MLB playoffs: The six best non-playoff teams in the wild card era

Since the wild card was established in 1994, these are the six best teams that failed to make the MLB playoffs.

At the end of July, back before the Seattle Mariners’ season took an ugly nosedive away from the MLB playoffs, there were three American League wild card contenders with winning percentages over .570. The Yankees were at the top of this group with a .648 winning percentage that would lead to nearly 105 wins had they kept it up (they haven’t).

The high-flying Mariners were next, with a .589 winning percentage, which translates to 95 wins over a 162-game season. Behind the Mariners at that time was the Oakland A’s, with a .578 winning percentage. Had they continued winning games at that rate, they would be looking at a 93 or 94-win season (they’ve improved).

Things have changed quite a bit since then. The Yankees are now on a 100-win pace, with the A’s coming on strong with a 98-win pace. Just 1.5 games separates them as they battle for home-field advantage for the AL wild card game. Of course, the A’s also have the AL West in their sites. They trail the Houston Astros by 3.5 games.

The Mariners, meanwhile, have not only fallen behind the A’s, they now trail the Tampa Bay Rays in the wild card standings. It’s been an ugly six weeks for the M’s. They could still win 88 to 90 games, but they’re no longer in contention to end their generations-long playoff drought that dates back to 2001.

When the Yankees, Mariners and A’s were all looking good near the end of July, there was a chance we would see a team with 92 or more wins miss out on a MLB playoffs spot. That hasn’t happened since MLB went to the two wild card system in 2012. The team with the most wins that didn’t make the playoffs in the two wild card era was the 2013 Texas Rangers. They were 91-72 after losing a one-game wild card tie-breaker game with Tampa Bay that ended their season.

The one wild card era went from 1994 to 2011, but without a post-season in the strike-shortened 1994 season. From 1995 to 2011, there were eight teams with 91 or more wins who didn’t make the MLB playoffs. Six of those won 92 or more games but had to watch the postseason from home. Here are those six teams, the six best non-playoff teams in the wild card era.

1999 Cincinnati Reds, 96-67 .589, +154 run-differential

(lost wild card tie-breaker game to the New York Mets)

With 96 wins, the 1999 Cincinnati Reds are the best non-playoff team in the wild card era. As the 1999 regular season came to a close, they were battling the Houston Astros for the NL Central title and the New York Mets for the wild card spot. Their final series was a three-game set in Milwaukee.

They Reds lost the first game on a walk-off single by Ronnie Belliard that scored Mark Loretta in the bottom of the 10^th. They lost the second game when Juan Guzman was knocked out in the third inning and Dennys Reyes and Stan Belinda couldn’t stop the scoring. They salvaged a win in the third game of the series behind a well-pitched game by Pete Harnisch and Ron Villone.

Meanwhile, the Astros closed out the regular season by winning two of three against the Dodgers. Their 97^th win came on the last day of the season and gave them the division over the Reds. Had they lost, the Astros, Reds and Mets would have finished in a three-way tie. At the time, Bob Costas reported that MLB had “no reasonable tiebreaker” to deal with the three-way tie scenario. You can almost picture commissioner Bud Selig shrugging his shoulders at the thought.

The Mets came down the stretch of the 1999 season hoping to catch the Atlanta Braves for the NL East title, but a seven-game losing streak in September ended that dream. They rallied to win four of their final five games to finish tied with the Reds for the wild card spot. Two of their last three victories were walk-offs over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

That set up the one-game playoff to decide the wild card team. The Reds hosted the game in front of 54,621 fans, but couldn’t touch Al Leiter, who tossed a four-hit shutout. The Mets won the game 5-0, as Leiter threw 135 pitches.

The best position player on the best non-playoff team in the wild card era was center fielder Mike Cameron, who hit .256/.357/.469 and played stellar defense. He also scored 93 runs and stole a career-high 38 bases. In the offseason, he would be traded to the Seattle Mariners, along with Brett Tomko, Antonio Perez and minor leaguer Jake Meyer for Ken Griffey, Jr.

