The power of ten

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Atlanta goes for its tenth straight win tonight, at home against Kansas City. They join Oakland as the second team this season to win nine in a row. The Athletics’ bid for ten straight came a cropper last week when they ran into Justin Verlander and the Tigers.

What is the significance of winning ten straight? More after the jump.

Since 2001, there have been 43 winning streaks of at least 10 games. 26 of those 42 teams (62%; it’s 42 teams because the 2001 Cardinals had two 10+ game streaks that season) advanced to the playoffs that season. Of teams with an 11 game winning streak or longer, it’s almost a lock – 17 of 20 teams (85%) with an 11+ game streak made the playoffs.

But, is a 10 win streak a ticket to the last dance? Not quite. Only 10 of 48 LCS teams since 2001 (21%) have had the 10 win streak on their ledger, although 6 of those 10 did advance to the World Series, including the Rangers in both of their championship seasons.

Winning it all? Only the 2002 Angels and 2004 Red Sox have parlayed a 10+ game winning streak into a WS championship, both doing so against an opponent without a 10 win streak.

So, if Atlanta can extend their winning streak by a few more games, could it be time to print first-round playoff tickets? Too early in the year, you say? Bang on! Only 11 of 23 teams with a steak starting in April, May or June wound up making the playoffs; only 2 of those 11 made the LCS, and only the 2011 Rangers made it to the WS. Do it after the All-Star break, and your playoff chances shoot up to 79%.

For the curious, here are those longest winning streaks since 2001.

Rk		Strk Start	End	Games	CG	SHO	SV	ERA	Opp
1	OAK	2002-08-13	2002-09-04	20	2	2	10	2.65	TOR,CHW,CLE,DET,KCR,MIN
2	SEA	2001-05-23	2001-06-08	15	1	0	8	3.35	MIN,KCR,BAL,TBD,TEX,SDP
3	DET	2011-09-02	2011-09-14	12	0	1	4	2.23	CHW,CLE,MIN
4	TEX	2011-07-04	2011-07-19	12	2	5	4	1.92	BAL,OAK,SEA,LAA
5	BOS	2006-06-16	2006-06-29	12	0	0	5	3.21	ATL,WSN,PHI,NYM
6	HOU	2004-08-27	2004-09-08	12	0	1	4	4.17	CHC,CIN,PIT
7	TBD	2004-06-09	2004-06-22	12	0	0	4	2.95	SFG,COL,SDP,ARI,TOR
8	ARI	2003-06-18	2003-06-30	12	1	1	7	2.73	HOU,CIN,DET,COL
9	CHC	2001-05-19	2001-06-02	12	2	2	6	2.33	ARI,CIN,MIL
10	PHI	2010-09-12	2010-09-24	11	1	2	7	2.27	NYM,FLA,WSN,ATL
11	CHW	2010-06-15	2010-06-26	11	1	3	8	2.05	PIT,WSN,ATL,CHC
12	TEX	2010-06-12	2010-06-24	11	1	0	7	2.70	MIL,FLA,HOU,PIT
13	COL	2009-06-04	2009-06-14	11	1	0	5	2.55	HOU,STL,MIL,SEA
14	BOS	2009-04-15	2009-04-27	11	2	0	5	3.00	OAK,BAL,MIN,NYY,CLE
15	COL	2007-09-16	2007-09-27	11	0	2	4	3.03	FLA,LAD,SDP
16	LAD	2006-07-28	2006-08-08	11	0	1	5	2.45	WSN,CIN,FLA,COL
17	MIN	2006-06-22	2006-07-03	11	0	2	5	2.00	HOU,CHC,LAD,MIL,KCR
18	MIN	2003-09-13	2003-09-24	11	0	1	7	2.45	CLE,CHW,DET
19	STL	2001-08-09	2001-08-19	11	1	1	5	2.88	MON,NYM,CIN,PHI
20	OAK	2001-08-02	2001-08-12	11	3	1	4	1.73	CLE,DET,BOS,NYY
21	CIN	2012-07-19	2012-07-29	10	0	1	7	2.50	ARI,MIL,HOU,COL
22	NYY	2012-06-08	2012-06-18	10	1	1	5	1.89	NYM,ATL,WSN
23	COL	2010-09-03	2010-09-12	10	0	0	5	2.70	SDP,CIN,ARI
24	PHI	2009-07-08	2009-07-21	10	0	2	4	2.41	CIN,PIT,FLA,CHC
25	SDP	2009-05-15	2009-05-25	10	1	1	6	2.11	CIN,SFG,CHC,ARI
26	TOR	2008-08-30	2008-09-09	10	1	2	5	2.25	NYY,MIN,TBR,CHW
27	CLE	2008-08-17	2008-08-27	10	0	0	5	3.96	LAA,KCR,TEX,DET
28	NYM	2008-07-05	2008-07-17	10	0	4	4	2.52	PHI,SFG,COL,CIN
29	MIN	2008-06-17	2008-06-27	10	0	0	5	2.10	WSN,ARI,SDP,MIL
30	OAK	2006-06-08	2006-06-18	10	0	1	7	2.57	CLE,NYY,SEA,LAD
31	WSN	2005-06-02	2005-06-12	10	0	0	6	2.25	ATL,FLA,OAK,SEA
32	NYY	2005-05-07	2005-05-17	10	2	3	4	2.60	OAK,SEA
33	BOS	2004-08-24	2004-09-03	10	0	1	6	3.00	TOR,DET,ANA,TEX
34	PIT	2004-06-26	2004-07-05	10	0	2	5	1.90	CIN,STL,MIL,FLA
35	SFG	2004-05-20	2004-05-31	10	0	0	5	2.30	CHC,MON,ARI,COL
36	OAK	2003-08-23	2003-09-02	10	0	1	7	2.25	TOR,BAL,TBD
37	MIL	2003-08-19	2003-08-28	10	1	0	5	2.97	PHI,PIT,CIN
38	LAD	2003-05-14	2003-05-25	10	1	1	7	1.30	ATL,FLA,COL,MIL
39	ANA	2002-08-29	2002-09-08	10	1	1	6	1.58	TBD,BAL
40	SEA	2002-04-08	2002-04-17	10	0	0	4	3.89	ANA,TEX,OAK
41	CLE	2002-04-03	2002-04-13	10	0	0	5	3.20	ANA,DET,MIN,KCR
42	STL	2001-05-07	2001-05-17	10	2	2	1	2.10	PIT,CHC
43	CLE	2001-04-28	2001-05-09	10	0	0	2	2.80	TEX,KCR,TBD

