I’ve upped my game with franchise rankings and introduced some new technology to the process — namely, Tableau. To see some other examples of me putting Tableau to good use, check out the Infographics section of my SportsPaper.info site.

Other than making things look snazzy, however, the methodology behind how I’m ranking all MLB franchises remains pretty much intact. So for those who don’t know the rules, here they are again:

The Criteria

The categories and point values are as follows:

• 20 points for a World Series title. Pre-1903 titles are not counted.
• 15 points for a league pennant.
• 6 points for a playoff series win (e.g. Division Series or Wild Card Game).
• 4 points for a division title.
• 3 points for a regular season winning percentage of .556 or higher, -3 points for a percentage of .444 or lower.
• 1 point for a winning season, -1 point for a losing season.
• Consecutive winning regular seasons are worth 2 points starting with the second, 3 points for the third, 4 points for the fourth, and so on. The counter is reset after any non-winning season. So if a team has three winning seasons in a row, they get a total of 5 points.

One thing that has changed is that thanks to Tableau, I’m able to dig into the numbers in different ways than before. Here’s the graph showing how all current franchises stack up after the 2015 season:

As has been the case ever since I started this project, the New York Yankees hold what looks to be an insurmountable lead over the rest of MLB. Despite losing the AL Wild Card Game to the Astros, the Yanks are still feasting on their incredible 23-year streak of winning seasons.

Here is the full top 10 for this year. For teams who have changed positions from last year, their previous spot is indicated in parentheses.

The Top 10

#1. New York Yankees — 23.23 pts.
#2. San Francisco Giants — 8.46 pts.
#3. St. Louis Cardinals (#4) — 7.77 pts.
#4. Boston Red Sox (#3) — 7.57 pts.
#5. Los Angeles Dodgers — 7.21 pts.
#6. Oakland Athletics — 5.68 pts.
#7. Atlanta Braves — 5.65 pts.
#8. Detroit Tigers — 4.85 pts.
#9. Pittsburgh Pirates — 4.75 pts.
#10. Chicago Cubs (#11) — 4.70 pts.

The Cubs’ Cinderella run to the NLCS allowed them to crack the top 10, sending the Arizona Diamondbacks into the middle tier.

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The Mediocre 10

#11. Arizona Diamondbacks (#10) — 4.60 pts.
#12. Toronto Blue Jays — 4.56 pts.
#13. Chicago White Sox — 3.74 pts.
#14. New York Mets (#16) — 3.61 pts.
#15. Cincinnati Reds (#14) — 3.57 pts.
#16. Kansas City Royals (#18) — 3.47 pts.
#17. Cleveland Indians (#15) — 3.37 pts.
#18. Baltimore Orioles (#17) — 2.97 pts.
#19. Miami Marlins — 2.45 pts.
#20. Philadelphia Phillies (#21) — 2.06 pts.

The World Series champion Royals moved up for the 2nd consecutive year, while the NL champion New York Mets went up two spots.

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The Bottom 10

#21. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (#20) — 2.06 pts.
#22. Houston Astros — 1.86 pts.
#23. Tampa Bay Rays (#24) — 1.85 pts.
#24. Minnesota Twins (#23) — 1.63 pts.
#25. Texas Rangers — 0.89 pts.
#26. Washington Nationals (#27) — 0.52 pts.
#27. Milwaukee Brewers (#26)  — 0.51 pts.
#28. San Diego Padres — 0.28 pts.
#29. Colorado Rockies — 0.01 pts.
#30. Seattle Mariners — -0.14 pts.

The Angels drop to the bottom third based on rounding, while in the rest of this group several teams swapped spots. The biggest point gainer was the Astros, whose run to the postseason netted them almost a quarter point.

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Team of the Decade (So Far)

Here’s a look at how the total scores are shaping up for the 2010s across all of MLB. Click on the chart to see the live version and play around yourself.

