Monday, December 17, 2012

Today's Infographic: Stubbs Is Old

As the least venerable of all the Sons, my claims of decrepitude are spurious at best, but during what can be construed as my "tenure" as a Dodger fan, the team has experienced five distinct cycles of success and failure. With so many variables that affect wins and losses, I don't pretend these represent a true boom-and-bust cycle, but it's similar enough to give us all some perspective.

Dodgers' Winning Percentage by year
The first thing that stands out is that the last few years don't appear to be quite as volatile is they felt while we were living through them. From 1983 to 1993, the Dodgers' had three of the four best regular season records and three of the worst, seemingly caroming from excellent to poor, including our one foray into the truly abysmal (yeah, screw you too, 1992).

The second thing that gets my attention was the realization that as awful as the last few years have been, the product on the field was not really comparable to the truly terrible teams of the last 30 years. On-the-field performance is not the only standard that we should be judging the health of the franchise against, but it's a fairly good indicator. The depth of malaise in the last few years says as much about us as fans than it does about our favorite franchise.

Perhaps I don't look at the game the same way I once did. Perhaps it's just that we're all paying much closer attention these days. Or just maybe it's that the last losing season always feels like it was the worst, and the ownership transition has dampened the normal rebound to which we are accustomed.

Now, get off my goddamn lawn!

6 comments:

Hideo Nomo said...

RealStubbs is the Topes' new hitting coach!

Franklin Stubbs said...

Hooray, RealStubbs!

Franklin Stubbs said...

Tomorrow's Infographic (perhaps): Stubbs Is Abstruse.

Jason said...

What this graph needs is a series of annotations for the stars and scrubs that symbolize the peaks and valleys.

1980: Sutton, Reuss, Cey, RealDB and Reggie Smith combined for 25 WAR! Steve Garvey somehow played in 163 games!
1981: Reuss and some rookie named Fernando. Also, split season.
1982: Pedro Guerrero. I forgot what a monster he was (.304/.378/.536)
1983: More Pedro (.298/.373/.531)
1984: Mike Scioscia was arguably the team's offensive (in both senses of the word) MVP.
1985: More Pedro being Manny (.320/.422/.577), Fernando's million dollar season and some dufus named Orel.
1986: Over 900 combined plate appearances of Mariano Duncan (.229/.284/.305) and OG Stubbs (.226/.291/.421)
1987: Rick Honeycutt's 2-12 record! More Stubbs! Slightly less Duncan! I have no recollection of this season.
1988: Gibson's attitude. Hershiser's 59 innings.
1989: John Shelby: .183/.237/.229. But hey, Jeff Hamilton took the loss in a 22 inning game (which coincided with the Tiananmen Square massacre, so there's that).
1990: Hey, Eddie Murray! Some guy named Kal Daniels who I have no recollection of, whatsoever.
1991: Darryl Strawberry's only decent year on the team and I totally forgot Gary Carter was a Dodger.
1992: Hershiser was the team's 6th best "hitter." Fuck you indeed, 1992.
1993: Hello, Mike Piazza. Farewell, Pedro Martinez.
1994: 58-56 wins the NL West. Thanks, strike year!
1995: Nomomania!
1996: The Padres and Ken Caminiti's medicine cabinet sweep the final series for the division crown. Lasorda: 1 heart attack.
1997: Goodbye O'Malley family. Also, Dodgers draft Chase Utley and fail to sign him.
1998: Any season where you can trade the greatest hitting catcher in MLB history, you have to do it, right?
1999: Kevin Brown? $105,000,000!
2000: Y2K bug
2001: LoDuca's mustache! Is Jim Tracey a manager at the Major League level?
2002: Angels beat some crappy NL team in the World Series.
2003: This was one terrible hitting team. But, Gange: Cy Young.
2004: Beltre: MVPish. McCourt.
2005: Hee-Seop Choi: not MVPish. McCourt.
2006: McCourt.
2007: McCourt.
2008: Manny! McCourt.
2009: Manny! Kemp! 'Dre! McCourt.
2010: Manny? McCourt.
2011: Kershaw: Cy Young! KeMVP! McCourt.
2012 Not McCourt!

Fred's Brim said...

good stuff, Jason!

rbnlaw said...

When's Matlock on?