Some of you may remember that I did a piece ranking the past 10 World Series Champions, and well now we
have a new champion. Therefore the list
is now outdated and I’m going to correct that list with the 2012 Giants taking the
place of the 02 Angels and seeing where they fit in the discussion. In a way it’s fitting that they take the
place of the Angels that beat them in an extremely heartbreaking fashion to
take the title. Now on to the methodology and some key statistics(All statistics used were found courtesy of Baseball Reference or Fangraphs):
Expected/Pythagorean Record: This statistic suggests that run differential is actually a better indicator of success than actual record is. It suggests whether or not teams were lucky or unlucky over the course of the season.
WAR: A catch all statistic that suggests exactly how valuable a player is above a normal bench player or an average triple A call up. While their are a few different calculations of WAR out there I used Fangraphs number the entire time for simplicity.
wOBA: This statistic is a better indicator than BA, OBP, or SLG as an indicator of value a player provides to an offense.
FIP: This statistic is an alternative form of ERA which only uses things directly in the pitchers control strikeouts, walks, and homeruns allowed as a means of calculation. This should indicate whether or not the pitcher was lucky or unlucky over the course of the season. It often is skewed higher than it should be for traditional groundball pitchers.
·
2003 Marlins
o
Record 91-71 (.56 winning %), Expected Record 87-75
(.54%)
o
17th offense (scored 751 runs) , 8th
defense( allowed 691 runs) (17+8)/2=12.5
o
Playoff Record 11-6
o
Best Pitcher Josh Beckett 9-8, 142 IP, 152 Ks,
3.04 ERA, 2.94 FIP, 3.9 WAR
o
Most Valuable Position Player Luis Castillo
BA/OBP/SLG .314/.381/.397, wOBA .341, 6 HR, 21 Steals, 99 Runs, 39 RBIs, 5.3 WAR
o
Average of 4 Rankings (8(.3)+9(.3)+10(.3)+9(.1))=9
·
2004 Red Sox
o
Record 98-64 (.60 winning %), Expected Record
96-66 (.59%)
o
1st offense(scored 949 runs), 14th
defense(allowed 768 runs) (1+14)/2=7.5
o
Playoff Record 11-3
o
Best Pitcher Curt Schilling 21-6, 226.2 IP, 203
Ks, 3.26 ERA, 3.11 FIP, 7.3 WAR
o
Most Valuable Position Player Johnny Damon BA/OBP/SLG
.304/.380/.477, wOBA .373, 20 HR, 19 Steals, 123 Runs, 94 RBI’s, 4.6 WAR
o
Average of 4 Rankings (3(.3)+2(.3)+3(.3)+3(.1))=2.7
·
2005 White Sox
o
Record 99-63 (.61 winning %), Expected Record
91-71 (.56%)
o
13th offense(scored 741 runs) , 5th
defense(allowed 645) (13+5)/2=9
o
Playoff Record 11-1
o
Best Pitcher Mark Buehrle 16-8, 236.2 IP, 149
Ks, 3.12 ERA, 3.42 FIP, 6.3 WAR
o
Most Valuable Position Player Paul Konerko
BA/OBP/SLG .283/.375/.534, wOBA .385, 40 HR, 98 Runs, 100 RBIs, 4.0 WAR
o
Average of 4 Rankings
(2(.3)+6(.3)+5(.3)+1(.1))=4
·
2006 Cardinals
o
Record 83-78 (.52 winning %), Expected Record
82-79 (.51%)
o
14th offense(scored 781 runs), 10th
