When your ship comes in

[SWC75]

There's been a trend in recent years of long championship droughts coming to an end:
2002: The Angels won their first championship in their 42nd season.
2004: The Red Sox broke an 86 yard hex.
2005: With much less fanfare, the White Sox broke an 88 year drought.
2006: The Cardinals won for the first time in 24 years.
2008: The Phillies won for the first time in 28 years.
2010: The Giants had been waiting since 1954.
2015: The Royals had had hard times since they'd won it for the first time 30 years before.
2016: The Cubs. 108 years!
2017: The 56 Astros team wins their first title.
2019: The Expos/Naitonal frnachise wins their first title after 50 years. The nation's capital wins it's first in 95 years.

The current count, as of next season (if they've never won, it's in parenthesis):
72 years - Indians
(59) - Senators/Rangers
(51) - Pilots/Brewers and Padres
(44) - Mariners
41 - Pirates
37 - Orioles
36 - Tigers
34 - Mets
32 - Dodgers
31 - Athletics
30 - Reds
29 - Twins
27 - Blue Jays
(27) - Rockies
25 - braves
(22) - Rays
19 - Diamondbacks
18 - Angels
17 - Marlins
15 - White Sox
12 - Phillies
11 - Yankees
9 - Cardinals
6 - Giants
5 - Royals
4 - Cubs
3 - Astros
2 - Red Sox
1 - Nationals

 

[upperdeck]

it shows you how hard it is to win when teams like NY/Atlanta/Dodgers that have had many good teams go 10-30 yrs without a title.

 

[chugg21]

Might take the Padres to be the next big one to come off that list. Everything has to go right obviously but I think the pieces are there.

 

[SWC75]

it shows you how hard it is to win when teams like NY/Atlanta/Dodgers that have had many good teams go 10-30 yrs without a title.

free agency, which tedns to produce a dispora rather than hoarding of good players is a facotr. The fact that there are more teams than we used to have, (1960: 16; 1962:20; 1969: 24; 1976: 26; 1993: 28; 1998: 30), increases the competition. And the additional rounds of playoffs make it more of a minefield just to get to the World Series. if we'd just have the team with the best record in each league go right to the series it would have looked like this:

1969 Orioles vs. Mets
1970 Orioles vs. Reds
1971 Orioles vs. Pirates
1972 Athletics vs. Pirates
1973 Orioles vs. Reds
1974 Orioles vs. Dodgers
1975 Athletics vs. Reds
1976 Yankees vs. Reds
1977 Royals vs. Phillies
1978 Yankees vs. Dodgers
1979 Orioles vs. Pirates
1980 Yankees vs. Astros
1981 Athletics vs. Reds
1982 Brewers vs. Cardinals
1983 White Sox vs. Dodgers
1984 Tigers vs. Cubs
1985 Blue Jays vs. Cardinals
1986 Red Sox vs. Mets
1987 Tigers vs. Cardinals
1988 Athletics vs. Mets
1989 Athletics vs. Cubs
1990 Athletics vs. Pirates
1991 Twins vs. Pirates
1992 Blue Jays vs. Braves
1993 Blue Jays vs. Braves
1994 Yankees vs. Expos
1995 Indians vs. Braves
1996 Indians vs. Braves
1997 Orioles vs. Braves
1998 Yankees vs. Braves
1999 Yankees vs. Braves
2000 White Sox vs. Giants
2001 Mariners vs. Astros or Cardinals
2002 Yankees vs. Braves
2003 Yankees vs. Braves
2004 Yankees vs. Cardinals
2005 White Sox vs. Cardinals
2006 Yankees vs. Mets
2007 Red Sox vs. Diamondbacks
2008 Angels vs. Cubs
2009 Yankees vs. Dodgers
2010 Rays vs. Phillies
2011 Yankees vs. Phillies
2012 Yankees vs. Nationals
2013 Red Sox vs. Cardinals
2014 Angels vs. Nationals
2015 Royals vs. Cardinals
2016 Rangers vs. Cubs
2017 Indians vs. Dodgers
2018 Red Sox vs. Brewers
2019 Astros vs. Dodgers.

You see a lot of the same names over and over. Those are the elite organizations and they would have been in many more World Series and thus won more of them. I'm not saying it would have been better but it would have been a better indicator of which were the elite franchises.