Comparing the Dominance of Three of the Best All-Time Teams

A quick analysis and visuzliation of three of the best baseball seasons that have ever happened: the 1976 Cincinnati Reds, 2001 Seattle Mariners, and the 1927 "Murderers Row" New York Yankees.


In [1]:
from pybaseball import schedule_and_record
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline

In [2]:
yankees = schedule_and_record(1927, 'NYY')
reds = schedule_and_record(1976, 'CIN')
mariners = schedule_and_record(2001, 'SEA')

Summary Statistics

Let's start by looking at some summary stats on each team's season. The '01 Mainers had the best hot streak of all, winning 15 straight at one point. The '27 Yankees, however, had the highest scoring offense with an impressive 6.3 runs per game.


In [3]:
mariners.describe()


Out[3]:
R RA Inn Rank Attendance Streak
count 162.000000 162.000000 162.000000 162.0 162.000000 162.000000
mean 5.722222 3.870370 9.166667 1.0 37564.376543 2.080247
std 3.406698 3.009589 0.680245 0.0 10771.969761 3.315648
min 0.000000 0.000000 9.000000 1.0 11687.000000 -4.000000
25% 3.000000 2.000000 9.000000 1.0 30071.000000 -1.000000
50% 5.000000 3.000000 9.000000 1.0 42362.000000 2.000000
75% 8.000000 5.000000 9.000000 1.0 45651.750000 3.000000
max 16.000000 15.000000 14.000000 1.0 61065.000000 15.000000

In [4]:
reds.describe()


Out[4]:
R RA Inn Rank Attendance Streak
count 162.000000 162.000000 162.000000 162.000000 154.000000 162.000000
mean 5.290123 3.907407 9.246914 1.135802 29033.474026 0.839506
std 3.330048 2.797083 1.033968 0.361264 13331.318368 2.084887
min 0.000000 0.000000 7.000000 1.000000 5219.000000 -4.000000
25% 3.000000 2.000000 9.000000 1.000000 18227.250000 -1.000000
50% 5.000000 3.000000 9.000000 1.000000 28114.000000 1.000000
75% 7.000000 5.000000 9.000000 1.000000 38292.500000 2.000000
max 14.000000 14.000000 16.000000 3.000000 53652.000000 7.000000

In [5]:
yankees.describe()


Out[5]:
R RA Inn Rank Attendance Streak
count 155.000000 155.000000 155.000000 155.0 132.000000 155.000000
mean 6.290323 3.864516 9.103226 1.0 20977.787879 1.735484
std 3.939424 2.817103 0.968157 0.0 14789.945028 2.588881
min 0.000000 0.000000 5.000000 1.0 1500.000000 -4.000000
25% 3.000000 2.000000 9.000000 1.0 10000.000000 -1.000000
50% 6.000000 3.000000 9.000000 1.0 15500.000000 2.000000
75% 8.000000 6.000000 9.000000 1.0 30000.000000 3.000000
max 21.000000 14.000000 18.000000 1.0 72641.000000 9.000000

Next let's take a look at their records and runs.

Here the Yankees and Mariners are similar, while the Big Red Machine lags behind. Point Mariners and Yankees.


In [6]:
# create a numeric indicator of a win and take cumulative sum of wins-to-date at each point in the season
mariners['win-count'] = np.where(mariners['W/L']=='W', 1, 0).cumsum()
yankees['win-count'] = np.where(yankees['W/L']=='W', 1, 0).cumsum()
reds['win-count'] = np.where(reds['W/L']=='W', 1, 0).cumsum()

In [7]:
plt.plot(mariners['win-count'],label=" '01 Mariners")
plt.plot(yankees['win-count'],label=" '27 Yankees")
plt.plot(reds['win-count'],label=" '76 Reds")
plt.legend(loc=4)
plt.xlabel('Games into Season')
plt.ylabel('Win Count')
plt.title('Record Throughout Season');


Last let's take a look at score differential

Who had the largest win margins? The plot below shows cumulative run differential throughout the season. The Yankees are the clear winners of this one, which is saying a lot considering they are being compared against two of the best teams of all time! Point Murderers Row.


In [8]:
mariners['scorediff'] = (mariners['R'] - mariners['RA']).cumsum()
yankees['scorediff'] = (yankees['R'] - yankees['RA']).cumsum()
reds['scorediff'] = (reds['R'] - reds['RA']).cumsum()

In [9]:
plt.plot(mariners['scorediff'],label=" '01 Mariners")
plt.plot(yankees['scorediff'],label=" '27 Yankees")
plt.plot(reds['scorediff'],label=" '76 Reds")
plt.legend(loc=4)
plt.xlabel('Games into Season')
plt.ylabel('Runs Scored - Runs Against')
plt.title('Cumulative Run Differential');


While all three legendary seasons are memorable, this brief analysis points toward the 1927 Yankees as being the best of the three.