The Royals have propelled themselves past the league average for the decade, but so far it’s the San Francisco Giants’ title to lose. Hot on their heels are the Cardinals, with the Texas Rangers, Royals, and Detroit Tigers not far behind.

When we talk about “cursed” sports towns, it’s almost always in the context of things like postseason or championship droughts, heartbreaking losses, or just general futility. In other words, Cleveland. I kid, I kid.

But to my way of thinking there’s something even worse than falling just short of ultimate glory over and over again, and that’s losing a pro franchise entirely. Whether it’s the result of a greedy owner or a lack of fan interest, the death of a sports team is always at least a little sad.

And so I set out to document just with cities and states have lost the most professional teams from the four major leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL). I could expand it to other leagues as well, but I’m not sure that cities mourn the loss of indoor soccer teams quite like they do baseball or football franchises.

A few caveats are necessary. In the early history of pro leagues team movement was fairly common and it can be hard to differentiate between teams folding altogether or simply taking on new identities. Also, I have taken the liberty of lumping some geographic areas together that may get me into hot water with locals. So all the boroughs of New York City are counted as the same, as are other cities located in the same metropolitan area.

If I’ve made any noticeable blunders please let me know in the comments. Publication images courtesy my companion site, SportsPaper.info.

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Which State Has Lost the Most Pro Sports Teams?

This one was closer than I thought it would be but indeed, Ohio can rightly be considered the unluckiest state when it comes to pro franchises folding or moving. To date the Buckeye State has lost 20 teams from the four major leagues.

It started with the Cincinnati Reds (or Red Stockings), one of the charter members of baseball’s National League, who were kicked out of the league in 1880 and subsequently dissolved. Since then two other baseball teams, the Cleveland Blues and Spiders (1884 and 1899 respectively) have vanished.

Ohio has also suffered the loss of two NBA franchises. The Cleveland Rebels were a charter BAA franchise in 1946-47 but went out of business after just one season. The Cincinnati Royals, themselves already relocated from Rochester in 1957, departed the Queen City for Kansas City/Omaha in 1972. The team now plays in Sacramento as the Kings.

But it’s the NFL where Ohio has lost the most, which makes sense given that the league was founded there and was heavily concentrated in the Midwest for its first few decades. A whopping total of 14 NFL franchises have either moved or gone belly up in Ohio, although to be fair most of that movement was done by the mid-1930s.

Of note, however, are some notable franchises that were lost. The Canton Bulldogs, one of the great teams from the NFL’s first decade, were kicked out after the 1926 season. In 1946 the Cleveland Rams moved west to Los Angeles. Of course I don’t think I need to get into what happened with the Cleveland Browns in 1996 — and if you think that doesn’t count because the city was awarded a new Browns franchise in 1999, ask local residents how they feel about that.

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Coming in a surprisingly close second on this list is New York, which has seen 19 teams move or fold. Aside from the infamous moves of MLB’s New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, the Empire State has lost three NBA teams, one NHL team, and nine NFL teams. New York City’s five boroughs alone account for 10 teams on this list.

Here’s the full Top 10:

1. Ohio (20 teams)
2. New York (19)
3. Missouri (14)
4. Indiana (9)
5(t). California, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin (8)
8. Illinois (7)
9(t). Maryland, Michigan (6)

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Which City Has Lost the Most Pro Sports Teams?

I guess I gave this one away already, but New York City has lost 10 pro sports teams in its history. Some people may take issue with lumping all five boroughs together, but this is my site so my rules.

The exodus began in 1876 when the New York Mutuals, a founding National League club, were expelled from the league as punishment for refusing to make a late-season road trip. Things remained calm for several decades, but the wild and woolly early NFL days brought a host of teams in and out of New York City.

Between 1921 and 1951 a total of six APFA/NFL teams vanished — the New York Brickley Giants (1921), Brooklyn Lions (1926), New York Yankees (1928), Staten Island Stapletons (1932), Brooklyn Dodgers/Tigers (1944), and finally the New York Bulldogs/Yanks (1951).

