30 Year MLB Rankings: O's Mediocre, Nats Jealous

Today being the eve of the 2009 Strasburg draft, I thought I'd create a formula to rank all 30 major league teams over the last 30 years (1979-2008). Why only 30 years? Good question. According to my flawless logic, in a 30-year span, every team in a 30-team league should have one championship (let's ignore the strike-shortened season of 1994).

Here is the transcript of a potential conversation between Reader and Writer regarding these rankings:

Reader: The scoring on this is soooooo arbitrary!

Writer: Yes, and I don't care.

Reader: Did you really make a World Series Championship twice as valuable as a World Series Loss?!

Writer: Yes, I did.

Asshole Reader: I'm from Philly. Did you only date back to 1979 because the Phillies made the playoffs three consecutive seasons before that? I have herpes.

Asshole Writer: Sorry about the herpes, but you probably deserved it. And bingo, I did date back to only 1979 to reduce Philadelphia's score. Why? Because I can.

In all seriousness, though, these rankings are not perfect, and I wouldn't even argue if you told me my numbers were weighted arbitrarily.

Key:
Orioles
Nationals/Expos
Best in League. Must highlight this color to see it. There you go, punk.
Expansion Teams' Adjusted Total Points per 30 seasons

[If the table is blurry, just click on it for a slightly more focused view]


What stands out? Arizona so high. What doesn't? I'll give you a hint: it's right above this line.

The Washington/Montreal franchise has, just to confuse you, without fail succeeded at failure year-in and year-out. ONE playoff appearance in THIRTY years.

Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper can not arrive soon enough.