27 Rings: But the playoffs only began in 1969?

Article featured image via Major League Baseball.

Baseball is a sport deeply rooted in history and tradition.  With data reaching all the way back into the late 1800s, we can time-travel through the record books and tell the story of baseball over the last 150ish years.  We’ve even found a way to take our new-age WAR stats and apply them to players such as Cap Anson (who played from 1871-1897 and accumulated 94.3 WAR according to Baseball Reference), who died over 100 years ago.

As the Red Sox and Yankees played this weekend, I was hit with the stat that the Red Sox and Yankees have played each other 2,321 times!  Now, while the Sox were taking 3 out of 4 in the Bronx, an argument I heard, and have heard for the longest time from Yankees’ fans is: 

“27 Rings!”

“27 rings” refers to the amount of World Series titles that the Yankees have won throughout their storied history.  Their first victory came in 1923 and their most recent came in 2009.  They’ve also participated in 41 World Series’, beating the second best team by 22 (the St. Louis Cardinals have appeared in 19).  The same Cardinals have one the second-most World Series’ with 11.

But most of baseball’s casual fans know this.  The Yankees win a lot, and they’ve always won a lot.  It’s always been the “World Series” so you can’t claim semantics when you get blasted with a “27 Rings” argument.  But you can always challenge the validity, right?  Might I present to you, the LCS playoff format.

From 1901 to 1968 there were no playoffs.  So how did the World Series work?  Well, the top two teams in each league by record played against each other in the World Series.  So if you won the regular season, you were in.  So what happened in 1969?

In 1969, the MLB expanded.  Both leagues increased to 12 teams and the League Championship Series was introduced.  They needed to find a way to incorporate the playoff formats of the other major sports leagues and increase competition within each league.  So now each league had within it, two divisions, the East and the West.  The League Championship Series took the winners of the East and West divisions and pitted them against each other for the chance to compete in the World Series.  One could argue that this is when the real World Series history should start.

So how does this change the argument?  Well, before 1969, and before there were even playoffs in baseball, the Yankees won 20 rings.  74% of the Yankees’ titles came before there were even playoffs established in Major League Baseball.

So that’s it, right?  Now we can shove this back in their faces when we get the “27 Rings” argument.

Not so fast.

If we only consider the years since 1969, here’s a graphic showing the most successful franchises in terms of World Series titles…

Our Yankees overlords win again.  7 World Series titles reigns supreme.  They went back-to-back in ‘77-’78, 4 out of 5 from ‘96 to ‘00, and again in 2009.  Vindication for Yankees’ fans who stuck around this long, and disappointment for everyone else in hopes of discounting the Yankees’ claim to being baseball’s greatest franchise.

But the results are much closer if you consider it this way.  Both the Dodgers and the Red Sox have 4 World Series titles since 1969 and each have a shot to make it 5 this year.

23 different franchises have won a World Series since ‘69, showing extreme parity across the league.  The Brewers and the Padres are the oldest franchises to have never won a World Series and are in a position to change that this year.

The Seattle Mariners are the only franchise to have never appeared in the World Series and had a trade deadline to remember this year to give it their best shot at making it.

So until the Dodgers or Red Sox win a couple more (maybe the A’s after moving to Vegas...probably not) we’ll need to concede to Yankees fans boasting about their success.  But we can at least level the field a little better.  And by the time the Red Sox and Dodgers get to 7, we’ll be sick and tired of hearing it from their fans as well.

And for all of our Brewers, Padres, and Mariners fans out there…maybe this is the year?