This was a terrific trade for the Mariners. Cameron played the next four seasons in Seattle and averaged 4.6 WAR per year. He was part of their epic 116-win team in 2001. The next season, he had a four-homer game against the Chicago White Sox.

Ken Griffey, Jr., on the other hand, was worth just 2.0 WAR per year over the next four years. Only one of those seasons was Griffey-esque. He hit 40 homers and had 118 RBI in 2000, but was limited to an average of 78 games per season over the next three seasons. He grew older and heavier and became a liability on defense.

Other great players on the 1999 Reds were Barry Larkin, Sean Casey, Pokey Reese and Greg Vaughn. Cameron, Larkin and Reese combined for 116 steals. Casey had a .399 OBP and .539 SLG. Vaughn launched 45 homers and had 118 RBI.

The top starting pitcher was Pete Harnisch, with a 3.68 ERA in 198.3 innings. Danny Graves, Scott Sullivan and Scott Williamson were leaned on heavily in the bullpen. All three pitched at least 93.3 innings in relief. Graves and Sullivan pitched 111 and 113.7 innings, respectively. The manager was Jack McKeon and Jim Bowden was the GM.

The 96 wins by the 1999 Reds is the 10^th-most in the 136-year history of the Reds franchise, yet they didn’t make the MLB playoffs. Amazingly, the Reds had two other seasons with even more wins that didn’t end with a postseason appearances. They won 98 games in 1962 yet finished five games behind the 103-win Giants and four games behind the 102-win Dodgers. They also won 98 games in 1974, but once again finished four games behind the 102-win Dodgers.

2002 Boston Red Sox, 93-69, .574, +194 run-differential

One of the biggest stories of the 2002 MLB season was the 20-game winning streak by the Oakland A’s that became an important part of the Michael Lewis book Moneyball. The A’s streak took them from 4.5 games out of first in the AL West to 3.5 games ahead. They finished with 103 wins and the second-place Angels had 99. In the AL East, the Yankees won 103 games and the Red Sox finished second, with a 93-69 record. Despite winning 93 games, the Red Sox finished six games behind the wild card team.

Since the wild card era began, five teams have finished 93-69 but failed to make the playoffs. The Red Sox had the best run-differential of these five teams, so they get the number two spot on this list of the six best non-playoff teams in the wild card era. Many of the players on this team would be part of the 2004 squad that would end the long World Series drought, as memorialized in the movie Fever Pitch.

The best position player on the 2002 Red Sox was shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, who was having a nearly 7 WAR season. He scored and drove in more than 100 runs and led the league with 56 doubles. He would be great again in 2003, but would be traded during the 2004 season and miss out on the Red Sox first World Series title since 1918.

Pedro Martinez was 20-4 with a 2.26 ERA in 199.3 innings. Derek Lowe was 21-8 with a 2.58 ERA in 219.7 innings. Manny Ramirez (.349/.450/.647) and Johnny Damon (118 R, 31 SB) combined to be worth nearly 11 WAR. The captain, Jason Varitek, did his thing behind the plate.

Two players who would be key to the 2004 title team were not yet with the Red Sox. David Ortiz was in his final season with the Twins. After hitting .272/.339/.500 in 125 games, he would be inexplicably released by Minnesota and signed by the Red Sox. In 14 seasons with Boston, he would go on to launch 483 home runs and produce 1530 RBI.

Curt Schilling was not yet a Red Sox player either. He was having a tremendous season with the Arizona Diamondbacks (23-7, 3.23 ERA in 259.3 IP). After one more season in Arizona in 2013, Schilling was traded to the Red Sox for Casey Fossum, Brandon Lyon and Jorge De La Rosa.

The Red Sox didn’t make the MLB playoffs in 2002, but they would go on to make the postseason six times in the next seven years, including two World Series titles. This non-playoff team was the garden of seedlings that would grow into a mighty forest.

2003 Seattle Mariners, 93-69, .574, +158 run-differential

The third-best non-playoff team in the wild card era is the 2003 Seattle Mariners. They took over first place in the AL West in mid-April and had an eight-game lead by early June. The staff ace was 40-year-old left-hander Jamie Moyer. He would have the only 20-win season of his 25-year career. Amazingly, the Mariners used just five starting pitchers that season. All five started 32 or 33 games.

