The so-called phenomenon is really mainly a product of 3 decades where they just weren’t any good— the 40s, 50s, and 60s— which encompassed their extended dying days in Philly and the run (or shall we call it a walk) in Kansas City. Other than that, you look at the record and say here’s a very good franchise that has managed on at least 5 occasions to have multi-year runs where they’ve ben at or near the top of the sport. sure, there have been rebuilding periods, but outside of the Yankees, which baseball franchise hasn’t had several of those?

Basically Connie Mack’s spendthrift ways in his final two decades put the franchise into a hole that it took Charile O to finally get out of.

I did not realize the A’s had such consistent(?) swings in excellence/putridity (I did not think ‘putridity’ was a word, but my Firefox spellchecker assures me it is one, and I never question Firefox) . I’m honestly not sure whether that’s something to be proud of or not.

How many of the original 16 franchises have had 5 distinct periods of greatness or at least near-greatness?

Yanks: 1920s with Ruth; 30s with Gehrig morphing into Joe D/Dickey; 40s with Joe D; 50s/early 60s with the Mick; The Martin-Jackson-Munson Bronx Zoo of the late 1970s; the Jeter era. That’s 6, by my count.

Boston Red Sox: the early years with Ruth and Co.; The late 1940s with Teddy Ballgame; the mid to late 1970s of Rice/Lynn/Tiant/Fisk; the Clemens years, beginning with 1986; the current stretch. That’s 5

Boston-Milwaukee-Atlanta Braves— not sure there was ever a 5 year run in Boston. Someone correct me if I’m wrong. Obviously the late 50s with Aaron-Matthews-Spahn, and then the extended Schuerholz-Cox-Big Three run recently. That’s 3 plus

Phillies: Not much of anything prior to 1975— then about an 7-8 year run with Schmidt, carlton and Co. And they’er probably in another one now.

Pirates" Had a good run with the Waners. Then a very solid run somewhat obscured by the Big Red Machine in the early 70s. Then one more with Bonds

Browns/Orioles: Browns? Did they ever have a 5 year run? Orioles had a great run from 1966-71 (4 pennants; 2 WS champs), took a quick breath; then were competitive throughout the 1970s, culminating in a pennant in 1979 and a WS in 1983. Hit and miss from there (One Ripken/Mussina revival) and now mostly miss.

Indians: One good stretch in the late 40s and 50s; And the recent one; They had moments earlier in the century but hardly a great run

Tigers: 07-11 a fairly good run; good but not great in the first Yankee era; again in the 1930s; the 1968-72 team was very good; so was the team in the 1980s featuring the great 1984 season and a near-miss in 1987. Not sure there are 5 really good stretches here

Cubs: Early and that’s it until very recently, sad to say, though they were certainly contenders in the 1960s and may be again now

White Sox: In the teens, culminating in scandal. late 50s/60sm but still 2nd or 3rd fiddle to New York. And recently, sort of

Reds: The 1970-76 run was terrific. Not sure they’ve ever really had another one that lasted more than 2-3 years, though

Giants: Well, they’ve had two solid stretches since coming West. In the 1960s they were perennial bridesmaids but they did win a pennant in 1962. And of course the Bonds/Kent years. 1950-54 sort of qualifies, but for a down year in 1953. They or the Cubs dominated the 1900s, extending to the 1910-14 period as well. They were the most consistent NL team for the entire first 25 years of the last century, for that matter. And had another pretty good run with Ott and Hubbell in the 1930s;

Dodgers: Never a real good stretch until the Boys of Summer. Since they’ve had the 1947-56 period. The Koufax/Drysdale years of 1959-66. The great infield of 1974-81. And that’s about it, but for the one anomalous title (alas) in 1988

Senators/Twins: One stretch in the 1920s with Big Train. Twins have had some decent runs— in the mid to late 1960s, but only 1 pennant, again in the Puckett years, and again now. But not quite at the peak level of other franchises.

Cardinals: A bunch of good runs— gashouse Gang; mid 60s; 80s; recently. There might be another to make 5— not sure though.

I’d basically say that the Yankees, Giants and A’s stand above all the rest in terms of frequency of dominant or near-dominant runs— with Boston and St. Louis a tick behind.

of quantifying the rollercoaster. I think the idea of variance could help too — by looking at the variance or standard deviation of each team’s wins you can get a sense of how much they swing.

A’s: 75.5 wins on average, standard dev 17.5
Yankees: 88 wins, SD 13.3

In that comparison it’s pretty clear that the Yankees have much less variance (I threw it together and didn’t do the stats, but I bet it’s significantly different than 17.5). But we know that the Yankees are sort of an outlier. What about a team that’s closer to the A’s in average win %?

Braves: 75.1 average wins, SD 15.4

Less swing-y, but don’t know how a significance test comes out. Would be fun to see how the other teams rank, but I’m supposed to be working….

Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein wrote a book several years ago (I think it might have been Rob’s first) called “Baseball Dynasties” where they attempted to quantify great teams and rank them appropriately. They looked in depth at 15 teams of which 3 were A’s teams (1911, 1929, 1974) and 5 were Yankees’ teams (1927, 39, 53, 61, 98).

Rob ranked the A’s teams 12th (1974), 11th (1911) and 7th (1929)
Eddie ranked them 13th (1911), 12th (1929), and 7th (1974)

First, the A’s lose 90+ 20 times, then they get the Phillies who’ve lost 90+ 37 times! 57 times of 90+ losses in just over a decade.