The AL West and its Postseason Disappearing Act

OK. They are a "crapshoot", in BB's immortal words. I get it. Extremely small sample size, though it is growing for one Nicolas Thompson Swisher. But at some point the numbers start to matter.

Example A-- it mattered that between 1980 and 1997 the AFC won a grand total of 1 Super Bowl. Whether it was the 49ers dynasty, the Bears great season, the Redskins or Giants dominance, or "How bout them Cowboys!!", the simple fact is that one conference was clearly superior to the other, just as from 1969-80 the NFC had only two Cowboy victories to brag about.

Example B-- it matters that in the last 40 years the Big 10 (including just those Penn State years in the conference) has only one and a half national championships in football, mythical though they still may be: Ohio State's disputed victory over Miami and Michigan's split-verdict title with Nebraska in Tom Osborne's last season. That conference was supposed to epitomize the sport, and yet they have been badly outstripped by competition to their west and south.

So I do think we should note that since Robby Alomar went deep on Eck, ending a 5 year run of World Series appearances for the AL West, the A's division, in either the original or newly constituted form, has had a grand total of 1 WS participant, the Angels in 2002. They have never been back despite making the playoffs in 2004, 05 and the last three seasons. The A's, of course, never got there in any of their 5 appearances between 2000-2006. Neither did the Rangers in their brief run atop the division in 1996, 98,99. Nor the Mariners in their multi-year playoff run between 1995 and 2001. For 17 years now this division has bombed out in the postseason in one fashion or another. A team with Johnson, Griffey and Edgar Martinez never got to the World Series? Or with ARod? Or Ichiro? The wonderfully strong "fundamental" team in Anaheim hasn't been back since 2002? Not to mention the A's famous first-round disasters.

The overall postseason series record since 1992 for the 4 current AL West teams is 9-18. That's a .333 success rate. 6-18 not counting the 2002 Halos. The division hasn't produced a Wild Card team since the WS champion Angels in 2002.

Now of course you are muttering "but what about the Yankees and the Red Sox?" Of course. They both got smart or smarter to go along with their wealth. But somehow the Rays made it to a World Series. Somehow the White Sox made it to a World Series. And the Indians got there twice in the 1990s and came closer in 2007 than any AL West has done in the past 7 years.

And will it change anytime soon? We won't know probably until 2011 at the earliest whether the next iteration of playoff Oakland baseball (assuming there is a next iteration, that is) is better than the last. We won't know if Texas will shed 10 years of mediocrity and climb the mountain into the postseason with their young talent and what might happen if they get there. Or if LAAAAAAA can keep their roll rolling, only playing better in October. Come to think of it, since Tampa still has all that talent and the Yankees and Red Sox aren't getting dumber, it's doubtful that all three of these teams (and I'm not even considering the M's) even get to the postseason more than once in the next 5-7 years. The drought may last a while.