Championship Droughts

With the Chicago Cubs simultaneously erasing their 71 season pennant drought and 108 season championship drought, Milwaukee Brewers fans awoke to a new world: their beloved nine now share the longest NL championship drought, along with the San Diego Padres and Washington Nationals / Montreal Expos franchise. Of course, there are varying levels of success within this trio of championship-starved franchises: the Nationals have recently put together a series of five consecutive winning teams, and visited the playoffs three times within those seasons; Milwaukee has not seen a pennant since their 1982 AL Championship, and although they made the playoffs twice in the 21st century, they now have a five year absence; finally, the Padres were one of the teams to face the mid-1990s Yankees dynasty, and they have not been to the playoffs in a decade. The only championship droughts that are longer than those in D.C., Milwaukee, and San Diego are on the Junior Circuit, with Cleveland (68 years), Texas (56 years), and Houston (55 years).

Now that the Cubs can ascend to the level of just another successful big market team, I looked into the championship, pennant, and playoff droughts of each MLB franchise, as well as their playoff runs within the last generation or so (1992-present) and last decade (2007-present). What is striking is how much the Wild Card era truly established some level of parity within the game, while simultaneously creating a number of one-and-done teams. Yet, it seems that championship teams in general have relatively long cycles in baseball, and dynasties truly are rare.

Even more interesting is the fact that many teams share exactly the same drought following a World Series appearance — the White Sox and Astros are both 11 seasons removed from their pennants; the Reds and Athletics are both 26 years removed from their pennants; San Diego, Atlanta, and the Mets each have their pennant drought defined by the dynasty Yankees (18, 17, and 16 years removed, respectively). It would be interesting to study this further, to see whether MLB front offices press to build a repeat contender after their championships, instead of allowing a roster to take a more natural player development course (which clubs arguably do when they are attempting to build a contender).

Even more recently, certain franchises share the same fate: the Cardinals and Rangers and Phillies and Yankees are both equally removed from their last pennants now, and the Rays have not returned to the World Series since the Phillies dismissed them. There was also an incredible run of one-time champions that are already quite far removed from those trophies (the Marlins, Angels, and Diamondbacks).

If one defines a player development cycle as roughly eight-to-ten years — assembling a core of players that theoretically have overlapping reserve rights (six-to-seven years) and supplemental free agency contracts and other trades — there are currently 20 MLB franchises that are more than one player development cycle removed from a pennant, with four of those teams also experiencing playoffs droughts that are longer than one player development cycle. The pennant droughts should not necessarily be surprising, as even if pennants were equally distributed throughout each league, an average drought would be roughly 15 years; but the playoff droughts are quite stunning, given the rate at which the Wild Card era is supposed to recycle clubs and literally increase each club’s chance at making the playoffs. In this light, the Brewers’ five season playoff drought is only half of one player development cycle (approximately), which is interesting because it reframes the current rebuilding effort (a quick and effective rebuild could return the Brewers to the playoffs within one player development cycle, which will make a worthwhile effort of reevaluating former President Doug Melvin’s tenure).

One could argue that another measure of success for the Wild Card era is the distribution of teams that are within three years of their previous playoff appearance. Theoretically, the new Wild Card arrangement should ensure each club a chance at making the playoffs once every three years, and the old arrangement ensured one appearance within every four year span (theoretically). In terms of actual development, 21 MLB clubs successfully fall within that range, which means that one might actually be able to explain the failures of other clubs as outliers. On the other hand, a revenue-based argument will readily point out that a handful of the playoff starved franchises (including the Brewers) that fall outside of those three- or four-year Wild Card cycles are among the game’s smallest television markets. MLB needs total revenue sharing, and this is another measure of that need. Of course, the Wild Card has shown some success in redistributing playoff spots, so the last generation of MLB policy is not a complete failure.

Judging the last decade and previous 25 years of playoff appearances, it is interesting how the Cubs narrative flips. The Lakeview Nine were one of the Top Ten successes in the MLB, both in terms of the last 25 years and the last decade. People will say what they like of pennant and championship droughts, but a 25-year-old Cubs fan has now seen six playoff appearances and a World Series title, easily making their experience one of the most successful and privileged within the MLB.

Brewers fans now have a new scope on their narrative of failure for the franchise. The club is among the ten longest playoff droughts (#7), among the most playoff starved franchises within the last decade and generation (#6), among the longest pennant droughts (#4), and among the longest Championship droughts (#5). This places the goal of the rebuilding effort in clear focus: the Brewers cannot simply produce another set of one-and-done contenders, but must find a way to cycle talent to break their current franchise trends. With the Collective Bargaining Agreement between MLB and MLBPA in sight, Brewers fans should demand their ownership group fight for full revenue sharing, which will go a long way in helping Milwaukee compete with largest markets for playoff shares. While we fight for these gains, we will have our own narratives of losing to sort through: here we are, with Cleveland, Texas, Houston, D.C., San Diego, and Seattle, the new lovable losers. Which of these clubs will break their drought first?