The 40 Worst Off-Seasons Ever, Part 4

This week, The Common Man has been counting down the 40 worst offseasons in baseball history. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. And part 3 is here.  Today, he concludes, counting down from 10-1. Today, the Marlins and A's hold fire sales, the Giants petulently throw away a pennant, the Red Sox make the single most disasterous team that a team could make, even worse than the Mets, except for the one made by the Astros. Remember, from yesterday, TCM is trying to "account for the Wins Above Replacement lost by each team over the next five years as a result of their actions, or (for modern teams) until a player traded away, waived, or released became a free agent again. He has also tried to account for teams whose terrible moves cost them postseason berths, and also for how fans likely felt if they were watching their team get gutted or flail about." And now,the rest of the rankings!

The 40 Worst Off-Seasons Ever, Part 3

By The Common Man

This week, The Common Man is counting down the 40 worst offseasons in baseball history. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.  And Part 4 is here.  Today, he continues, counting down from 20-11. Today, the Braves trade a whole pitching staff, the Orioles and D-backs get burned by bad backs, the Twins get nothing for the best pitcher in baseball, the Expos and A's sell everything that isn't nailed down, and Christy Mathewson.  Remember, from yesterday, TCM is trying to "account for the Wins Above Replacement lost by each team over the next five years as a result of their actions, or (for modern teams) until a player traded away, waived, or released became a free agent again. He has also tried to account for teams whose terrible moves cost them postseason berths, and also for how fans likely felt if they were watching their team get gutted or flail about." And now, back to the rankings!

The 40 Worst Off-Seasons: Part 2

Yesterday, The Common Man started his countdown of the 40 worst offseasons in baseball history.  Part 1 is here.  Part 3 is here.  And Part 4 is here.  Today, he continues, counting down from 30-21.  Come along and enjoy the Pirates ridding themselves of two Hall of Famers, the Diamondbacks' disdain for MVP candidates, some of the worst free agent signings in baseball history, the Rays' false start, and the Twins giving away a Boston Icon for free.  Remember, from yesterday, TCM is trying to "account for the Wins Above Replacement lost by each team over the next five years as a result of their actions, or (for modern teams) until a player traded away, waived, or released became a free agent again. He has also tried to account for teams whose terrible moves cost them postseason berths, and also for how fans likely felt if they were watching their team get gutted or flail about."  And now, back to the rankings!

The 40 Worst Off-Seasons Ever, Part 1

By The Common Man

This list was inspired by a reader and Twins fan, Norm Steadman, who writes at Mister 70%. Norm has been understandably disappointed by Minnesota’s offseason so far, and wanted some way to feel better about their lackluster performance. To cheer Norm up, The Common Man thought he’d take him up on his suggestion to rank the 40 worst offseasons in baseball history.  This is part 1.  The series will be five parts long, and run every day this week, including some follow-up thoughts and conclusions on Friday.  Good news, Norm, this iteration of the Twins are going to have to work really hard to crack this group.

Before we begin, a couple of notes. First, criteria. What makes a bad offseason? One thing, obviously, is when a team makes moves that hurt the team in either or both of the short or long term. Bad trades, bad signings. Things that cripple a franchise’s ability to compete. In his analysis, The Common Man has tried to account for the Wins Above Replacement lost by each team over the next five years as a result of their actions, or (for modern teams) until a player traded away, waived, or released became a free agent again. He has also tried to account for teams whose terrible moves cost them postseason berths, and also for how fans likely felt if they were watching their team get gutted or flail about.

Second, this is probably not a complete list, and TCM welcomes your suggestions for other teams that should be on here. TCM was working a lot from memory and from references like Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Blunders, but there is not a good systematic way to examine all the data without digging through roughly 2300 team-offseasons. If you’ve got ideas of other terrible offseasons, by all means suggest them in the comments.

Finally, the list does not include the rumors and expectations surrounding a team as part of the analysis. For instance, there were rumors once that Yankees and Red Sox were going to swap DiMaggio and Williams. That didn’t happen, and so TCM is not going to use it to analyze what could have happened during that offseason. Obviously, the level of disappointment fans may have had that an anticipated deal didn’t come together (like the Twins attempts to deal Johan Santana to the Yankees and Red Sox in 2008) would affect their perception of the offseason. But that’s not possible across history. So instead, The Common Man is sticking to what did happen. So let’s get started:

(Update: you can find part 2 here.  Meanwhile, Part 3 is here.  And Part 4 is up here.)