(See programs for more defunct NFL teams.)

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Just behind New York City in the loss column are St. Louis and Cleveland, who have each seen nine teams go away. St. Louis most recently saw the NFL’s Cardinals move to Arizona in 1988 and the NBA’s Hawks fly to Atlanta in 1968. More recently, all signs point to the St. Louis Rams returning to their longtime home in Los Angeles soon, at which point the city will tie New York for this infamous honor.

In addition to the Browns’ move to Baltimore, Cleveland lost an entire league when the NHL’s Barons merged with the Minnesota North Stars in 1978.

Here’s the full top 10:

1. New York City (10 teams)
2(t). Cleveland, St. Louis (9)
4(t). Baltimore, Detroit, Washington D.C. (6)
7(t). Kansas City, Milwaukee, Philadelphia (5)
10(t). Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Louisville, Minneapolis (4)

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What Team Name Has Been the Unluckiest?

Just for fun, I decided to look at what nickname has been associated with the most defunct/relocated franchises. For this exercise, I only counted the name of a team when it went away, even if was known by another name for a longer period. This part is more art than science, unfortunately.

With that said, history indicates that the nicknames that most often portend doom are Maroons, Senators, and Tigers. There have been five teams each that had this name and then were no more.

The most recent Maroons team is probably the most well known, the Montreal Maroons of the NHL (1924-38), winners of two Stanley Cups. Three NFL teams bore the moniker and were from Kenosha, Wisconsin, Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and Toledo, Ohio.

All but one of the Senators teams were based out of Washington D.C., the exception being the original Ottawa Senators of the NHL. Three separate MLB franchises used the name, folding or moving in 1899, 1961, and 1972. Only hardcore NFL history junkies would know about the Senators that played just one season in the APFA/NFL (1921).

As for the Tigers, the last of them to go extinct was the NFL squad known for most of its existence (1930-44) as the Brooklyn Dodgers. Three other NFL teams were known as the Tigers and were from Chicago, Detroit, and Columbus. The latter of these was also known as the Panhandles.

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I wanted to get the latest list of Major League Baseball franchise rankings done before the start of the 2015 season, but obviously that didn’t happen. But that’s OK, right?

Last year I split the list into two posts ranking the best and worst teams in MLB history, but in keeping with the other sports lists I maintain I’m putting all 30 active franchises in one place. So with that  out of the way, here are how the rankings are compiled:

The Criteria

The categories and point values are as follows:

• 20 points for a World Series title. Pre-1903 titles are not counted.
• 15 points for a league pennant.
• 6 points for a playoff series win (e.g. Division Series or Wild Card Game).
• 4 points for a division title.
• 3 points for a regular season winning percentage of .556 or higher, -3 points for a percentage of .444 or lower.
• 1 point for a winning season, -1 point for a losing season.
• Consecutive winning regular seasons are worth 2 points starting with the second, 3 points for the third, 4 points for the fourth, and so on. The counter is reset after any non-winning season. So if a team has three winning seasons in a row, they get a total of 5 points.
• A multiplier is included, which is based on a franchise’s all-time regular-season winning percentage.

Here we go with this year’s updated rankings. Previous year ranks are in parentheses.

The Top 10

#1. New York Yankees (#1) — 23.45 avg.

#2. San Francisco Giants (#2) — 8.67 avg.

#3. Boston Red Sox (#3) — 7.75 avg.

#4. St. Louis Cardinals (#4) — 7.69 avg.

#5. Los Angeles Dodgers (#5) — 7.23 avg.

#6. Oakland Athletics (#7) — 5.73 avg.

#7. Atlanta Braves (#6) — 5.72 avg.

#8. Detroit Tigers (#9) — 4.93 avg.

#9. Pittsburgh Pirates (#10) — 4.75 avg.

#10. Arizona Diamondbacks (#8) — 5.44 avg.

