Extreme teams: Giants and Guardians
San Francisco reached its pinnacle in 2002, seven years after Cleveland
The Giants and Guardians don’t have any true connection other than their initial letters.
The two clubs play on opposite sides of the country — San Francisco and Cleveland, of course — and they belong to different leagues. But they do have an alphabetical link of recent vintage, one that began when the Cleveland Indians morphed into the Guardians in November 2021.
That last fact is what matters here, as I continue my weekly examination of the extreme years for a pair of franchises, their best and worst seasons during the Modern Era (1961 to the present). I’m proceeding in alphabetical order, and today is devoted to the G’s.
I calculated the team scores for every club during the 62-year period, and then I ranked each franchise’s squads from best to worst. The formula for TS generates an equalized score on a 100-point scale, allowing direct comparisons of teams from different years. (Click here to learn more about TS.)
Let’s take a look at the extreme seasons for today’s franchises:
Best year for the Giants: This may seem strange. The Giants won three world championships (2010, 2012, 2014) during the Modern Era, but they ran up their highest TS in 2002, despite losing a seven-game World Series to the Anaheim Angels. Left fielder Barry Bonds won the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award in 2002 after batting .370, blasting 46 homers, and driving in 110 runs. Second baseman Jeff Kent batted .313 with 108 RBIs. Five pitchers won at least a dozen games, led by Russ Ortiz and Kirk Rueter with 14 apiece.
Worst year for the Giants: San Francisco hovered around .500 between 1981 and 1983, then plummeted badly in 1984. The latter squad suffered 96 losses, the franchise’s highest number of defeats in any season since 1943. Outfielder Chili Davis was a rare standout, batting .315 with 81 runs batted in. Left fielder Jeffrey Leonard tied Davis for the club’s home-run lead with 21. Mike Krukow anchored the rotation with an 11-12 record.
Best year for the Guardians/Indians: The schedule for 1995 was shortened to 144 games because of a labor dispute, but that didn’t bother the Indians. They still secured 100 victories, running away with the American League Central by 30 games over runner-up Kansas City. The dream ended in a six-game World Series loss to Atlanta. The Indians’ attack was powered by left fielder Albert Belle (50 homers) and right fielder Manny Ramirez (31). Center fielder Kenny Lofton stole 54 bases. Starting pitchers Orel Hershiser and Charles Nagy fashioned identical 16-6 records to lead the staff.
Worst year for the Guardians/Indians: Just four years prior to that amazing 1995 season, the Indians posted a pathetic 57-105 mark in 1991. The number of losses remains the worst to this day in club history, stretching back to 1901. Belle led the club in homers (28) and RBIs (95), while Nagy was the only pitcher to reach double digits in wins. He had 10.
Scroll down to see the top and bottom 10 lists for both teams between 1961 and 2022. Rankings for all 30 big-league clubs can be found in the print edition of Baseball’s Best (and Worst) 2023 Yearbook.
Each team is listed below with a specific season in brackets, followed by the regular-season win-loss record, postseason results (if any) in parentheses, margin between runs scored and allowed per game, and Modern Era percentile.
Postseason outcomes are abbreviated this way: P for a playoff appearance, L for a league title, and W for a World Series championship.
The Modern Era percentile is the share of all 1,656 teams between 1961 and 2022 that the given club outperformed, based on relative scores.
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Top 10 for Giants (1961-2022)
1. Giants [2002], 95-66 (LP), plus-1.03 margin, 96.3% in era
2. Giants [1989], 92-70 (LP), plus-0.61 margin, 95.5% in era
3. Giants [2010], 92-70 (WLP), plus-0.70 margin, 94.1% in era
4. Giants [1962], 103-62 (LP), plus-1.14 margin, 94.0% in era
5. Giants [2021], 107-55 (P), plus-1.30 margin, 93.8% in era
6. Giants [2012], 94-68 (WLP), plus-0.43 margin, 92.8% in era
7. Giants [2000], 97-65 (P), plus-1.10 margin, 92.6% in era
8. Giants [2014], 88-74 (WLP), plus-0.31 margin, 92.3% in era
9. Giants [1993], 103-59, plus-1.06 margin, 90.6% in era
10. Giants [2003], 100-61 (P), plus-0.73 margin, 88.3% in era
Bottom 10 for Giants (1961-2022)
1. Giants [1984], 66-96, minus-0.77 margin, 3.4% in era
2. Giants [1996], 68-94, minus-0.68 margin, 7.4% in era
3. Giants [1985], 62-100, minus-0.73 margin, 10.2% in era
4. Giants [2017], 64-98, minus-0.85 margin, 10.9% in era
5. Giants [1979], 71-91, minus-0.49 margin, 16.6% in era
6. Giants [1995], 67-77, minus-0.86 margin, 16.7% in era
7. Giants [1992], 72-90, minus-0.45 margin, 18.8% in era
8. Giants [2018], 73-89, minus-0.59 margin, 20.0% in era
9. Giants [2008], 72-90, minus-0.73 margin, 20.4% in era
10. Giants [2005], 75-87, minus-0.59 margin, 23.3% in era
Top 10 for Guardians (1961-2022)
1. Indians [1995], 100-44 (LP), plus-1.62 margin, 99.3% in era
2. Indians [2017], 102-60 (P), plus-1.57 margin, 95.8% in era
3. Indians [2016], 94-67 (LP), plus-0.63 margin, 94.4% in era
4. Indians [1996], 99-62 (P), plus-1.14 margin, 92.0% in era
5. Indians [1999], 97-65 (P), plus-0.92 margin, 89.1% in era
6. Indians [1997], 86-75 (LP), plus-0.33 margin, 89.0% in era
7. Indians [1994], 66-47, plus-1.04 margin, 88.9% in era
8. Indians [2005], 93-69, plus-0.91 margin, 86.9% in era
9. Indians [2000], 90-72, plus-0.83 margin, 84.5% in era
10. Indians [2007], 96-66 (P), plus-0.66 margin, 84.3% in era
Bottom 10 for Guardians (1961-2022)
1. Indians [1991], 57-105, minus-1.13 margin, 0.5% in era
2. Indians [1987], 61-101, minus-1.33 margin, 2.3% in era
3. Indians [1971], 60-102, minus-1.26 margin, 2.7% in era
4. Indians [1985], 60-102, minus-0.81 margin, 4.6% in era
5. Indians [2012], 68-94, minus-1.10 margin, 6.6% in era
6. Indians [1969], 62-99, minus-0.89 margin, 10.7% in era
7. Indians [2009], 65-97, minus-0.57 margin, 12.9% in era
8. Indians [1973], 71-91, minus-0.90 margin, 13.4% in era
9. Indians [2010], 69-93, minus-0.65 margin, 15.2% in era
10. Indians [1983], 70-92, minus-0.50 margin, 23.0% in era