defense(allowed 762 runs) (14+10)/2=12
o
Playoff Record 11-5
o
Best Pitcher Chris Carpenter 15-8,221.2 IP, 184
Ks, 3.09 ERA, 3.44 FIP, 5.2 WAR
o
Most Valuable Position Player Albert Pujols
BA/OBP/SLG .331/.431/.671, wOBA .448, 49 HR,119 Runs, 137 RBIs, 8.5 WAR
o
Average of 4 Rankings (10(.3)+10(.3)+9(.3)+7(.1))=9.4
·
2007 Red Sox
o
Record 96-66 (.59 winning %), Expected Record 101-61
(.62%)
o
4th offense (scored 867 runs), 1st
defense(allowed 657 runs) (4+1)/2=2.5
o
Playoff Record 11-3
o
Best Pitcher Josh Beckett 20-7, 200.2 IP, 194
Ks, 3.27 ERA, 3.08 FIP, 6.5 WAR
o
Most Valuable Position Player David Ortiz
BA/OBP/SLG .332/.445/.621, wOBA .448, 35 HR, 116 Runs, 117 RBIs, 6.3 WAR
o
Average of 4 Rankings (4(.3)+1(.3)+1(.3)+2(.1))=2
·
2008 Phillies
o
Record 92-70 (.57 winning %), Expected Record
93-69 (.57%)
o
7th offense (scored 799 runs), 5th
defense (allowed 680 runs) (7+5)/2=6
o
Playoff Record 11-3
o
Best Pitcher Cole Hamels 14-10, 227.1 IP, 196
Ks, 3.09 ERA, 3.72 FIP, 4.4 WAR
o
Most Valuable Position Player Chase Utley
BA/OBP/SLG .292/.380/.535, wOBA .391, 33 HR, 14 SB, 113 Runs, 104 RBIs, 8.3 WAR
o
Average of 4 Rankings
(6(.3)+5(.3)+2(.3)+2(.1))=4.1
·
2009 Yankees
o
Record 103-59 (.64 winning %), Expected Record
95-67 (.59%)
o
1st offense (scored 915 runs), 14th
defense (allowed 753 runs) (1+14)/2=7.5
o
Playoff Record 11-4
o
Best Pitcher CC Sabathia 19-8, 230 IP, 197 Ks,
3.37 ERA, 3.39 FIP, 6.4 WAR
o
Most Valuable Position Player Derek Jeter
BA/OBP/SLG .334/.406/.465, wOBA .390, 18 HR, 30 SB, 107 Runs, 66 RBIs, 7.1 WAR
o
Average of 4 Rankings (1(.3)+3(.3)+3(.3)+5(.1))=2.6
·
2010 Giants
o
Record 92-70 (.57 winning %), Expected Record
94-68 (.58%)
o
17th offense(scored 697 runs), 2rd
defense (allowed 583 runs) (17+2)/2=9.5
o
Playoff Record 11-4
o
Best Pitcher Tim Lincecum 16-10, 212.1 IP, 231
Ks, 3.43 ERA, 3.15 FIP, 4.9 WAR
o
Most Valuable Position Player Andres Torres
BA/OBP/SLG .268/.343/.479, wOBA .363, 16 HR, 26 SB, 84 Runs, 63 RBIs, 6.8 WAR
o
Average of 4 Rankings (6(.3)+4(.3)+6(.3)+5(.1))=5.3
·
2011 Cardinals
o
Record 90-72 (.56 winning %), Expected Record
88-74 (.54%)
o
5th offense (scored 762 runs), 15th
defense (allowed 692) (5+15)/2=10
o
Playoff Record 11-7
o
Best Pitcher Chris Carpenter 11-9, 237.1 IP, 191
Ks, 3.45 ERA. 3.06 FIP, 5.0 WAR
o
Most Valuable Position Player Albert Pujols BA/OBP/SLG
.299/.366/.541, wOBA .385, 37 HR, 105 Runs, 99 RBIs, 5.1 WAR
o
Average of 4 Rankings (9(.3)+7(.3)+7(.3)+9(.1))=8.1
·
2012 Giants
o
Record 94-68 (.58 winning %), Expected Record
88-74 (.54%)
o
13th offense (scored 718 runs), 8th
defense (allowed 649 runs) (13+8)/2=10.5
o
Playoff Record 11-5
o
Best Pitcher Matt Cain 16-5 219.1 IP, 193 Ks,
2.79 ERA, 3.40 FIP, 3.8 WAR
o
Most Valuable Position Player Buster Posey
BA/OBP/SLG .336/.408/.549, wOBA .406, 24
Homeruns, 78 Runs, 103 RBIs, 8.0 WAR
o
Average of 4 rankings (6(.3)+7(.3)+8(.3)+5(.1))=6.8
Record
1.