Not much movement in this group except toward the bottom. The Diamondbacks continue their tumble toward the middle 10, having lost more than half a point from their all-time franchise average from 2013. In fact Arizona is just one of two teams to drop more than one spot this year, the other being Philadelphia.

The World Series champion Giants boosted their average by a league-best .35 points in 2014 but aren’t even within reach of the Yankees. Let’s just say that I don’t see NY relinquishing the top spot during my lifetime.

The Mediocre 10

#11. Chicago Cubs (#11) — 4.64 avg.

#12. Toronto Blue Jays (#12) — 4.20 avg.

#13. Chicago White Sox (#13) — 3.83 avg.

#14. Cincinnati Reds (#14) — 3.64 avg.

#15. Cleveland Indians (#15) — 3.39 avg.

#16. New York Mets (#16) — 2.944 avg.

#17. Baltimore Orioles (#17) — 2.938 avg.

#18. Kansas City Royals (#23) — 2.24 avg.

#19. Miami Marlins (#18) — 2.09 avg.

#20. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (#20) — 2.05 avg.

The big shakeup here is from the Royals, who rode a Cinderella season all the way to an American League pennant and rose five spots in this list as a result. Taking their place in the bottom-feeder section are the aforementioned Phillies.

The Bottom 10

#21. Philadelphia Phillies (#19) — 2.03 avg.

#22. Houston Astros (#21) — 1.63 avg.

#23. Minnesota Twins (#22) — 1.58 avg.

#24. Tampa Bay Rays (#24) — 0.95 avg.

#25. Texas Rangers (#25) — 0.61 avg.

#26. Milwaukee Brewers (#26) — 0.40 avg.

#27. Washington Nationals (#27) — -0.0268 avg.

#28. San Diego Padres (#28) — -0.0270 avg.

#29. Colorado Rockies (#29) — -0.25 avg.

#30. Seattle Mariners (#30) — -0.57 avg.

The poor didn’t get a whole lot poorer this year, but neither did they get much better except for Kansas City. Both the Astros and Twins dropped one spot, while the Rays, Rangers, Brewers, Nats, Padres, Rockies, and Mariners stayed right where they were last season.

I guess there’s something to be said for consistency at least.

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"WORST MLB FRANCHISES"

Spring Training for the 2015 Major League Baseball season is upon us! So even if you’re still sitting under a blanket of snow, you know that relief is on the way.

To help you get warmed up and to take an excuse to look at some great vintage sports ephemera, here’s a hand-picked gallery slideshow of some of my favorite Spring Training program and scorecard art from teams like the Dodgers, Red Sox, Angels, and Pirates. All of these and more are available for perusal at The Press Room, and clicking on any image will take you to its own page.

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With San Francisco’s thrilling victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 5 of the NLCS, we now await the start of the 2014 World Series. The Giants are back to their third Fall Classic in five years, while the Kansas City Royals are in it for only the third time ever — and the first time since 1985.

And so as I did for the four teams in the league championship series, I now present a gallery of selected vintage Giants and Royals World Series program covers, up through 1989. These are, as always, courtesy of the Press Room.

Kansas City Royals

San Francisco (New York) Giants

The other day I shared a gallery of ALCS program covers for this  year’s teams, the Royals and Orioles. Now it’s the National League’s turn.

Including this season, the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals have combined for 20 NLCS appearances since the format was established in 1969 (including the 1987 season, when the two teams faced each other). The Cards hold the record for most NLCS appearances (13), while the Giants are now tied with the New York Mets with seven.

Here is a gallery of selected Giants and Cardinals NLCS game programs through the 1980s, courtesy the Press Room.

San Francisco Giants

St. Louis Cardinals

The 2014 American League Championship Series kicks off Friday night as the Kansas City Royals and Baltimore Orioles face each other in the MLB postseason for the first time.

Including this season, the two franchises have combined for 17 ALCS appearances since the format was established in 1969. Only four franchises — the Tigers, Red Sox, A’s, and Yankees — have appeared in at least as many.

