The Most Unsuccessful Franchises in MLB History

There are eight teams remaining in Major League Baseball that began playing in the National League during the 19th century: The Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals.

Even though I’m not a basketball fan, I find myself rooting for the New Jersey Nets.

They’re on pace to break the record for worst NBA season this year, surpassing the 1972-1973 Philadelphia 76ers.

I want to keep the city of Philadelphia associated with failure.

Prior to the Philadelphia Phillies winning the World Series in 2008, the city had gone 25 years without a championship in any major sport. The Phillies are the only professional sports team to have lost 10,000 games: an unprecedented level of failure.

This got me thinking about the other older teams that have been around as long as the Phillies.

How are those teams doing?

The Braves will be the next team to lose 10,000 games.

They have a record of 9,854-9,883. That’s good for a .499 winning percentage, which is pretty decent. They actually have a shot at reaching 10,000 wins first. They need to win 96 games this season to get above .500 for their history.

The Giants were the first team to 10,000 wins, and the Dodgers, Cubs and Cardinals have joined them.

The Pirates and the Reds both have winning records. The Reds have 9,824 wins to 9,548 losses. The Pirates, even after being a joke for the last two decades, have a record of 9,753-9,579.

The Philadelphia Phillies are in another class altogether.

They hold a record of 9,038-10,167. That’s good for a .471 winning percentage, which is 26th among active franchises. Only the Padres, Rangers and expansion Rays have a worse winning percentage. If the Phillies went 96-66 every season it would take them 38 years to get over the historical .500 mark.

The Mets aren’t exactly in great shape either, although they’ve won as many championships as the Phillies in roughly a third of the time. They only have a .479 winning percentage and a 3,655-3,981 record. They have a losing record in all three stadiums they’ve played in, but hopefully they can fix that this year.

 

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Division Isn’t Out of the Question for the Mets

You may have seen that pessimistic post on Metsblog earlier that stated the Mets should be aiming to go 45 and 20 to win the Wild Card. This is short sighted. I hate to do this, but let’s go back to 2007.

On July 27, 2007 the Mets were up four games over the Phillies and Braves in second place. They kept the hordes at bay for a month, and on August 27 were six games up, seven over the Braves, and neither team looked really good.

Then the Mets played that ill-fated series in Philadelphia where they lost four games, the lead dropping to two games and panic started to set in. The Mets rebounded terrifically winning five in a row and 10 of their next 12.

They hosted the Phillies again on September 12 with a seven-game lead and plenty of reason to think that the series in Philadelphia was merely a fluke.

More so than any other reason, the Mets lost in 2007 because they lost those seven games to the Phillies. In 2009, the Mets and Phillies play eight more times. They blew their first chance at this a couple of weeks ago, allowing the Phillies to sweep them, but 65 games and eight against the leader is not something you write off.If the Mets are good enough to overcome the deficit in the wild card, they’re good enough to overcome the deficit in the division.

The Phillies are bound to come back to earth, as they’re not going to play at this crazy winning percentage for the rest of the season, and now they’ve started to be bit by the injury bug as well. If the Mets can recover and run with it, it’s the division that’s waiting, not the wild card.

If you’re looking for numbers or formulas, here is one for you.

There are 10 weeks left of the season, and eight games against the Phillies. Win six of the games against the Phillies, and then play merely one game better than them in five of the other eight weeks they don’t play Philadelphia. Win one more game, whether it’s another against the Phillies, another random game during the season, or game 163. From there the playoffs are your oyster.

Mets, Phillies Battle For First

Could first place be around the corner?

 

The current batch of Mets players have been berated in all forms of media all week.

 

“We can’t win like this”

 

“These players aren’t very good.”

 

Even the manager got into the act by asking for more offense and saying that it’d be tough to win with the current guys.

 

Despite all that, the Mets have now won two in a row, one with pitching and one with hitting. They will go into Philadelphia with a chance to take first place, sitting just one game behind the Phillies. (and the Marlins)

 

The Phillies aren’t playing great baseball either. In fact, the pitcher the Mets faced in Pittsburgh, Paul Maholm, has a better ERA than the Phillies ace Cole Hamels, and the two pitchers in the rotation the Mets are facing this weekend.