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/16/2013.

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nightfly

11 years ago

If you go back further, you would pick up a few more World’s Champions. For example, the ’86 Mets rolled off an 11-game win streak in April of that year.

Author

Doug

11 years ago

Reply to nightfly

I think I will do just that. Just to see how prevalent it is.

The ’69 Mets had two 10+ streaks, for example.

Richard Chester

11 years ago

Reply to Doug

1947 Yankees had a 19-game streak and the 1953 Yankees had an 18-game streak. The ’53 Yankees also had a 9-game losing streak.

Also on the losing end the 1951 Giants and the 1982 Braves each had an 11-game losing streak and finished in first place.

Voomo Zanzibar

11 years ago

Reply to Richard Chester

Those ’53 Yankees streaks were separated by a week.
At the end of the 18 game winning streak their record was 41-11.
___________

I noticed that a few days after the losing streak ended, the Yankees played three consecutive doubleheaders. Wondered how unusual that was.

1928 Boston Braves played NINE doubleheaders in a row.
And 17 doubleheaders from Aug 24 to Sep 24.
That’s 40 games in 30 days.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BSN/1928-schedule-scores.shtml

Voomo Zanzibar

11 years ago

Reply to Voomo Zanzibar

Then there’s the 1943 White Sox, who played 44 doubleheaders.
This is the record.

