After their first 10 seasons in the majors (1962 through 1971), the Mets had accumulated an overall regular season record of 660 wins and 957 losses, for a franchise winning percentage of .408. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are nearing the end of their first ten years of play -- they have completed 131 games so far this season, and their current overall franchise record is 630 wins and 956 losses, for a winning percentage of .397. Theoretically, if the D-Rays were to win their final 31 games of this season (!!!!), they would finish their tenth season in the league one game ahead of the Mets' first ten years in terms of overall record: 661-956 (.409) to the Mets' 660-957 (.408). One more loss though for Tampa this season and they can do no better than tie the Mets in the first-ten-years standings, and two losses would leave them trailing the Mets.
A slightly more plausible (though still extremely unlikely) goal for the D-Rays is to try to top the Padres and avoid the worst first-ten-seasons record of the 14 MLB expansion teams that started up from 1961 through 1998. The Padres' record in their first ten years (1969 through 1978) was 651-959, for a .404 winning percentage, the worst of any of the 12 expansion teams that have previously completed ten full seasons. Taken out to five decimal points, that Padres wining percentage was .40435. If the D-Rays could somehow manage to go 24 wins and 7 losses in their final 31 games, they would end 2007 with a franchise winning percentage, over their first ten full seasons, of .40445, a tiny fraction ahead of the record San Diego accumulated in its first ten seasons. You may be surprised to know that Tampa has gone 24-7 over a 31 game period several times, all of them falling in a 40 game period (30 wins, 10 losses) from May 20, 2004 to July 3, 2004. What has been done before can be done again. But I wouldn't bet on the D-Rays finishing up 2007 24-7.
More realistically within reach for Tampa is avoiding a ten season record below a .400 winning percentage. Finishing 17-14 to complete the 2007 season would give the D-Rays a ten year percentage of .40012, while finishing 16-15 would result in a ten year percentage of .39951 that could be rounded off to a nice even .400. OK you Devil Rays, you have something to play for!
Here's the full list of first-ten-year winning percentages (through Monday August 27, 2007 -- so not yet complete for Arizona and Tampa) for the 14 expansion teams that commenced play from 1961 through 1998 (I used the Situational Records tool at baseball-reference.com to find these totals):
Royals .518
D-Backs .504
Angels .477
Rockies .475
Blue Jays .455
Marlins .455
Colt .45s/Astros .441
Pilots/Brewers .439
Expos .437
Senators .420
Mariners .410
Mets .408
Padres .404
D-Rays .397
If you add up all the wins and losses for all these teams in their first ten years, you get a collective wining percentage for all 14 teams of .446 (again, through the games of August 27).
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