BP Unfiltered: Hope Springs Eternal, Shouldn’t

Last year, the Cardinals had the best record in baseball, 100-62. The Pirates were second best, 98-64. This year, at the All-Star break, the teams find themselves looking up—looking pretty far up, in fact; 7.0 games for St. Louis and 7.5 for Pittsburgh—at the Cubs. Worse, they’re currently fourth and fifth, respectively, in the race for the two National League Wild Card slots, 1.0 and 1.5 games, respectively, behind the Mets and Marlins for the last spot. It’s leading fans of the two teams to ask, Are the Cubs really this good? and Are we really this bad? Cubs fans, by contrast, are looking at a team that was a ridiculous 39-15 record after play on June 10 but 14-20—third worst in the National League, tied for seventh worst in the majors—ever since.[1]

How often though, does a team collapse or ascend after the All-Star break? Here is a list of the teams in the divisional era (1969-present, excluding strike-shortened years) that’ve had the largest improvement in won-lost record after the All-Star break (ASB):

Eight of the 20 are teams that finished with losing records; they were terrible teams before the break that got better afterwards. Seven failed to improve their position in the standings, their games behind the division leader, or both. But five teams—the 1983 White Sox, 1993 Braves, 1999 Diamondbacks, 2003 Twins, and last year’s Blue Jays—represent the ideal: They trailed the division leader at the break (by 2.5 to 9.0 games) and wound up winning the division. By that measure, there’s hope for every team except the A’s and Angels in the American League and for the eight teams in the National League with a winning record. (You know who they are.)

How about backing in? You can win a division by going on a tear after the All-Star break, as Toronto did last year, or you can just hang out while the leader folds. The 1995 Mariners played well after the break, going 45-31, but that was only the fourth-best record in the league. The reason they came back from fourth place, five games out at the break is that the Angels went 39-37, including 12-26 over their last 38 games. Which teams did the worst post-break compared to their pre-break record?

(Sorry about that first line, Cubs fans. That’s how the numbers worked out. Really.)

There were only five teams among the 20 with the best post-break performances to win their division, but of the 20 teams that did the worst after the break relative to their pre-break performance, seven managed to cough up a lead. One of them is the 2006 Tigers, who were tied with the Twins for the Central division lead going into the last game of the season. They lost and the Twins won, but some felt that manager Jim Leyland did so intentionally, feeling that his team would fare better as the wild card against the Yankees than as divisional champion against the A’s. The gamble worked, as Detroit beat New York in the LDS and the A’s in the ALCS en route to the Series. The 2014 A’s, as you probably remember, lost a crazy wild card game against the Royals. The other five teams—2006 Red Sox, 2005 Nationals, 2001 Twins, 1973 Yankees, and, yes, the 1977 Cubs—all watched the postseason at home.

So take heart, Cardinals and Pirates fans! (and Astros fans, and Mariners fans, and Mets fans, and Tigers fans, and…) Your team could get hot and blow past everyone after the break—it’s happened before! Or the team ahead of yours could get cold and plummet in the standings after the break—that’s happened before too! In fact, we’ve had one of each in the past two seasons! Just don’t count on it.