        28.0   2    New York Yankees (95-67)
52      2004    AL      East        27.9   2    New York Yankees (101-61)
53      1985    NL      East        27.9   2    St. Louis Cardinals (101-61)
54      1950    NL                  27.1   3    Philadelphia Phillies (91-63)
55      1999    NL      Central     27.0   2    Houston Astros (97-65)
56      2006    AL      Central     27.0   2    Minnesota Twins (96-66)
57      1997    AL      East        26.9   2    Baltimore Orioles (98-64)
58      1987    AL      East        26.9   2    Detroit Tigers (98-64)
59      1979    NL      East        26.9   2    Pittsburgh Pirates (98-64)
60      2002    AL      West        26.2   2    Oakland Athletics (103-59)
61      1937    NL                  25.9   2    New York Giants (95-57)
62      2000    NL      East        25.0   2    Atlanta Braves (95-67)
63      1982    AL      East        25.0   2    Milwaukee Brewers (95-67)
64      1965    NL                  24.9   2    Los Angeles Dodgers (97-65)
65      1974    NL      West        24.2   2    Los Angeles Dodgers (102-60)
66      1982    NL      West        24.0   3    Atlanta Braves (89-73)
67      2001    NL      Central     24.0   2    Houston Astros (93-69)
68      1991    NL      West        23.0   2    Atlanta Braves (94-68)
69      1935    AL                  22.9   2    Detroit Tigers (93-58)
70      1924    AL                  22.9   2    Washington Senators (92-62)
71      2007    AL      East        22.9   2    Boston Red Sox (96-66)
72      1938    NL                  22.7   3    Chicago Cubs (89-63)
73      1918    AL                  22.7   3    Boston Red Sox (75-51)
74      1914    FL                  22.1   3    Indianapolis Hoosiers (88-65)
75      1921    AL                  22.0   2    New York Yankees (98-55)
76      1926    NL                  21.9   3    St. Louis Cardinals (89-65)
77      1919    AL                  21.1   2    Chicago White Sox (88-52)
78      1973    NL      West        21.1   2    Cincinnati Reds (99-63)
79      1954    AL                  21.1   2    Cleveland Indians (111-43)
80      1944    AL                  21.0   2    St. Louis Browns (89-65)
81      1993    NL      East        19.9   2    Philadelphia Phillies (97-65)
82      1969    NL      West        19.8   3    Atlanta Braves (93-69)
83      2000    AL      West        19.7   2    Oakland Athletics (91-70)
84      1939    NL                  19.0   2    Cincinnati Reds (97-57)
85      1978    NL      West        18.5   2    Los Angeles Dodgers (95-67)
86      1945    AL                  18.0   2    Detroit Tigers (88-65)
87      1952    NL                  18.0   2    Brooklyn Dodgers (96-57)
88      2003    AL      West        17.9   2    Oakland Athletics (96-66)
89      1951    AL                  17.8   2    New York Yankees (98-56)
90      1921    NL                  17.2   2    New York Giants (94-59)
91      1980    NL      East        17.0   2    Philadelphia Phillies (91-71)
92      1985    AL      West        17.0   2    Kansas City Royals (91-71)
93      1996    NL      West        17.0   2    San Diego Padres (91-71)
94      2004    NL      West        16.9   2    Los Angeles Dodgers (93-69)
95      1959    NL                  16.5   3    Los Angeles Dodgers (88-68)
96      1999    AL      East        16.2   2    New York Yankees (98-64)
97      1923    NL                  16.0   2    New York Giants (95-58)
98      1926    AL                  15.9   2    New York Yankees (91-63)
99      1954    NL                  15.8   2    New York Giants (97-57)
100     1977    NL      East        15.8   2    Philadelphia Phillies (101-61)

Nine of the thirteen races discussed in this book make the top 100 with the 1908 race (Race #4) taking the top spot by a fairly wide margin and three others finishing in the top eleven. The 1972 AL East (Race #7) finished 103rd, the 2003 NL Central (Race #6) placed 104th. That leaves only the 1973 NL East and 1984 AL West completely out of the 157 races that finished with positive Race Scores. In case you're wondering, the 2006 NL Central captured the 161st and final spot with a Race Score that rounds to 0.0.

Some of you will no doubt quibble with this list and indeed some may detect a chronological bias which will be discussed later. Regardless of the methodology no list would be perfect and this list is offered more as a secondary look than as a definitive ranking. Arguing passionately about the minutiae of the game is one of the many aspects of baseball that we love as fans. Let the debate begin.