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After a comeback win over the Twins late last night, the Dodgers are 71-31. That’s the best record in baseball, the best start to a season we’ve seen from any team in a long while, and yet it feels like it’s happening in the dark.
There are a few reasons for this. The Dodgers got off to a slow start, just 8-10 before turning into a great team (parallel to calling up Cody Bellinger, as it turned out). Up until midseason, they weren’t even the best team in baseball -- the Astros had a better record until recently, and were the story of the first two or three months as they ran away with the AL West. The Dodgers didn’t even lead the NL West as recently as June 20. Within even their own division, the Dodgers were overshadowed by two even better stories, the surprising Diamondbacks and Rockies.
Starts like this were more common in the early days of baseball. Of 29 teams to win at least 70 of their first 102 contests, 14 of them played between 1885 (three in 1885 itself) and 1913. Another seven came from 1927 through 1944. Let’s draw a line at the end of World War II and put the Dodgers in context with the best teams since then through 102 games.
Most Wins After 102 Games, Since 1946
1998 Yankees 75-27
2001 Mariners 73-29
2017 Dodgers 71-31
1969 Orioles 71-31
1946 Red Sox 70-30-2
1954 Indians 70-30-2
1955 Dodgers 70-32
1970 Reds 70-32
1984 Tigers 70-32
We’ve been name-checking these same teams on and off all year, of course. The 1998 Yankees and 2001 Mariners are two of the three winningest teams in baseball history. The 1984 Tigers started 35-5 on their way to a championship. The 1969 Orioles were a great team (109-53) whose place in history was usurped by the Miracle Mets. The 1954 Indians saw their run end in Willie Mays’s glove in deep center field during that season’s World Series. This is incredible company. Just two teams since World War II have played better baseball to this point than the 2017 Dodgers have.
(For the curious, the all-time best mark belongs to the 1885 Cubs, who were 81-20-1 at this point on the schedule. The 1885 Cardinals were 72-30 and all but dead in the race. Nineteenth-century baseball was really quite the show.)
Now, there’s nothing special about 102 games, nor 70 or 50 or any of the other check-ins we’ve made on the Dodgers this summer. I can, however, argue that 81 games is a meaningful figure -- half a season, at least since 1961 (1962 in the NL). The Dodgers are 61-20 in their last 81 games, their high-water mark for any 81-game slice of the season. Winning 61 of 81 games at any point is a rare feat in the 162-game era.
Best 81-Game (Half-Season) Stretches, 1961-2017
1998 Yankees 64-17
2001 A’s 63-18
1975 Reds 62-19
2017 Dodgers 61-20
1977 Royals 61-20
2004 Cardinals 60-21
2002 Braves 60-21
2002 A’s 60-21
2001 Mariners 60-21
1961 Yankees 60-21
The usual suspects abound, with some forgotten great teams -- the 1977 Royals, the Moneyball A’s -- making appearances. The Dodgers can push their best stretch to 62-19 with a win over the Giants tomorrow night, and of course any hot streak that replaces April and May losses with July and August wins could push them further up this list.
It’s worth mentioning how many of these streaks happened in expansion years, or close to expansion years. 1998, 1977 and 1961 all saw expansion teams join the league. The clutch of teams from 2001-2004 happened in the shadow of the 1990s double expansion and against a backdrop of changes that led to a period of low competitive balance. Extreme performances are more likely to happen in the wake of expansion, a point that is evident at the team level in these charts, and at the individual level in the stat lines of any number of players.
It seems to me, and your mileage may vary, that we have lost the ability to appreciate great regular-season performance. Sports in general, and baseball in particular, has become about the tournament at the end. We used to celebrate pennants, even division titles, and now we hold in contempt teams that show greatness from April to September without navigating October successfully. Each time I’ve referenced the great season the Dodgers are having, I’ve been met with cracks about how they will lose in the playoffs, jokes with a basis in the Dodgers’ four straight division titles without so much as a trip to the World Series.
Maybe that is to be their fate again. As we know from years of watching the expanded postseason, there’s just not enough difference between baseball teams for a five-game or seven-game series to be a true separator. A 90-win team beating a 110-win team in a short series is barely an upset in baseball. That’s just the nature of our game. Playoff results, however, shouldn’t carry quite so much weight in evaluating greatness. What the Dodgers are doing this season, over four months so far, is worthy of great praise, worthy of our awe. They are dominating the longest regular-season in sports, and we should recognize and honor that, and not make our admiration contingent on a week or two weeks of baseball in the fall.
