The Worst

While completing the NHL season preview I looked at the worst 5 teams in both the Eastern and Western Conferences in the NHL over the last 5 seasons. My hope was this data would help me spot teams that consistently rank in the bottom of the league. What I found was that the NHL has what seemed like a lot of volatility in the teams that finished in the bottom. In addition to helping me with the season preview it also sparked my interest in other leagues bottom dwellers. I started thinking more about the volatility of the different leagues. Maybe the NHL's turnover at the bottom wasn't really that uncommon? I decided to do some more digging.

I took a look at the bottom 5 teams in each of the conferences or league in the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB in each of the last five years. Using this data I put together lists for each league of the frequency teams showed up on the worst record list. This approach let me see if a league had a wide variety of teams finishing in the bottom or if the same team failed to win year after year. I was able to determine the fluctuation in each leagues loser’s. Here is an overview of what I found about each league.

The league with the least variety in their bottom dwellers was MLB. In the last five years only 12 teams have shown up in the list of the worst five teams in the whole MLB. Of these perennially powerless squads two showed up in all five years, the Pittsburgh Pirates (the proud/ashamed owners of an American professional sports league record 18 losing seasons) in the NL and the Baltimore Orioles in the AL. If you expand the list to worst performers in the NL and AL individually you find two more teams that have shown up all five years, the Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos and the Kansas City Royals. MLB is doing a poor job at keeping the bottom of the league variable.

So what causes this powerful undertow in MLB that prevents teams from escaping the abyss? One of the most powerful reasons is a lack of a salary cap. Although I concede that correlation isn’t causation, consider this, all of the other major professional sports leagues have one and they also have much more variability in their high draft pick recipients. Teams like the Yankees, Phillies and Red Sox can just buy up all the good free agents. Teams like the Royals are stuck relying on internal development. Get a bad owner, GM or coach and a team’s internal talent stream can be set back years.

There are other reasons why MLB’s bottom dwellers are so stationary. Longer playing careers for the athletes allow a team with a strong core to dominate for much longer. The inability to trade away draft picks forces teams to trade for players that other teams scouted and coached. Finally, MLB plays a 162 game regular season. This is substantially more then the other league. More games in the regular season mean lucky breaks tend to be evened out by bad breaks causing a team’s final record to more accurately reflect their talent.

The NFL wants to be the poster boy for professional sports parity. They continually promote the idea that any team could beat any other team. They shout the equalizing powerful of their salary cap to anyone and everyone that will listen. Does all this pontificating do any good? Maybe, but not as much as they want you to think. They do a pretty good job of getting new teams into the playoffs each year (especially considering they only allow 12 of 32 teams). However, of the big four leagues, the NFL is the third least fluid, among the ranks of bottom dwellers. 16 unique teams showed up on the list of bottom five in the last five years. Four of these teams showed up three times. The Rams, Raiders, Chiefs and Lions all epitomized losing in NFL. Inside of their respective conferences, the Raiders and Lions each showed up all five times.

I would argue that one the reasons for this lack of turn over at the bottom is the modern NFL team’s reliance on the QB position. Although having a great QB doesn’t guarantee success, not having one prevents a team from it. NFL teams have become so reliant on a good QB to win games that those teams without them are force to wallow in the mire for years, until they can finally find one through the draft, trades or free agency. However, most teams aren’t going to trade or let walk away a good QB. They hold onto them as long as they can. That is why they are called Franchise QB. So, teams are left relying on the draft.

What do the Rams, Raiders, Chiefs, and Lions all have this in common? they have all been looking for a good QB for at least the last five years. Take a look at the list on the left of the QBs the Lions (easily the most pathetic team of the NFL teams) have had throw at least 50 passes in a season over the last five years. All of them were washed up at the time or never good to begin with. What about the other three bad teams? They have had just as much of a struggle finding quality QBs. The Rams thought they had one with Marc Bulger but he was always getting hurt. The Raiders let Andrew Walter and JaMarcus Russell get significant playing time. While the Chiefs have had the best luck of the bunch getting the last years of star Trent Green and one quality year out of Damon Huard. The Chiefs also managed to trade for a good QB in the likes of Matt Cassel so that should help them leave the ranks of losers.

The NHL actually comes in second on my list of the big four leagues. They have has a total of 16 teams show up in the bottom over the last 5 years. During my research for the NHL season preview this league appeared to have a lot of fluctuation amidst its ranks. Teams in the NHL seemed to bounce between good and bad frequently. As it turns out the teams do bounce a lot just not nearly as much as I thought compared to the other leagues. They blow baseball out of the water but they rank pretty comparably to the NFL and the NBA. Of the 16 perpetual punching bags only two showed up at least 3 times, the NY Islanders and the Los Angeles Kings.

I don’t know enough about hockey to tell you for sure why the NHL is succeeding where baseball is struggling and football is tolerable. I can make some assumptions though. Teams in the NHL rotate in and out of the bottom because Gary Bettman says they have to. The NHL commissioner rule’s his league with an iron fist. Gary Bettman is the guy that decided pro Hockey, a winter sport played on ice by mostly Canadians, needed to have two teams in Florida and a team in Phoenix. If he decides he wants his league to be something, it will be or there will be hell to pay.

The most fluid of the big four professional sports league is the NBA. Over the last five season the NBA has had 17 different teams show up in the bottom five (18 if you don’t count the Sonics and Thunder as the same team). Of those teams none have shown up more then three times. The Kings, Timberwolves and Sonics/Thunder each have three appearances. You also have the most one time offenders of any league. Nine Teams in the NBA appear 1 time on the bottom dweller list. Based on this the NBA appears to be the best league are keeping teams from sinking to the bottom and staying there.

Like all the other league’s, the NBA’s success (of failure in MLB) at diversifying its lower levels is a product of many factors. They have a salary cap which keeps the teams on a relatively even financial playing field. They have active trade and free agent markets. These allow good players to move from team to team, strengthening rosters. All good teams don’t rely heavily on a single player at the same single position as everyone else, which makes it hard to find a franchise star. The league’s commissioner dictates his will onto the league. We have already touched on many of these factors in regards to the other leagues. Let’s focus on a factor that has yet to be discussed. In the NBA, a successful team relies on much fewer players then in the NFL or MLB.

The most players an NBA team ever has on the court at any one time is five. Compare this to 11 in football and 9 in baseball. That is difference of six to four players is significant. It is much easier to find five guys that are good at something. If an NBA starting lineup is crummy all they have to do is acquire one high impact player through trades, free agency or the draft and they have improved 20% of their starting lineup.

When you include subs in the comparison the difference becomes much more striking. An NBA team only carries 12 players. When a basketball team has a bad year they only have to cut at most 12 guys off their roster. More likely only two to four of those players are bad enough that they have to go. An NFL team carries 53 and an MLB team carries 25. Bad teams in those sports have a lot more potential players to replace.

The big four sports leagues vary in their success at changing out the teams bringing up the rear. MLB downright struggles. They are by far the worst in the group because of a myriad of reasons including lack of a salary cap. The NFL finds some success but not nearly as much as their aggressive ad campaign wants you to think. The reliance on a single player at a single position makes hard for bad teams to find success. Gary Bettman’s NHL does a pretty good job at keeping teams from languishing at the bottom of the standing. However, the best of the group at keeping bad teams from being bad for long is the NBA. Professional basketball finds more success because they avoid factors that suppress teams and encourage factors that promote improvement. They also have the built in advantage of having the most easily changed rosters.


Sources: Yahoo Sports