FanPost

Athletics Franchise: Win Or Lose In Big Blocks

The next A's win guarantees the TEAM will finish the 2012 regular season with a winning record.

For the betting man, if asked to pick whether the A's will be above or below .500 in a given season since 1901, if you had simply chosen the same way as they had been the previous year, you'd have been right more than 80 percent of the time. Of course, 2012 looks pretty certain to be an exception to the rule, which means it could well mark a tipping point in the positive direction.

Here's a listing of the blocks:

1901-'07: 7 in a row above .500

1909-'14: 6 in a row above .500

1915-'24: 10 in a row below .500

1925-'33: 9 in a row above .500

1934-'46: 13 in a row below .500

1953-'67: 15 in a row below .500

1968-'76: 9 in a row above .500

1982-'86: 5 in a row below .500

1988-'92: 5 in a row above .500

1993-'98: 6 in a row below .500

1999-2006: 8 in a row above .500

The only seasons that weren't part of a major trend were:

1908: a down year between 2 blocks of winning seasons;

1947-'52: 3 years above .500, then 2 years below .500, then 1 year above .500;

1977-'81: 3 years below .500 followed by 2 years above .500;

1987: a transitional even .500 campaign between a down and an up block;

2007-'12: 3 years below 500 , then 1 even .500, then 1 below .500, then this year surely above .500.

A more hopeful way of looking at the recent anomalous period is to label 2007-'11 as 5 years at or below .500, with 2012 marking the beginning of a lengthy (7th) up cycle (average duration of prior 6 up cycles is 7+ years).

It's pretty amazing just how blocky the Athletics franchise has been, particularly when you consider that overall they're fairly close in winning (51) to losing (59) seasons (with 2 at even .500) since 1901.