Teams winning the World Series in any given year are shown with their post-season won-loss totals in orange; teams losing the World Series are shown with their post-season won-loss totals in yellow.
With the creation of the one-and-done Wild Card game, we also single out the losers of those games by showing their all-too-brief post-season appearances in baby blue.
Playoff appearances in the decade break down as follows:
7-NYY, LAD
6-STL
5-TEX, OAK, ATL, WAS
4-SFG, HOU, DET, CHC, CLE, MIN, BAL
3-BOS, PHI, PIT, TBR, CIN
2-KCR, NYM, TOR, MIL, COL, ARZ
1-ANA
0-CHW, MIA, SDP, SEA
Interestingly, the two teams making it to the playoffs the most did not manage to win a World Series--and one of those two (the mighty Yankees) did not manage to even make it into a World Series at all.
Odd to note that the Nationals made the playoffs more times in the decade than the Astros, given the latter's outsized footprint in the latter portion of the decade.
And Billy Beane's famous (apocryphal?) quote that "[his] shit do[es]n't work in the playoffs" not only remains true (assuming, of course, that he actually said it...), but has become more immediately true as well, what with the A's suffering three one-and-done post-season takedowns since the Wild Card game was instituted in 2012. (Perhaps the Wild Card losers from each league should be sent on an European tour where they play a faux World Series as consolation for such an abrupt demise. If such a plan were in place, we'd have seen some interesting match-ups over the past years: 2012: TEX-ATL; 2013: CLE-CIN; 2014: OAK-PIT; 2015: NYY-PIT; 2016: BAL-NYM; 2017: MIN-COL [note we forgot to color-code the Twins...]; 2018: OAK-CHC; 2019: OAK-MIL.)
Best post-season won-loss records for 2010-19: SFG 36-16, KCR 22-9; BOS 22-11, HOU 28-22. Worst: ANA 0-3, COL 1-4, CIN 2-7, ATL 5-13, OAK 4-9, PIT 2-5, OAK 4-9, ARZ 3-6, MIN 6-11.
Most playoff games played in 2010-19: 67 (LAD). Least: 0 (CHW, MIA, SDP, SEA).