Here is a gallery of selected program/scorecard covers for each Royals & Orioles ALCS series up through the ’80s, as provided by my latest project, the Press Room. For some reason the Royals programs from 1984 and ’85 have eluded me, so if someone can provide a scan please let me know.

Baltimore Orioles

Kansas City Royals

I was hoping to get this done prior to the start of the 2014 Major League Baseball season, but such is life. Anyway, the title of this post should say it all. Just as I did for the NHL last year, I’ve devised a super-secret, proprietary system for ranking all current baseball franchises. To see my rankings for other leagues, as well as all my sports lists, check out this page.

But before I get to the list of the ten worst MLB teams of all-time, a few notes of explanation are needed.

• Rankings are based on average points per season, not total points.
• For the few franchises whose history stretches back to the 19th century (Braves, Cardinals, Reds, etc.), I am only counting seasons played as members of the National League.
• I am awarding points for a playoff series win for teams that won the special Division Series held at the end of the strike-shortened 1981 season.
• Records from previous franchise locations are included. So for example, the Nationals’ totals include their time as the Montreal Expos.

The Criteria

The categories and point values are as follows:

• 20 points for a World Series title. Pre-1903 titles are not counted.
• 15 points for a league pennant.
• 6 points for a playoff series win (e.g. Division Series or Wild Card Game).
• 4 points for a division title.
• 3 points for a regular season winning percentage of .556 or higher, -3 points for a percentage of .444 or lower.
• 1 point for a winning season, -1 point for a losing season.
• Consecutive winning regular seasons are worth 2 points starting with the second, 3 points for the third, 4 points for the fourth, and so on. The counter is reset after any non-winning season. So if a team has three winning seasons in a row, they get a total of 5 points.
• A multiplier is included, which is based on a franchise’s all-time regular-season winning percentage.

While I may tweak my formula in future years, I think what I have now accomplishes my two most important objectives — to reward consistently good play in the regular season and to not give older franchises too much of an advantage just by virtue of being around for so many years. World Series titles alone do not a great team make.

That’s about it! Let’s get to the rankings, good through the end of the 2013 MLB season.

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#1. Seattle Mariners (-0.57 avg.)

After 37 seasons in the books, all the Mariners have to show for their time in baseball are three division titles and three ALDS wins. Seattle didn’t even complete a winning season 1991, their fifteenth in Major League Baseball.

Since their last playoff appearance, in 2001, the Mariners have completed just four winning campaigns and have lost more than 100 games twice.

#2. Colorado Rockies (-0.25 avg.)

20 years is probably enough time to stop using the excuse of being an expansion franchise, wouldn’t you say? Nevertheless, other than a Cinderella run all the way to the World Series in 2007, Colorado hasn’t had much going for it. In fact they have almost as many 90-loss campaigns (5) as they do winning seasons (7).

#3. San Diego Padres (-0.0270 avg.)

All you need to really know about the Padres is that they currently boast the worst all-time regular season winning percentage (.464) of any team currently in existence. To be fair, they have advanced to the World Series twice (1984 and 1997) since joining the league in 1969. But those two seasons are the only ones in which they’ve won a playoff series.

#4. Washington Nationals (-0.0268 avg.)

The Nationals missed out on third place on this list by a mere fraction, but it really doesn’t matter much. Since joining the league as the expansion Montreal Expos in 1969, the franchise has captured a measly two division crowns and won a single playoff series.

The current Nats squad might help put some more distance between themselves and San Diego, but they have a climb in front of them to catch the number five team on this list.

#5. Milwaukee Brewers (0.37 avg.)

Speaking of which, how strange of a coincidence that three of the four ’69 expansion teams are clumped together on this list? The Brew Crew has been mediocre or just plain bad for much of its 45-year history, with more than twice as many losing seasons as winning ones, and an astonishing 14 seasons in which they lost at least 90 games. That’s almost one out of every three years on average that the Brewers have stunk.

#6. Texas Rangers (0.71 avg.)