More by design than weather, it seems.
The wartime schedule started the season on April 21st…

Hartvig

11 years ago

Reply to Voomo Zanzibar

Amazingly enough, the 1943 White Sox did with without Ted Lyons who had one of the best seasons of his career in 1942 and had spent the decade or so prior starting mostly only Sunday double headers. Looks like they managed to do that by going with a 6 man rotation plus a swing man. Of the 10 pitchers on the roster 9 of them made at least 1 start and 4 of them never made a relief appearance and another made just 1. The pitcher who threw the most innings for them Orval Grove made 25 starts plus an… Read more »

Richard Chester

11 years ago

Reply to Voomo Zanzibar

Reply to #5:
Due to poor drainage systems in the days of yore many games were postponed due to wet grounds and that caused an excess of double-headers. In 1938 the Yankees had 28 DHs, there were 23 dates on which games were postponed.

Richard Chester

11 years ago

Reply to Voomo Zanzibar

That 1953 Yankee winning streak of 18 games was broken up by the Browns who coincidentally snapped their own 14-game losing streak.

Richard Chester

11 years ago

Reply to Richard Chester

Overall the Yankees have had 26 10+ game winning streaks with two such streaks coming in 1926 and 1939. They won the WS in 12 of those years and lost the WS in 3 other years. They finished first in the their division 3 times when they did not make it to the WS.

Evil Squirrel

11 years ago

I see four streaks up there that completely or mostly spanned the interleague part of the schedule, and all four times it was an AL team dominating their NL counterparts. I actually recall the Rays streak in ’04 because it was so odd given that they were still a pretty bad team then…

Shping

11 years ago

1987 Brewers: started 13-0, then lost 12 in a row in May, finished in 3rd place (and Molitor had a 39-gm-hit-strk along the way). Anyone know of any similar pairs of streaks of 12+ games?

Richard Chester

11 years ago

Reply to Shping

In 2004 Tampa Bay had a 12-game winning streak and a 12-game losing streak.

Shping

11 years ago

Thanks, by the way, to several of you for the DHdr info. Wow in regards to how frequent they truly were in “days of yore.” Too bad we’ll never see that again. Can anyone imagine a likely scenario where the owner-network-union complex would allow DHdrs to return and probably reduce profits? It would be a great, obvious way to shorten the length of the season, but they’d still never go for it, would they? Even 3-4 scheduled doubleheaders a year?

Author

Doug

11 years ago

Reply to Shping

If they did 3-4 DH every year, it could increase gate profits, at least at the start. Promoted well, I think an “old-fashioned” DH could easily attract big crowds just about everywhere – might even double the gate or more in some of the weaker markets. Not sure whether TV would relish 7+ hours of the local team on the schedule. But, for 3 or 4 times a year, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Holidays probably make the most sense – Memorial Day,the Fourth and Labor day would be ideal. Pick a couple more weekends when every… Read more »

11 years ago

Off topic…anyone else see Lance Berkman’s comments about how much he detests Wrigley and would be willing to push the button if they ever decide to blow the place up? I assumed it was a typical case of a guy not knowing his actual performance. But it this case Berkman is correct. He’s been dreadful in Wrigley. Of all parks where he’s had 100+ PAs, his .732 OPS in Wrigley is by far his lowest (next lowest is .796 in Turner Field). Berkman’s batting average in Wrigley is only .215 and he’s shown limited power (11 doubles and 12 homeruns… Read more »

11 years ago

Reply to Ed

More on Berkman and Wrigley….between 1999-2013, there have been 164 players with 100+ PAs at Wrigley and 1,000+ total PAs. Berkman has the 4th worst difference between his overall OPS (.956) and his Wrigley OPS (.732). Surprisingly two of the players that did worse than him are a Hall of Famer (Barry Larkin: .779 vs. .548) and a future HOFer (Chipper Jones: .946 vs. .710).

Howard

11 years ago

The 1916 Giants had one of the oddest seasons ever. They had a 26 game winning streak (with a tie thrown in) AND a 17 game streak yet finished in fourth place in an eight team league. Their non-streak record was 43-66.

Lawrence Azrin

11 years ago

Reply to Howard

I think that it was mostly a scheduling fluke. The Giants had an _extremely_ long homestand in September – from Sept. 5th to Sept. 30th, and the winning streak extended from Sept. 7th to Sept. 30th (G-1 of a doubleheader).

Despite finishing 4th, they were only 7 games behind first place. If they had just played .500 ball during their non winning-strak games, they would’ve won the pennant.

