Was expansion for baseball a mistake?

 

I mean, not that it was done, but how it was done?

Would everyone have been better off if the existing major leagues had, say, started a whole new league—or two—where teams would have had a fighting chance, right from the start, to win pennants?  And, uh, games?

This World Series, as you may have heard, will make the first one since 1980 in which both teams—only one of them an expansion club—had not previously won a Series.  

What's more, it will be only the fourth—albeit the fourth since 2015—in which both teams were expansion clubs.

Obviously, the number of major-league teams needed to expand beyond the same, 16 clubs in 11 cities that existed from 1903-1952. But was adding clubs two-by-two and four-by-four the best way to do it?

The sad fact of the matter is that of the 14 teams that have come into existence since 1961, only one of them—the Houston Astros—has a winning record. And just barely, with a .503 winning percentage. 

Take away the electronic cheating, and maybe nobody "new" has won as many as they've lost. And all told, expansion clubs have won only 34 pennants and (after this Series) 15 World Series.

That comes to about 1 World Series and maybe 2.25 pennants apiece—a wretched record

All expansion teams, let us remember, have now been in existence for at least 29 seasons. Some, for as long as 66 years. 

I mean, when the Yankees had been in existence for 66 years, they had already had the greatest, longest-running dynasty in North American sports...and collapsed.

The lack of winning is astonishing. Five of the 14 expansionists—the Brewers and Rays, but also the Padres, Mariners, and Rockies—have never won a World Series (though of course that number will be reduced by one this fall). 

The Mariners, after 50 seasons, have never even reached a Series. The Marlins and Rockies, in 34 tries apiece, have managed that, thanks to the wild card—but neither has ever won so much as won a division title. 

What gives?

The cities chosen have generally worked out all right. Attendance has usually been good, even outstanding.

In the course of their existence, three teams have moved: the second Washington Senators to Texas, the Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee, and the Montreal Expos to Washington, but that doesn't seem terribly excessive. (Does it mean anything that eight of the 14 clubs have changed their names? Probably not.)

Baseball probably should have vetted some of the new owners better—and certainly some of the people these clubs were sold to. But there were plenty of ownership groups that seemed to know what they were doing and tried their best to build good teams.  

Sometimes, as in Kansas City, Toronto, Houston, Tampa Bay, Texas, and with the Mets, they even succeeded. But then they all seemed to slump back into their losing ways. 

Maybe there was no other way. Maybe expansion cities would not have accepted these teams all playing in their own, "expansion leagues"—and then, perhaps, meeting winners of the Original Ray's World Series in...a "Super Series"? 

But wouldn't they have preferred that to the decades and decades of losing? Take a look:

                                                                              WS  Pen.  Div.  WC

1961

Los Angeles Angels:         5,155-5,305    .493        1       1         9     1

Texas Rangers:                   4,979-5,465  .477         1       3         7     2

1962

Houston Astros:                 5,171-5,121     .503         2      5       15     4

New York Mets:                  4,973-5,315   .483         2      5        6      5

1969

Kansas City Royals:         4,359-4,796   .476        2       4       8       2

Milwaukee Brewers:        4,508-4,654  .492       0       2       9       3

San Diego Padres:             4,308-4,860  .470       0       2       5       5

Washington Nationals:   4,408-4,750  .481        1        1        5       1            

1977

Seattle Mariners:               3,765-4,180   .478       0       0      4        2

Toronto Blue Jays:             3,934-3,939   .499       2       3       7       4             

1993

Colorado Rockies:              2,422-2,922   .453       0       1       0       5 

Miami Marlins:                   2,462-2,874   .461       2       2       0       4       

1998

Arizona Diamondbacks:  2,253-2,343   .490       1        2      5       2  

Tampa Bay Rays:                2,266-2,328   .493       0       3      5       5