The Houston Astros were the best team in the major leagues this year.
That’s not exactly breaking news. The Astros piled up 106 victories in the regular season — running away with the American League West by a 16-game margin — and then swept to a world championship by winning 11 of 13 playoff games. They were clearly dominant.
But the World Series champ doesn’t always deserve a year’s No. 1 ranking, as I’ll explain in a minute.
I’ve calculated team scores for all 1,656 big-league clubs in the Modern Era, spanning the seasons from 1961 through 2022. You might remember the team score (TS), which allows direct comparisons of clubs from different years.
The TS formula gives equal weight to four factors: winning percentage, the differential between runs scored and allowed per game, the differential between bases per out (BPO) attained by batters and allowed by pitchers, and postseason success.
It generates a score for each club on a 100-point scale, which is equalized from year to year. That means it’s possible to say that a 1975 club with a TS of 85 was better than a 2016 team with a score of 83.
The Astros finished 2022 with a team score of 87.893 points, the 10th-best performance by any club in 62 seasons. That means Houston was better than 99.5 percent of all teams in the Modern Era. (The 1984 Detroit Tigers, by the way, rank as the era’s overall champion with a TS of 97.109.)
This year’s runner-up, the Los Angeles Dodgers, finished a substantial distance behind the Astros, almost nine points off the pace. Yet the Dodgers still outperformed 96.9 percent of all Modern Era clubs.
I mentioned a few paragraphs back that the best team in a given year doesn’t always win the World Series, something you already knew. But you might be surprised how frequently this disparity occurs. My research in the 1961-2022 period has identified 23 world-title clubs who were inferior to other teams in the same season — including such recent champs as the Atlanta Braves in 2021, Washington Nationals in 2019, Kansas City Royals in 2015, and San Francisco Giants in 2014.
But this year’s TS rankings show the champion right at the top. You can see the entire list below.
Each club is preceded by its rank among all 1,656 Modern Era clubs. Its win-loss record and TS are shown in parentheses, followed by the percentage of 1961-2022 clubs that it outperformed.
I’ve divided this year’s teams into five brackets of 20 percentage points apiece, appending a few notes to each.
Subscribe — free — to Baseball’s Best (and Worst)
A new installment will arrive in your email each Tuesday and Friday morning
Excellent
10. Houston Astros (106-56, 87.893 points), 99.5%
53. Los Angeles Dodgers (111-51, 78.998 points), 96.9%
116. New York Yankees (99-63, 72.714 points), 93.1%
203. Atlanta Braves (101-61, 66.029 points), 87.8%
250. New York Mets (101-61, 63.991 points), 85.0%
255. Philadelphia Phillies (87-75, 63.652 points), 84.7%
Notes: The Phillies’ postseason streak boosted them into the upper echelon, yet the National League champs still finished 24-plus points behind the Astros, an enormous gap. The Dodgers and Yankees flamed out in the playoffs, but both ranked among the best 10 percent of all Modern Era clubs.
Above average
383. St. Louis Cardinals (93-69, 59.061 points), 76.9%
407. Toronto Blue Jays (92-70, 58.043 points), 75.5%
460. Cleveland Guardians (92-70, 56.219 points), 72.3%
525. Seattle Mariners (90-72, 54.850 points), 68.3%
626. San Diego Padres (89-73, 51.860 points), 62.2%
633. Tampa Bay Rays (86-76, 51.731 points), 61.8%
661. Milwaukee Brewers (86-76, 51.203 points), 60.1%
Notes: Six of these seven clubs qualified for 2022’s expanded playoffs. The Brewers were the sole exception, falling just short of the National League’s final bid. The Cardinals and Blue Jays both squeaked into the upper quarter of the 1961-2022 rankings.
Cooperstown at the Crossroads
Read about the Hall of Fame’s checkered history (and uncertain future)
Average
790. San Francisco Giants (81-81, 47.298 points), 52.3%
847. Baltimore Orioles (83-79, 45.422 points), 48.9%
886. Minnesota Twins (78-84, 44.243 points), 46.5%
943. Chicago White Sox (81-81, 42.539 points), 43.1%
Notes: The Orioles made a surprising run at the postseason, only to miss at the end. The other three teams were believed to have playoff potential when the season started, but they failed to live up to their potential.
Below average
1,046. Arizona Diamondbacks (74-88, 39.806 points), 36.9%
1,047. Boston Red Sox (78-84, 39.805 points), 36.8%
1,081. Los Angeles Angels (73-89, 38.838 points), 34.7%
1,085. Chicago Cubs (74-88, 38.643 points), 34.5%
1,211. Texas Rangers (68-94, 34.910 points), 26.9%
1,225. Miami Marlins (69-93, 34.066 points), 26.0%
Notes: All of these clubs lost more games than they won, and all finished outside the top 1,000 among Modern Era teams. But the Diamondbacks, Cubs, and Rangers improved their team scores substantially between 2021 and 2022, which is something.
Poor
1,360. Colorado Rockies (68-94, 29.455 points), 17.9%
1,481. Detroit Tigers (66-96, 25.392 points), 10.6%
1,487. Cincinnati Reds (62-100, 25.242 points), 10.2%
1,490. Pittsburgh Pirates (62-100, 25.094 points), 10.0%
1,497. Kansas City Royals (65-97, 24.678 points), 9.6%
1,582. Washington Nationals (55-107, 19.213 points), 4.5%
1,590. Oakland Athletics (60-102, 18.351 points), 4.0%
Notes: Welcome to the basement. All of these clubs ranked among the worst 18 percent of the Modern Era. Yet they all have reason for hope. The bottom team in 2021, the Orioles, outperformed only 1.0 percent of all Modern Era clubs. Baltimore shot up to 48.9 percent in 2022. Who is poised to make the next jump?