100 Wins; Best Record. Nice. But It’s All About October.

Yesterday’s Chicago Tribune had a list of how well teams with the best record in the majors and/or 100 wins have done in the playoffs since the three divisions/wild card system was instituted in 1995.¹  Assuming each of the eight teams in the playoffs² has an equal chance of winning, that’s an average of 2.625 World Series championships for any team over this 21 year-period, if the team was in the playoffs every year.

Now, look at what actually happened.  Over the 21 years, the team with the best record in the majors has won the World Series four times, instead of a projected 2.625 times.  Actually, since five times there was a tie for best record, you are looking at 26 teams, which projects to 3.25 championships³ – versus the actual four times it occurred.  Not much of a difference for having the best record in baseball.

Now look at teams with at least 100 wins.  Fifteen teams have won 100 games (which would project to 1.875 championships).  But only two of them have won the World Series.³ 

Which pretty much means, as I said before, that when it comes to October, it’s a whole new season, and what happened before doesn’t matter.
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¹ The new Wild Card game system, with ten teams making the playoffs and the two Wild Card teams in each league playing for a chance to go to the Division Series, doesn’t affect the one-in-eight analysis because a Wild Card team is never going to have the best record in the majors, and the chances of a Wild Card team having 100 wins is virtually nil.  Last year’s Cubs, with 97 wins, is the closest any team has come.
² See footnote 1.
³ The fact that there were five years with two teams tied for the best record, as opposed to looking at 26 separate years, might affect the projected number slightly.  Any effect would be really minor.
⁴ Teams won 100 games in thirteen seasons; twice there were two teams that won 100 games.  Once again, while that might affect the projected number slightly, the effect would be minor.