09 Yankees
2.
05 White Sox
3.
04 Red Sox
4.
07 Red Sox
5.
12 Giants
6.
08 Phillies/10 Giants
8.
03 Marlins
9.
11 Cardinals
10.
06 Cardinals
Expected Record
1.
07 Red Sox
2.
04 Red Sox
3.
09 Yankees
4.
10 Giants
5.
08 Phillies
6.
05 White Sox
7.
11 Cardinals/12 Giants
9.
03 Marlins
10.
06 Cardinals
Average Rank of Offense and Defense
1.
07 Red Sox
2.
08 Phillies
3.
04 Red Sox/09 Yankees
5.
05 White Sox
6.
10 Giants
7.
11 Cardinals
8.
12 Giants
9.
06 Cardinals
10.
03 Marlins
Playoff Record
1.
05 White Sox
2.
04 Red Sox/07 Red Sox/08 Phillies
5.
09 Yankees/10 Giants
7.
12 Giants/06 Cardinals
9.
03 Marlins/11 Cardinals
Most Valuable Position Player
1.
06 Cardinals
2.
08 Phillies
3.
12 Giants
4.
09 Yankees
5.
10 Giants
6.
07 Red Sox
7.
03 Marlins
8.
11 Cardinals
9.
04 Red Sox
10.
05 White Sox
Most Valuable Pitcher
1.
04 Red Sox
2.
07 Red Sox
3.
09 Yankees
4.
05 White Sox
5.
06 Cardinals
6.
11 Cardinals
7.
10 Giants
8.
08 Phillies
9.
03 Marlins
10.
12 Giants
Calculated Rankings
This calculated ranking is not going to be composited just with an
average of the rankings above. While I
think most valuable position player and pitcher are interesting statistics I
don’t believe they are statistically relevant to the case. I also don’t think that playoff record just
matter as much as a 162 game sample size so I gave the other rankings weights
of 30% while I gave playoff record a rank of 10%.
1.
07 Red Sox
2.
09 Yankees
3.
04 Red Sox
4.
05 White Sox
5.
08 Phillies
6.
10 Giants
7.
12 Giants
8.
11 Cardinals
9.
03 Marlins
10.
06 Cardinals
My personal Rankings
My rankings of the last 10 World Series Champions I think can be broken
down into 4 separate tiers of teams.
Ranging from bottom of the barrel World Series champs that succeeded
mostly through luck, to top of the line teams that were unquestionably the best
team in baseball.
Tier 4 Teams (Lucky, below average World Series teams)
10.
06 Cardinals
To I’m sure no one in the world’s surprise the 06 Cardinals were the
worst team to win the World Series over the past 10 seasons. The team had by far the worst record of any
team to win the World Series as it finished 83-78 as it limped to its
title. The sad part about the whole
thing is that’s it’s not like the team was extremely unlucky in close games and
had a great expected record, they actually overachieved in regard to what their
record should have been. This team on
the positives had Chris Carpenter a great pitcher, an MVP type season of out
Albert Pujols, and actually a fairly good lineup. The problems were outside of Carpenter the
pitching staff was bad, and the lineup faced a lot of injuries over the course
of the season. The team shouldn’t have
been in the playoffs let alone won the World Series that season, but playing in
a horrible division is really all you need to do to have a chance at the World Series.
9.
