Fans of the Braves, Dodgers, Red Sox, Tigers, White Sox, Twins and Phillies may also be disappointed by their team’s position in this list. The San Diego Padres have had a much longer commitment to mediocrity the franchise’s best team in its 47 seasons of existence comes in at No.

The Colorado Rockies, a franchise that was also born in 1993, are about as sad, but without the World Series rings. The Marlins have only been around since 1993, but it’s still sort of sad that their best team ever (World Series champions no less!) is just the 601st-best team ever. The 1939 Yankees and 1906 Cubs are in a league of their own, more than 10 Elo points ahead of the other franchises. We ranked all 2,374 team-seasons from 1903 to 2015 - you can explore them below:Įvery MLB franchise’s best season, 1903-2015 So who comes out on top? The 1906 Cubs have the highest peak Elo, but because of their World Series loss, they rate as the second-best team since 1903, behind the 1939 New York Yankees. This lets us take into account a team’s highest level of performance, its sustained performance throughout the season and, broadly, how well it did in the postseason.

1 We arrived at an overall season rating - what the table below calls “composite” Elo - by blending each team’s peak, average and final Elo for each season. We can also use Elo to calculate season ratings for every MLB team since 1903, when the first modern World Series was played.

(We’ve done the same for the NBA and NFL.) Elo ratings are one of our preferred metrics at FiveThirtyEight, because their simple inputs make them useful for comparing the relative strengths of teams across the entire history of a league. We recently calculated historical Elo ratings for every team after every game as part of our Complete History Of MLB interactive graphic. Might they still be the greatest team in baseball history? 763 winning percentage is the best in modern baseball history by a comfortable margin, but the Cubs went on to drop the World Series to the White Sox in six games. One hundred and 10 years ago, the Chicago Cubs ended the regular season with a 116-36 record.

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