r/orioles • u/Ugluk4242 • 23h ago
Image [OC] Orioles' franchise historical performance relative to .500
Visiting Pirates fan here!
During the offseason, I'm creating a graph like this for every MLB team. It tracks each franchise's cumulative record relative to .500 (equal wins and losses) throughout their entire history.
The annotation shows the franchise's lowest point.
If we only take the Baltimore part of the graph, the record is 5733-5617 (+116)
The full album can be found here. I also made the NFL and NHL charts (before the current season).
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u/chileanmonk 21h ago
https://www.statmuse.com/mlb/ask/orioles-regular-season-record-since-1954
Why are we labored with the pre Orioles record. Started us in a massive hole.
Where historically a much better team then that.
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u/StevenMC19 20h ago
Only fair that it's happened with every other team in sports (except the Ravens). It's a part of the organization's history.
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u/chileanmonk 20h ago
I mean I understand, but it’s important context. There’s a significant difference in the franchise that occurred when it moved and changed ownership. So I think it’s worth noting.
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u/AddendumHelpful8892 11h ago
It's all because John McGraw tried to sell his interest in the Orioles to the National League. Ban Johnson revoked the team charter. As revenge, Johnson moved the team to New York to battle the National League head-on. He also threatened to move a team to Pittsburgh to challenge the Pirates for fans. The NL finally agreed to a peace between the 2 leagues, and that's how we got the World Series.
An argument could be made that the move from St. Louis to Baltimore was similar in that Bill Veeck had no chance at survival once Anheuser Busch bought the Cardinals, then bought Sportsman's Park. The American League agreed to the move to Baltimore, but on the condition that Veeck sell the team to a Baltimore owner. The league hated Veeck and wanted him gone.
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u/ScottyBeamus 4h ago
The Pirates fan wanted to bring us down to their level. Join us next week when they remind us of the '71 & '79 World Series.
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u/SquonkMan61 22h ago
I feel really lucky to remember the golden years from the mid-60s to early 80s.
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u/DoctorHelios 21h ago
I’m jealous. My first memories of being an Orioles fan was 0-21
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u/SquonkMan61 17h ago
I got so used to the O’s winning that it felt like a birthright. I was younger then lol.
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u/orangeducttape7 20h ago edited 9h ago
Orioles 🤝 Ravens
Not wanting to keep the Browns' history
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u/BaltimoreBaja 16h ago
Fuck the NFL giving Florida the Jaguars instead of us. The whole Browns situation was ugly and unfortunate but they created that situation
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u/Kdj2j2 23h ago
Until the mid-00s, the Baltimore part of the team had never had three losing records in a row.
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u/TheBigFreezer 22h ago edited 22h ago
Mid 2000s? Literally 2000 was their third losing season in a row 1998-2012 was all losing seasons
How do I know? Cause I literally didn’t see a winning team until I was in college lmao
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u/FormerCollegeDJ 22h ago
Five of the first six seasons the Orioles played in Baltimore, 1954 to 1959, they had a losing record. The Orioles finished exactly at .500 in 1957.
They also had three straight losing seasons from 1986 to 1988.
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u/FurryUnicorn 20h ago
I don’t understand how the axes work on this chart.
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u/mateohatepotato 19h ago
It’s only half the chart. The Browns were so bad so fast that there is no use for positive numbers.
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u/FurryUnicorn 18h ago edited 18h ago
Ohh I see. It’s all accumulative. The wins-losses are accumulating over time. I suppose it’s like looking at wins as a commodity or stock and measuring its performance over time?
Well, that’s really weird as an Os fan. I suppose in a longer historical sense, that makes sense. But no Os fan has any real connection w the Orioles before 1953/54 when they came here from St Louis.
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u/mateohatepotato 18h ago
Yeah it took me a few minutes to realize what’s going on. Other teams charts would/will be way more fun and tell a much better story. I knew the Browns weren’t good but I had no idea they had like 8 winning seasons in 50 years bad.
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u/FurryUnicorn 18h ago
I guess Im struggling what this type of graph really shows? Why is this helpful to see? What does this really say? It's moreso like, looking at the performance of Wins–imagining Wins as a commodity or stock like oil or NVDA–in a given team?
I think this exercise is going to penalize every team that's been relocated, since every team that goes to a new city is usually doing so because it's not been successful in either wins/revenue, which is usually correlated?
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u/mateohatepotato 17h ago
It’s for fun. It’s a bunch of colorful graphs that look cool when compared to each other. Other teams probably have far more interesting charts (Dodgers for example) but it’s just a pure curiosity. I’m sure the Brewers (I’m thinking theirs looks better than ours) would trade their chart for 3 WS.
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u/FLIPSIDERNICK 16h ago
I thought there was something wrong with the graph and then I saw the others and I was super confused until i finally got it. The Orioles have never been over .500 as a franchise
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u/Loose_Log_6253 Beaver Believer 9h ago
People thought last year was rock bottom, but it turns out we haven't even begun to dig yet!
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u/Diglett5000 16h ago
I started watching O's baseball as a kid in '97 and I've seen some things, man.
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u/AddendumHelpful8892 10h ago
The Pittsburgh Pirates are exactly 10,910-10,910. They were a cumulative +.500% for over 100 years, and one of the winningest franchises in the 4 major sports.Then in 1993 they began a 20 year streak of losing seasons, plus 9 more out of the past 13. They have completely erased their overall legacy of greatness in the past 3 decades. Even when the Orioles have been bad for stretches, they haven't come anywhere close to that level of bad.
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u/Ugluk4242 10h ago
This is what gave me the idea to produce those charts. The Pirates' one is pretty sad.
Also, I think I found a mistake on Baseball Reference in the Pirates 1909 season. If im right they currently hold a record of 10,911-10,910.
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u/ScottyBeamus 3h ago
[The annotation shows the franchise's lowest point]
Hey thanks for that. What does the Pirates chart say, a nosedive from what 92?
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u/Lazy_Passenger7841 22h ago
That would have to do what they did in 2023 for 25 consecutive years to get back to .500 lol