Historical World Series Champions

The average team strength score for a World Series winning team is 52. This score, however, is obtained after some adjustments are made. The team strength score for a given team is dependent upon the ability of the other team’s in their year. In 1906, the Chicago Cubs received an unadjusted team strength score of 103, while in 1998 the New York Yankees obtained a score of 93. The teams in 1906, however, were very different from the teams in 1998. I believe the most dramatic change to the game is that today we have a much larger talent pool to draw from. Imagine the league without Barry Bonds or Johan Santana – half of the players in the 2004 All-Star game would not be playing in the early years before African Americans were allowed in the league and the game spread abroad. I don’t mean to imply that anyone who thinks the 1927 Yankees is the greatest team in history is racist, however, it's ridiculous to me to think that there has not been a dramatic improvement in play. To make a reasonable comparison between teams from different eras, an adjustment must be made to account for league changes. I adjusted the scores by assuming not that the league has improved, but that the best teams have remained comparable. This does not capture the improvement in league ability, but at least it corrects for the mistake of thinking that the best teams have actually gotten worse.

World Series Champion Score


The team ability is adjusted by dividing the team strength by a standard deviation that measures the spread during that time. This adjusts the scores so that teams from one era do not have an advantage over teams from another. The average score for each year, however, remains the same - zero. It would probably be more appropriate to have the average score for the league change with time to capture an overall improvement in play; however, I don’t have a good way to quantify that change. For now, I’ll at least settle for a level playing field.