Extreme teams: Orioles and Padres
Baltimore and San Diego fans have fond memories of 1966 and 1998
I’ve been surveying the extreme seasons — the very best and worst performances — by a different pair of ballclubs each Friday.
I simply pick the next two teams from an alphabetical list of nicknames, though I’m usually able to find a closer connection. The Braves and Brewers both have Milwaukee roots, for example, and the Cardinals and Cubs have been fierce rivals for more than a century.
But I’m drawing a blank this week. If you can find a solid link between the Baltimore Orioles and San Diego Padres, I salute your perceptivity. The two franchises are in different leagues, they’re on opposite coasts, and their nicknames start with different letters. I’ve got nothing.
So let’s go directly to the rankings, which are based on team scores (TS). Scores are plotted on an equalized 100-point scale, allowing comparisons of the relative strength of teams from different years. (Click here to learn more.)
Rankings are confined to clubs that played in baseball’s Modern Era, which began in 1961. Here are the clubs at both extremes for both franchises:
Best year for the Orioles: Baltimore fans entered 1966 with high hopes. The O’s had finished third in the American League the previous two years, tantalizingly close to a pennant. The offseason acquisition of right fielder Frank Robinson from Cincinnati made all the difference. Robinson won the Triple Crown (49 homers, 122 RBIs, .316 BA). Namesake Brooks Robinson drove in 100 runs and won a Gold Glove at third base. Jim Palmer, just 20 years old, led the pitching staff with 15 wins. The Orioles breezed to the AL title with a nine-game cushion, then swept the favored Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.
Worst year for the Orioles: The fate of Baltimore’s 1988 squad was determined by its first 21 games, all of which ended in defeat. A 54-107 record plunged the Orioles into last place in the AL East, 34.5 games behind first-place Boston. First baseman Eddie Murray paced the club with 28 homers and 84 runs batted in. Shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. was close behind at 23 and 81.
Best year for the Padres: San Diego notched 98 victories in 1998, a figure that remains a franchise record to this day. The Padres came away with the National League title that year, but had the misfortune of reaching the World Series against the ’98 Yankees, considered one of the greatest teams of all time. New York won all four games. San Diego pitcher Kevin Brown fashioned an 18-7 record with a nifty 2.38 ERA. Right fielder Tony Gwynn batted a solid .321. Left fielder Greg Vaughn emerged as an unexpected power source, swatting 50 homers and driving home 119 runs.
Worst year for the Padres: The franchise wallowed below .500 in each of its first nine seasons after joining the NL in 1969. San Diego reached its nadir in 1973, posting a 60-102 record and finishing 39 games out of first place in the National League West. The club’s slugger was first baseman Nate Colbert, who hit 22 homers. Steve Arlin topped the pitchers with 11 wins.
Scroll down to see the top and bottom 10 seasons for both franchises between 1961 and 2022 (or 1969 and 2022 in San Diego’s case). Similar rankings for all other clubs can be found in the print edition of Baseball’s Best (and Worst) 2023 Yearbook.
Each team is listed below with the year in brackets, followed by regular-season win-loss record, postseason results in parentheses, margin between runs scored and allowed per game, and Modern Era percentile.
These are the postseason abbreviations: P indicates that a club made the playoffs, L means that it won a league championship, and W signifies that it won the World Series.
The Modern Era percentile is the share of all 1,656 major-league clubs from 1961 through 2022 that a given team outperformed, based on TS comparisons.
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Top 10 for Orioles (1961-2022)
1. Orioles [1966], 97-63 (WLP), plus-0.96 margin, 99.6% in era
2. Orioles [1970], 108-54 (WLP), plus-1.35 margin, 99.5% in era
3. Orioles [1969], 109-53 (LP), plus-1.62 margin, 99.0% in era
4. Orioles [1971], 101-57 (LP), plus-1.34 margin, 98.3% in era
5. Orioles [1983], 98-64 (WLP), plus-0.91 margin, 97.6% in era
6. Orioles [1979], 102-57 (LP), plus-1.10 margin, 96.2% in era
7. Orioles [1973], 97-65 (P), plus-1.19 margin, 92.3% in era
8. Orioles [1997], 98-64 (P), plus-0.81 margin, 89.2% in era
9. Orioles [1980], 100-62, plus-1.02 margin, 88.6% in era
10. Orioles [2014], 96-66 (P), plus-0.69 margin, 85.7% in era
Bottom 10 for Orioles (1961-2022)
1. Orioles [1988], 54-107, minus-1.48 margin, 0.4% in era
2. Orioles [2021], 52-110, minus-1.83 margin, 1.0% in era
3. Orioles [2018], 47-115, minus-1.67 margin, 2.1% in era
4. Orioles [2009], 64-98, minus-0.83 margin, 4.3% in era
5. Orioles [1987], 67-95, minus-0.93 margin, 6.2% in era
6. Orioles [2010], 66-96, minus-1.06 margin, 6.5% in era
7. Orioles [2019], 54-108, minus-1.56 margin, 6.8% in era
8. Orioles [2011], 69-93, minus-0.94 margin, 11.2% in era
9. Orioles [1991], 67-95, minus-0.68 margin, 11.4% in era
10. Orioles [2008], 68-93, minus-0.54 margin, 11.6% in era
Top 10 for Padres (1969-2022)
1. Padres [1998], 98-64 (LP), plus-0.70 margin, 91.2% in era
2. Padres [2020], 37-23 (P), plus-1.40 margin, 90.0% in era
3. Padres [1984], 92-70 (LP), plus-0.32 margin, 89.3% in era
4. Padres [1996], 91-71 (P), plus-0.55 margin, 85.6% in era
5. Padres [2006], 88-74 (P), plus-0.32 margin, 80.8% in era
6. Padres [2007], 89-74, plus-0.46 margin, 79.8% in era
7. Padres [2010], 90-72, plus-0.52 margin, 75.2% in era
8. Padres [1989], 89-73, plus-0.10 margin, 68.7% in era
9. Padres [2004], 87-75, plus-0.39 margin, 63.6% in era
10. Padres [2022], 89-73 (P), plus-0.28 margin, 62.2% in era
Bottom 10 for Padres (1969-2022)
1. Padres [1973], 60-102, minus-1.37 margin, 0.6% in era
2. Padres [1969], 52-110, minus-1.72 margin, 0.8% in era
3. Padres [1974], 60-102, minus-1.78 margin, 1.6% in era
4. Padres [1972], 58-95, minus-1.16 margin, 4.4% in era
5. Padres [1971], 61-100, minus-0.77 margin, 5.6% in era
6. Padres [1970], 63-99, minus-0.66 margin, 6.8% in era
7. Padres [1981], 41-69, minus-0.66 margin, 7.2% in era
8. Padres [2003], 64-98, minus-0.94 margin, 7.5% in era
9. Padres [2002], 66-96, minus-0.94 margin, 8.8% in era
10. Padres [2018], 66-96, minus-0.93 margin, 8.9% in era