03 Marlins
The 03 Marlins were a slightly above average team that happened to get
hot with a managerial change and went on to win the World Series. The team had 5 good but not great starters, a
decent lineup that had a few solid bats and a good bullpen. Then the playoffs come around, they are able
to defeat the Giants with the vaunted don’t let Barry Bonds swing the bat
strategy, got a few infamous breaks to
beat the Cubs, and then Josh Beckett carried them past the Yankees. The team wasn’t that talented and really
needed a lot of help to get to the World Series, but they are better than the
06 Cardinals just by a slimmer margin then you might believe.
8.
11 Cardinals
The 2011 Cardinals provided one of the most exciting finishes to a
baseball season in recent memory with memorable moment after memorable moment
as the team went on a historic run to beat the Rangers in the World
Series. The problem is the reason that
team needed so many historic moments was that quite simply it wasn’t that
good. Really I think actually this team
went on a historic run because of a controversial midseason trade that revamped
the bullpen that cost the team so much at the beginning of the season. Then the bullpen became good, the called up
David Freese and Allen Craig were able to help the offense which was being
carried by the likes of Pujols, Lance Berkman, and Matt Holliday. Really though the one player that carried the
team was Chris Carpenter. For game 162
he was able to throw a 2-hitter to bring the team into the postseason, in game
5 of the NLDS he pitched a 3-hitter to bring the team to the NLCS and outdueled
Roy Halladay, and on 3 days rest in Game 7 of the World Series pitched 6 innings
giving up 2 runs to win the World Series.
While the 2011 Cardinals weren’t the best team in the past 10 years to
win the World Series, they were probably the most entertaining, providing the
best World Series, and definitely the best World Series Game I have ever seen,
Game 6.
Tier 3 (Deserving Champs, but not great)
7.
12 Giants
Well in all honesty the team that our most recent World Series Champs were
the winners of their 2nd ring in 3 seasons, but the way they did it
this season was strikingly different. While
the 2010 champs won almost solely on the strength of their pitching, this year’s
team was slightly different. It had both
a solid rotation and a solid lineup that while neither unit was not elite were
definitely above average. This of course
was led by the main contributions of their star players, likely MVP Buster
Posey and ace Matt Cain. Ironically the
best player on the most recent 10 Giants, Tim Lincecum, during the regular
season at least might have been the weakest player on this team. He struggled through the season with an ERA
over 5 before turning into a lights out reliever in the postseason. Without question this is one of the weaker
teams to win the World Series over the past 10 seasons, and the main reason I’m
keeping it in the deserving champions’ category is that it was built for the
postseason. All of its pitchers are high
strikeout guys; it had a great bullpen only aided by the addition of Lincecum,
a great manager who knew how to leverage the bullpen in Bruce Bochy and a high
on base lineup led by Buster Posey. Also
I feel like I should mention Melky Cabrera somewhere in here, look he cheated
and got punished for it, but he should have been on the World Series
roster. He’s a valuable player and if
you are going to take a principled stand against steroids don’t keep a guy who
has been suspended twice for doing it on the roster, Guillermo Mota.
6.
10 Giants
When you think about the 2010 Giants run to become World Series champs
you think of one word, beard, well
if you were going to pick a word to describe the team though it would be
pitching. This team could do one thing
exceptionally well and that is get batters out.
It had 3 top flight starters, Lincecum, Cain and Sanchez to go along
with a great bullpen led by Brian Wilson, Sergio Romo and Santiago
Casilla. This team though did have a
below average offense in a time when scoring had shown a significant
decline. While the offense was
definitely lackluster it was not as bad as it is often remembered it was able
to squeeze solid production out of the likes of veterans Aubrey Huff, Torres,
Pat Burrell, Freddy Sanchez among others and young star Buster Posey
contributed significantly. This lineup
combined with the stellar pitching is able to elevate this team above the 3rd
teir.
5.
05 White Sox
To me the 2005 White Sox are undoubtedly the hardest team that there is
to rate on this list. They had a great
regular season record and postseason record, but their expected record was
quite low along with some of their peripheral stats. To me what it comes down to is that the 05
White Sox despite from a far looking like a dominant team were really just an
enhanced version of the 03 Marlins. They
had a lot of very good but not great pitchers, and their offense was slightly
above average in comparison to the Marlins who had a lot of good pitchers and a
slightly below average offense. This team
overachieved but just doesn’t have the ability of some of the other teams ahead
of it on the list.