 

The other pitcher, Rodrigo Lopez, is a journeyman pitcher who hasn’t pitched in the majors in two years. Lopez, coming off Tommy John surgery, signed with the Braves last year, pitching five innings in the minors, and was released at the end of the season.

 

He’s nearly given up a home run a start in his career, which will go over well in that ballpark, and his best year came in Baltimore in 2002.

 

He was 5-4 with a 3.91 ERA in the minors this year.

 

So the pitching landscape the Mets will face this weekend is not great. The lineup isn’t what it would be with Reyes, Delgado and Beltran in it, but most of these guys are still major leaguers, or prospects, and should be able to score some runs in a ballpark that lends itself to scoring runs.

 

The worry may be on the pitching side.

 

Livan Hernandez has been pitching well and hopefully he can keep the Phillies in the park. Fernando Nieve is basically an unknown, having had three excellent starts and one bad one.

 

Has he been properly scouted by now? Have the Phillies read the scouting reports? Or was last time just a blip, and he’ll bounce back with a good performance?

 

Sunday is almost a must-win with Johan Santana on the mound. He’s a competitive guy, and nothing is more competitive than a competition for first place, against rivals, after a bad performance in his last outing.

 

Expect good things from Santana on Sunday, which is also the halfway point in the season. Santana typically pitches well in the second half. A lot hinges on Hernandez tonight.

 

The Phillies bats have been sleeping, and it would do us good not to wake them up.

 

Bad games, horrible losses, injuries, and bad managing in the first half can all be put aside this weekend. If the Mets play competitive baseball for these three days, the first half ends and the second half begins without any handicap or ground to make up.

 

Beltran and Reyes may both be back before we know it, and it’d be an excellent situation to be in if they come back and not have to help the Mets play catchup, but to help the Mets put distance between them and whoever is in second come that point.

 

New York Mets Need to Start Daniel Murphy

The Daniel Murphy/Fernando Tatis platoon perplexes me. It’s not just because Murphy already looks to be a better defensive first baseman, although that does help.

It seems Tatis hasn’t been solid defensively anywhere he’s played this year. He’s not a liability, but he’s not good either. Sometimes you have to look at the upside.

The best case scenario for Tatis is that he’s a solid guy off the bench, and can spot start at first or in the outfield a couple of times and contribute offensively.

The best case for Murphy is that he develops into a solid major leaguer and is your everyday first baseman for the future. Depending on how good that best case is, that future could easily be 15 years.

For a team that could use some more offense, shouldn’t we find out what Murphy’s got as an everyday player? He platooned most of the time last year as well. Maybe it’s time for him to be put out there for 10 games and see what he looks like everyday. Some lineup consistency couldn’t hurt.

In my fire Manuel rants I’ve suggested that Manuel sets up his players to fail.

Here’s another test: Manuel says Murphy will start one of these two games against the Phillies. Tonight is the lefty Cole Hamels who is a pretty good pitcher. Thursday is the lefty Jamie Moyer who hasn’t had a good year and lefties are able to hit.

I would start Murphy both games, but if Manuel’s going to choose one the obvious choice is Moyer. Tatis had a good game last night, and it wouldn’t hurt to try to ride out that success by starting him again today. Murphy would be better suited to hit Moyer than Hamels.

The only downside is that Murphy is a better defender for the ground balls of Pelfrey tonight, versus Redding tomorrow. Let’s see what Manuel does, but starting Murphy against Hamels and then claiming he can’t hit lefties if he doesn’t hit one of the better ones is not fair.

Sidebar: I didn’t see a lot of Phillies fans on television. No surprise there, they’ve never traveled here as well as we’ve traveled there. The ones that do only come to cause trouble. I noticed this at the last series, and I’ve heard stuff from last night as well.

The Phillies fans come in bearing 2008 flags that they like to wave around and be obnoxious with. Luckily there is always a drunk Mets fan somewhere that will run in and grab it. I saw this happen in the Pepsi Porch in May, and I saw reports of it last night as well.