The A’s have a long and rich history, starting in Philadelphia, moving to Kansas City for a couple decades, and finally moving to Oakland for 50 years. Currently they are homeless in an official sense as they pulled up stakes in the Bay area to play in a AAA stadium in Sacramento. Ownership has said they plan to move to Las Vegas, but it must be said how much their fanbase is fighting to get them to sell and move the team back to Oakland. Who’s to say what the future holds, but having your team pulled away from you carries a 2x multiplier on their final score. The A’s last won the World Series in 1989, during the earthquake series against their Bay area rivals, the San Francisco Giants. Since then they had famously cheap owners leading to one of the lower payrolls in baseball, their subsequent competitiveness in the early 00’s later inspiring the book, and later movie “Moneyball”. Since then however, they have achieved sparing success, flirting with the modern season loss total record. Looking at the current franchise, it’s hard to remember they have 4 World Series titles.
Their last World Series win was in 1989 (+35)
They last played in the World Series in 1989 (+35)
Their last playoff fun was in 2020 (+4)
Over the course of their title drought, three other AL West teams won four World Series, with the LA Angels, and the Texas Rangers both winning the World Series once, and the Houston Astros twice. (+4)
Drought total=78
The A’s were a founding member of the AL, as such they’ve been around for every WS since 1901. 4 titles in 124 years would be an expected win rate of 31, but that’s capped at 30 for the number of teams in the league. 78x(35/30)=91
Drought x win rate=91
Year over year improvement 1-(.309-.426)=0.883
year over year x previous rate=80.353
Franchise relocation multiplier x2
Misery Index is 160.706
Tomorrow I will look at another team with a long history and relocation woes, the Cleveland Browns.
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