40 Greatest Shortstops

By The Common Man

Because the Respendent Jeter deserves to be honored (often with a pilgrimage to hear him hold forth on matters great and insignificant), The Common Man presents the companion to his earlier piece on the 40 greatest Yankees with this look at the 40 greatest shortstops.

A couple of notes about methodology first, however.  One, if a player spent more than half of their career at another position, he is not included on this list with the exception of Ernie Banks (because, c'mon, it's Ernie Banks).  Also, all statistics are based on career totals and value, not on time spent specfiically at SS.  So, Robin Yount, for instance, gets credit here for all of his career, not just his time in the infield.  Frankly, it was easier this way, rather than trying to parse and split hairs.  If TCM ever updates this list, he may revise his methodology, as that would seem to be a legitimate criticism of the rankings.  So without further delay:

40 Greatest New York Yankees

By The Common Man

As you know by now, Derek Jeter returned to the Yankees this weekend for the paltry sum of somewhere around $17 million per season for three seasons, with a possible 4th year option. It’s hardly worth Jeter’s time, as the single greatest player in the history of any sport ever, to even consider getting out of bed for $17 mil, but if he can will himself and his teammates to win surely he can motivate himself to play even when he is so drastically undervalued as to be playing for virtually nothing.

As all news, all the time, should be Jeter-centric, The Common Man is offering two companion pieces today and Tuesday, on the 40 greatest Yankees of all time and the 40 greatest SS. Feel free to argue in the comments section. That’s, obviously, what the comments section is for. Without further ado, the 40 greatest Yankees ever as determined by Baseball Reference.com’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as a Yankee.*

*Note, in certain cases, however, TCM has taken the liberty of adjusting certain rankings when a player missed time due to actual war (as opposed to WAR), and some slight adjustments based on both service time, peak value, and general glory as determined by World Series performance. TCM will try to make these cases apparent. Also, all statistics include only the time the player served as a Yankee.

40 Greatest Individual Seasons on Terrible Teams

By The Common Man

Last week's big debate over whether Felix Hernandez deserves the AL Cy Young (he does), and the sudden realization that Hernandez has been so good that more mainstream reporters, like Ken Rosenthal and Jon Heyman, were supporting his candidacy, got The Common Man to wondering about the best seasons ever by players on terrible squads.  Hernandez's 2010 has been terrific, but prior to this year, it was in danger of going unrecognized because of his low (13) win total.  Who else might have been overlooked because of their teammates?

So TCM looked at the top WAR seasons (BR.com method) by players whose teams finished with a winning percentage below .400, and then accounted for the number of games their teams played.  Here are the top 40 greatest seasons on terrible teams:

The 40 Greatest "First Losers"

By The Common Man

Friend of the Blog, and Godfather of baseball blogging, Aaron Gleeman started a project back in 2006 where he would count down the top 40 Twins of all time. Since then, Aaron’s started, stopped, and restarted and restopped his project, though he has made noises recently about getting going again this off-season. The Common Man hopes he does, because he provided some of the most detailed and well researched material on the central Twins cast members ever put together. In the meantime, as a sort of homage to Aaron’s efforts, and because people like lists of things, The Common Man is going to start his own Top 40 lists. Of what? you ask. Of darn near anything. The 40 Greatest St. Louis Browns? Sure. The 40 Greatest mustaches of all time? Why not? The 40 Greatest fluke seasons? We’ll get to that.

So last week, The Common Man enjoying watching the Twins sweep the White Sox out of playoff contention, when he began to wonder about the best teams to not make the postseason. As we get down to the final two weeks of the regular season, more and more 2010 squads are beginning to become eligible for the honor. Alas, because of the Wild Card, most of the great teams to not make it to October hail from a much earlier era. Indeed, the most recent team to make the list is the 1993 Giants, who won 103 games, and finished one game back of the Braves. The reason for this is simple; the wild card has allowed the really great also-rans another way into the playoffs, making it far less likely to have a team with 95 wins or more who can’t get in somehow. There simply aren’t enough great teams out there to realize this scenario. Likewise, there are fewer teams from the division era (1969-1993) than in the era where there were simply two leagues and no playoffs.

The criteria was relatively simple.  TCM looked at wins, of course, and winning percentage, but he also looked at how far back the teams finished, and how far they were ahead of the next club to get a sense of what the overall strength of the league was.  And sometimes, it's just a subjective feeling.

Finally, The Common Man should note that 1994 teams are only eligible if they would not have made the playoffs on the day the season ended. Ditto for 1904 teams, since there was no World Series. And now, on with the show, Casey Cassem style.  Remember, second place is first loser.