The 1916 NL was clearly stratified into “first division” (records from 94-60 to 86-66) and “second division” (67-86 to 60-93). Does anyone even use those phrases anymore?

11 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

Oddly the Giants didn’t move in the standings during that 26 game streak. They started the streak in 4th place and they ended it in 4th place.

Richard Chester

11 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

Back in that time (what I call the days of yore) it was not unusual for teams to have home stands and road trips of 20+ games. You can do some random searching of a team’s Schedule and Results on BR. In the case of that Giants’ 26 game home stand (actually a 31 game home stand counting games that they lost), it may have been swelled a bit by postponed makeup games.

Brent

11 years ago

Reply to Richard Chester

Of course, when traveling by train to away cities that only makes sense. I would guess that a typical road trip for the Giants would be Pittsburgh, then Chicago, then St. Louis then Cincinnati and then back to the East Coast. Rotate the Dodgers, Phillies and Braves on the same trip and you could make the schedule pretty simply by using 4 “Western” teams and 4 Coast teams (In the AL it works too, because you had 4 Coast teams (Yankees, A’s Red Sox, Senators and 4 “Western” teams, the Tigers, Indians, Browns and White Sox)

Author

Doug

11 years ago

Reply to Brent

The final triple-header is an interesting travel story. The Reds and Pirates played 3 in Pittsburgh on Oct 2, 1920, a Saturday and the 2nd last day of the season. Those teams were 3rd and 4th in the standings and out of the pennant race. Probably the three games were necessitated by rain or wet grounds, as neither team had played since they played each other in Cincinnati, ending the previous Tuesday. After the triple-header, both teams had to travel to play on the final day (the 3rd game was abandoned after 6 innings, probably due to failing light, but… Read more »

Author

Doug

11 years ago

Reply to Richard Chester

The 1899 Cleveland Spiders played 85 of their final 93 games on the road.

After a 15 game homestand (interrupted by two 1-game road trips), the Spiders hit the road July 3rd. They returned for 7 at home Aug 24-30, hit the road again Aug 31 and returned home only for a single game Sep 24th.

For the year, they played 42 at home, 112 on the road.

Lawrence Azrin

11 years ago

Reply to Doug

The 1899 Spiders were so wretchedly awful (20-134, and THIRTY FIVE games behind the 11th-place Senators)that it appears that at some point the owners decided that it wasn’t worth the expense of opening up their home ballpark because of the terrible attendance, and they could take in more money from road gate receipts. They were actually a pretty good team the year before (81-68), with HOFers Cy Young, Bobby Wallace and Jesse Burkett, along w/other good players such as Jack Powell, Ed McKean and Cupid Childs. The Spiders owners also controlled the St Louis club, and transferred all of their… Read more »

Doug

11 years ago

Reply to Doug

Evidently, the owners had only enough money (or were only willing to spend enough money) to stock one team. From the time that St. Louis moved to the NL in 1892 after the demise of the AA, they finished behind Cleveland every year, and usually well behind as their 39-92, 40-90, 29-102 and 39-111 records from 1895-98 would attest. Perhaps gutting the Spiders in 1899 was a test to see how well St. Louis would support a decent club, in comparison to how well Cleveland had supported the Spiders in the 1890s, when they were mostly a good team (3… Read more »

Howard

11 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

Home field may have helped them some but their entire 17 game winning streak earlier in the years was on the road.

Editor

Bryan O'Connor

11 years ago

Why the Braves have been so good:

Justin Upton’s having a pretty good year so far.

In case that link is fixed before you click it, I’ll copy and paste the highlights (as of the morning of 4/18/13):

MLB Pitching Leaders
Wins Above Replacement

1. Upton (ATL) 1.4
2. Buchholz (BOS) 1.4
3. Harvey (NYM) 1.4
4. Kershaw (LAD) 1.2

Editor

Bryan O'Connor

11 years ago

Reply to Bryan O'Connor

Ok, it looks like the link won’t be “fixed”. B-Ref’s pitching leaderboards seem to start with an overall WAR chart, then a separate chart for pitching WAR. Batting leaderboards do the same.