Celebrate the 2017 Dodgers, in line to be one of the best teams we’ve ever seen.
There are a few reasons for this. The Dodgers got off to a slow start, just 8-10 before turning into a great team (parallel to calling up Cody Bellinger, as it turned out). Up until midseason, they weren’t even the best team in baseball -- the Astros had a better record until recently, and were the story of the first two or three months as they ran away with the AL West. The Dodgers didn’t even lead the NL West as recently as June 20. Within even their own division, the Dodgers were overshadowed by two even better stories, the surprising Diamondbacks and Rockies.
Starts like this were more common in the early days of baseball. Of 29 teams to win at least 70 of their first 102 contests, 14 of them played between 1885 (three in 1885 itself) and 1913. Another seven came from 1927 through 1944. Let’s draw a line at the end of World War II and put the Dodgers in context with the best teams since then through 102 games.
Most Wins After 102 Games, Since 1946
1998 Yankees 75-27
2001 Mariners 73-29
2017 Dodgers 71-31
1969 Orioles 71-31
1946 Red Sox 70-30-2
1954 Indians 70-30-2
1955 Dodgers 70-32
1970 Reds 70-32
1984 Tigers 70-32
We’ve been name-checking these same teams on and off all year, of course. The 1998 Yankees and 2001 Mariners are two of the three winningest teams in baseball history. The 1984 Tigers started 35-5 on their way to a championship. The 1969 Orioles were a great team (109-53) whose place in history was usurped by the Miracle Mets. The 1954 Indians saw their run end in Willie Mays’s glove in deep center field during that season’s World Series. This is incredible company. Just two teams since World War II have played better baseball to this point than the 2017 Dodgers have.
(For the curious, the all-time best mark belongs to the 1885 Cubs, who were 81-20-1 at this point on the schedule. The 1885 Cardinals were 72-30 and all but dead in the race. Nineteenth-century baseball was really quite the show.)
Now, there’s nothing special about 102 games, nor 70 or 50 or any of the other check-ins we’ve made on the Dodgers this summer. I can, however, argue that 81 games is a meaningful figure -- half a season, at least since 1961 (1962 in the NL). The Dodgers are 61-20 in their last 81 games, their high-water mark for any 81-game slice of the season. Winning 61 of 81 games at any point is a rare feat in the 162-game era.
Best 81-Game (Half-Season) Stretches, 1961-2017
1998 Yankees 64-17
2001 A’s 63-18
1975 Reds 62-19
2017 Dodgers 61-20
1977 Royals 61-20
2004 Cardinals 60-21
2002 Braves 60-21
2002 A’s 60-21
2001 Mariners 60-21
1961 Yankees 60-21
The usual suspects abound, with some forgotten great teams -- the 1977 Royals, the Moneyball A’s -- making appearances. The Dodgers can push their best stretch to 62-19 with a win over the Giants tomorrow night, and of course any hot streak that replaces April and May losses with July and August wins could push them further up this list.
It’s worth mentioning how many of these streaks happened in expansion years, or close to expansion years. 1998, 1977 and 1961 all saw expansion teams join the league. The clutch of teams from 2001-2004 happened in the shadow of the 1990s double expansion and against a backdrop of changes that led to a period of low competitive balance. Extreme performances are more likely to happen in the wake of expansion, a point that is evident at the team level in these charts, and at the individual level in the stat lines of any number of players.
It seems to me, and your mileage may vary, that we have lost the ability to appreciate great regular-season performance. Sports in general, and baseball in particular, has become about the tournament at the end. We used to celebrate pennants, even division titles, and now we hold in contempt teams that show greatness from April to September without navigating October successfully. Each time I’ve referenced the great season the Dodgers are having, I’ve been met with cracks about how they will lose in the playoffs, jokes with a basis in the Dodgers’ four straight division titles without so much as a trip to the World Series.
Maybe that is to be their fate again. As we know from years of watching the expanded postseason, there’s just not enough difference between baseball teams for a five-game or seven-game series to be a true separator. A 90-win team beating a 110-win team in a short series is barely an upset in baseball. That’s just the nature of our game. Playoff results, however, shouldn’t carry quite so much weight in evaluating greatness. What the Dodgers are doing this season, over four months so far, is worthy of great praise, worthy of our awe. They are dominating the longest regular-season in sports, and we should recognize and honor that, and not make our admiration contingent on a week or two weeks of baseball in the fall.
Celebrate the 2017 Dodgers, in line to be one of the best teams we’ve ever seen.
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