Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
I continue to play around with Retrosheet data and here's something that, though I have heard allusions to, I have never seen a definitive list of. Here is the list of teams that lead their league or division from the first day of the season to the last. Note that only four of the nine that played since 1903, the first year the World Series was played, won the Series:
| Team | Yr | Lg | Div | W | L | PCT | G Ahead | Won Lg? | Won WS? |
| Chicago White Sox | 2005 | AL | C | 99 | 63 | .611 | 15 | Y | Y |
| San Francisco Giants | 2003 | NL | W | 100 | 61 | .621 | 4.5 | N | N |
| Seattle Mariners | 2001 | AL | W | 116 | 46 | .716 | 19 | N | N |
| Cleveland Indians | 1998 | AL | C | 89 | 73 | .549 | 15 | N | N |
| Baltimore Orioles | 1997 | AL | E | 98 | 64 | .605 | 5 | N | N |
| Cincinnati Reds | 1990 | NL | W | 91 | 71 | .562 | 2 | Y | Y |
| Detroit Tigers | 1984 | AL | E | 104 | 58 | .642 | 9 | Y | Y |
| New York Yankees | 1927 | AL | 110 | 44 | .714 | 14 | Y | Y | |
| New York Giants | 1923 | NL | 95 | 58 | .621 | 15.5 | Y | N | |
| Boston Red Stockings | 1875 | NA | 71 | 8 | .899 | 6 | Y | N/A |
Now, here's something that I don't think has even been alluded to, the list of teams that was in last in their division/league from the start to the end of the season. This includes teams tied for the bottom slot in their division/league. As long as no other team had a worse record on any given day of the season.
Here they are, the pole-to-pole last place teams:
| Team | Yr | Lg | Div | W | L | PCT | POS | GB |
| Detroit Tigers | 2003 | AL | C | 43 | 119 | .265 | 5 | 47 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 1998 | NL | W | 65 | 97 | .401 | 5 | 33 |
| San Diego Padres | 1994 | NL | W | 47 | 70 | .402 | 4 | 13 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 1988 | AL | E | 54 | 107 | .335 | 7 | 35 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 1942 | NL | 42 | 109 | .278 | 8 | 63 | |
| Boston Red Sox | 1932 | AL | 43 | 111 | .279 | 8 | 64 | |
| Washington Senators | 1904 | AL | 38 | 113 | .252 | 8 | 56 | |
| Louisville Colonels | 1896 | NL | 38 | 93 | .290 | 12 | 53 | |
| Detroit Wolverines | 1884 | NL | 28 | 84 | .250 | 8 | 56 | |
| Philadelphia Quakers | 1883 | NL | 17 | 81 | .173 | 8 | 46 |
God, I love this stuff.
In addition, there's the 57-year gap between the '27 Yankees and the '84 Tigers. None of the Yankee teams in that stretch managed to lead wire-to-wire?
Also, wire-to-wire winners have become more common in the era of Division play (7 of the ten), while only 4 of the ten wire-to-wire losers have come in the Division play era.
Comment status: comments have been closed. Baseball Toaster is now out of business.