The Rays roll on, though they might take a hit from the possible fallout surrounding the early departure of their third ace, lefty Jeffrey Springs (an ulnar nerve malady that is still being diagnosed). The combination of high BA/longball and top-notch pitching is usually a winning one, and Tampa has parlayed an abundance of all three to a 13-0 start, matching the record held by two teams from the 1980s (the '82 Braves and the '87 Brewers).
Neither of those teams made it to the World Series in those years, however, and we've shown you previously that exceptional success in the very early going is no guarantee for post-season glory. So while all the other media outlets are now surrounding that story, we'll move on to some different ways of looking at this issue (as is our charter here...even more than the "lost art of diatribe").
We've given it our version of the "heat map" treatment so you can see how that first-thirteen-game performance has been distributed over time.
As you'll see, the two best starts amongst World Series champs after 13 games belong to the 1966 Orioles and the 1984 Tigers (12-1, a .923 WPCT).
In the next rung of fast-starting world champs, we have (chronologically): the 1907 Cubs, the 1918 Red Sox, the 1955 Dodgers, the 1957 Braves, the 1981 Dodgers, the 1990 Reds, and the 2018 Red Sox. All of these fine folk were 11-2 after thirteen games (a WPCT of .846).
And so all of the possible combinations (including a few involving less than 13 decisions in the first thirteen games played: you might enjoy looking for those--or not...) then flow down from there, until you get to the 23 World Series champions who were playing under .500 ball after 13 games. The lowest of the low, the cell in the table shown with a pink background, appears early in baseball history: the 1914 "Miracle Braves," then playing in Boston.
THE average WPCT after 13 games for the aggregated World Champs is .626: you should be able to pick out that value where it appears, down in the lower right of the table. We've added the averages for the Expansion era (1961- ) at the very bottom, to show that the average early WPCT has been decreasing as the number of MLB teams increases. Decade-by-decade averages have also been computed, which show an increasing fluctuation in the WPCTs since expansion began.
We also (whimsically...) added the "year-ending-in" averages at the bottom of each column, so you'll know that the World Champs have played the best over their first 13 games in years ending with a "0", a "7", and an "8". (And you'll see that since expansion, WS winners in years ending with a "9" have had just a .500 WPCT. Does it mean anything? Not really...but you might find it amusing.)
That data provides us with a nifty little counterpoint for what we've seen in the "winners" data. The losing team is just a couple of notches below the performance level of the champs, as the .600 aggregate first-13-game WPCT attests.
The fastest starters in the losers' bracket all went 11-2 (.846 WPCT): those would be the 1915 Phillies, 1924 Giants, 1998 Padres, and the 2003 Yankees.
There have been 26 teams who've reached the World Series only to lose that began the year with a sub-.500 record in their first thirteen games. The all-time slowest starter of these is another "miracle" team: the 1951 New York Giants (2-11).
And, as with the winners, there has been a noticeable decline in early-season performance amongst these tams, particularly in the 21st century--with thirteen of twenty-two losing World Series teams starting out with a sub-.500 WPCT in their first thirteen games.
We'll come back with the head-to-head results shortly, in order to provide all you gamblers out there with a possible data point to use when we get within range of the Fall Classic. We'll leave you with the lede as we get the lead out and move on: "[insert breathless tone here] Does early-season performance provide an indicator for whom to bet on in the World Series?" Stay tuned...but don't hold your breath.