By average, the Rangers are almost twice as good as the Brewers. Unfortunately that’s not saying much. Texas managed an amazing streak of futility when they went their first 36 seasons before making the playoffs. They have picked up the pace since then, advancing to the postseason six times since 1998 — and the last four years in a row — but they need to do a lot more winning to move out of this list.

#7. Tampa Bay Rays (1.04 avg.)

It truly is a tale of two franchises with Tampa. From their inception as the Devil Rays in 1998 through 2007 they were not just bad, they were really bad. Like, 90-plus losses every year bad. But since 2008 the franchise has undergone a remarkable transformation, winning two AL East titles and making the playoffs four times in the process. They’ve also won at least 90 games in each of the last four campaigns and have battled for divisional supremacy with the Yankees and Red Sox.

#8. Kansas City Royals (1.61 avg.)

Two teams on this list, of which the Royals are one, have the dubious honor of actually winning at least one World Series title. But since winning their lone championship in 1985, the Royals have wandered the baseball desert. In those 28 seasons KC has had losing records in 20 of them, four of which also featured more than 100 losses. And on top of all that (there’s more?), the Royals have had two winning seasons — TWO — since 1994.

#9. Minnesota Twins (1.63 avg.)

And the Twins are the other team to achieve ultimate glory and still sit in the bottom ten. Setting aside Minnesota’s two World Series titles in 1987 and 1991 — as well as their 1924 title won as the Washington Senators — the franchise has simply compiled too many bad seasons to not reach the bottom of the league’s proverbial barrel.

Consider the following as well: 113 total seasons (the Senators were a charter AL franchise), 66 losing seasons, 40 seasons at or below .444, and almost 700 games below .500.

#10. Houston Astros (1.75 avg.)

It took the team formerly known as the Colt .45s a whopping 44 years to reach their first World Series. In the interim, the Astros didn’t compile more than three consecutive winning years until the 1990s. The last three seasons of Houston baseball have been historically awful, as the team lost 100+ games in each of them.

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The Mediocre Five — #11. Los Angeles Angles of Anaheim (1.92); #12. Philadelphia Phillies (2.06); #13. Miami Marlins (2.23); #14. Baltimore Orioles (2.78); #15. New York Mets (3.02)

This week I started rolling out my newest and most ambitious project yet, and paradoxically the one I’ve spent the least time promoting — The Press Room. Basically, the Press Room is an extension of my popular and beloved gallery of American Football League covers but with one major difference.

Not content to waste dozens of hours scouring the internet for vintage AFL programs, I’ve decided to expand to all four of the major North American pro sports leagues — MLB, NFL, NHL, and NBA. So I’ve begun the long, painstaking task of assembling a collection of images from those four leagues featuring game programs, media guides, yearbooks, and more. I’m hoping to be able to cover just about everything up until the early 1990s.

I use that as the cutoff point for no particular reason, other than I think that’s when pro sports started feeling way too corporate and homogenized for my liking. That could also have to do with my age as well, as I entered college at about the same time. Who knows. In any case, I have to put some kind of cutoff in or I’ll go nuts collecting this stuff.

In a perfect world I would have rolled this thing out fully formed. But it’s not a perfect world and I’m too damn impatient. So as of right now, all I have are a handful of NFL items for the San Francisco 49ers and Chicago Bears. I am adding new teams and items as quickly as I can, which is one of the reasons the blog has been fairly quiet as of late.

I’m really excited about this project, as I’ve wanted to get it off the ground for some time. The response to my AFL site has been positive and I think you’ll love this one as well. Because the scope is so vast, I’m going to depend pretty heavily on user submissions to help. So if you want to provide me with any images for the Press Room, please read this.

I’m really looking forward to seeing this thing become more fully formed, and I hope you will dig it too. Don’t forget to spread the word via Twitter, StumbleUpon, and the usual social channels. I don’t make a dime off this stuff, but it’s nice to see it take off just the same.