4.
08 Phillies
When you think of the Phillies winning the World Series in 2008 you
always think of the vaunted offense that they had. You think of a lineup that was loaded top to
bottom led by the efforts of Chase Utley and Ryan Howard in the middle and
Jimmy Rollins at the top. What might
surprise you about the team though is that they were actually a better team at
preventing runs than scoring them. This
might seem strange when only 2 starting pitchers had ERAs under 4 and one was
the 45 year old Jamie Moyer, but the bullpen on the team was phenomenal. Led by Brad Lidge who didn’t blow a save all
season among other great arms, basically in any situation Charlie Manuel could
call on the pen to pull them out of a situation. The Phillies were a very good team in 2008,
but an overrated offense and a regular season that didn’t see them blow anyone
out of the water prevent them from being rated higher on the list.
Tier
2 (Great Teams)
3.
04 Red Sox
Probably the most talked about World champion of any on the list the 04
Red Sox that broke the curse was a great baseball team. These Idiots were literally able to score
runs on anybody as they had elite players up and down the lineup all of whom
could get on base at any time, and had two elite pitchers, Curt Schilling and
Pedro Martinez to combine with this.
Really the only flaw this team has is that for most of the season the
rest of the pitching staff just wasn’t that good. The three other regular starters Bronson
Arroyo, Tim Wakefield and Derek Lowe had ERAs of 4.03, 4.87 and 5.42 respectfully
while all starting at least 29 games.
Part of that can be contributed to playing in the always competitive AL
East, but part of that is just for most of that season those guys weren’t that
good. The team came around in the
postseason to complete the greatest comeback in sports history arguably, and
secured itself as a great team.
2.
09 Yankees
To me there is no more interesting comparison to make on this list than
the 09 Yankees and the 04 Red Sox. Those
teams, bitter rivals were strikingly similar in their makeup both built around
front loaded pitching staffs and high powered dominating offenses. Actually the Yankees rotation was more
front-loaded than the Red Sox as its only consistently reliable starter was
Sabathia. No other regular starter had
an ERA under 4 and the pitching staff was carried by an extremely strong
bullpen led by Mariano “I might be a zombie” Rivera and the incredible
offense. So what elevates them ahead of
the Red Sox? They did have a more
dominating regular season than the Red Sox did and without question that does
man something. Really though what it
comes down to is that I think the AL East was a stronger division in 2009 than
it was in 2004 and because the Rays had emerged as a legitimate threat and the
Blue Jays had become a strong offensive force.
The team did have a lineup that could score on anyone led by Derek
Jeter, Teixeira, the now clutch A-Rod, and Robinson Cano among a plethora of
others.
Tier 1 (Distinguished Champions, Elite World Series Teams)
1.
07 Red Sox
The 07 Red Sox to me did the most impressive thing that any team has
done on this list, despite playing in the AL East they allowed the least amount
of runs in all of baseball. This seems
an impossible fact considering only 2 starters had ERAs under 4 and only one of
those pitchers had a FIP under 4. This
pitching staff was led by Josh Beckett and an all-time great bullpen. This bullpen while great most of the way
through was led by closer Jonathon Papelbon and setup man Hideki Okajima who
were both practically unhittable this season. The offense was as strong as ever with David
Ortiz and Manny Ramirez in the middle who combined with the efforts of Mike
Lowell and Kevin Youkillis among others to give the team the 4th
rated offense in baseball. The 07 Red
Sox were the best team because if you look at how each team was develop no team
was able to combine regular season success, expected regular season success,
offense and pitching dominance along with post season success to the level the
Red Sox did. They had a top-flight ace
in Josh Beckett who combined with the rest of the team could go out and beat
anyone at any time.
Stay Hungry My Friends
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