By mid-August, the Mariners’ division lead had slipped to five games, but the worst was yet to come. From August 20 through September 16, they went 10-16 and dropped to 4.5 games behind the surging Oakland A’s. They would eventually finish second in the AL West by three games.

While the Mariners went 13-12 in September to finish with 93 wins, the Boston Red Sox went 17-9 to finish with 95 wins. That gave them the wild card spot. Both the Mariners and Red Sox finished with more wins than the Minnesota Twins, who won the AL Central with a 90-72 record to make the MLB playoffs.

Mentioned above, the ageless Jamie Moyer was the top pitcher on the staff, with Ryan Franklin (3.57 ERA in 212 IP) and Joel Pineiro (3.78 ERA in 211.7 IP) also having solid seasons. The offensive leaders were Bret Boone (111 R, 35 HR, 117 RBI), Ichiro Suzuki (212 H, 111 R, 34 SB), Mike Cameron (18 HR, 17 SB) and Edgar Martinez (.406 OBP in 603 PA).

This was Edgar Martinez’s last good season. He would play just one more year before hanging up his spikes. It was also Bret Boone’s last great season. He would be out of baseball after two more years during which he hit a combined .240/.307/.397. Mike Cameron was granted free agency and would sign with the Mets.

The Mariners went from winning 93 games in 2003 to winning 63 games in 2004. They haven’t had a 90-win team since 2003 and would need to go 11-6 to get to 90 wins this year. In fact, they’ve only had four winning seasons since 2003. Barring a massive collapse down the stretch, this year should be their fifth.

2005 Cleveland Indians, 93-69, .574, +148 run-differential

The 2005 Cleveland Indians won 93 games after averaging 74 wins per year over the three previous seasons. They finished six games behind the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central and two behind the Boston Red Sox for the wild card spot after they went 1-6 in the season’s final eight days.

That was a crazy week. Heading into the day’s games on Sunday, September 25, the Yankees and Red Sox had identical records atop the AL East. They were both 90-64. Meanwhile, the Indians were 92-63 and trailed the 93-61 White Sox by just a single game. Cleveland controlled their own destiny.

The Tribe lost on a walk-off to the Royals that Sunday when Bobby Howry allowed a one out double to Paul Phillips that scored Angel Berroa with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. Then came two more losses, both by a single run, followed by a win over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Heading into the final weekend of the regular season, the races looked like this:

AL East
Yankees 94-65
Red Sox 93-66

AL Central
White Sox 96-63
Indians 93-66

Cleveland finished out the seasons with a three game series at home against the White Sox. They had a chance with a sweep to finish tied for the division lead. They lost all three games. Meanwhile, the Red Sox won two of three against the Yankees to tie them for the best record in the AL East, but the Yankees won the division title based on their better head-to-head record against the Red Sox.

Despite the disappointment of winning 93 games and missing out on the MLB playoffs, the 2005 Cleveland Indians had one of the most exciting young players in baseball. Grady Sizemore was just 22 years old and filled the stat sheet with a .289/.438/.484 batting line, 111 runs, 37 doubles, 11 triples, 22 homers, 81 RBI, and 22 steals.

This was the first of a four-year stretch during which Grady Sizemore was one of the top players in baseball, right up there with Alex Rodriguez, David Wright and Chipper Jones. He averaged 6.2 WAR per year during this time. He got on base at a good clip (.372 OBP), hit for power (27 HR/year, .496 SLG), and ran the bases well (116 runs/year, 29 SB/year).

Then, suddenly, it was over. Sizemore struggled with injuries from 2009 to 2011. He was out of the major leagues in 2012 and 2013, then came back and bounced around baseball for two more years. In his final five big league seasons, he hit .238/.309/.393 while playing an average of 84 games per year.

2002 Seattle Mariners, 93-69, .574, +115 run-differential

The only successful extended run of seasons the Seattle Mariners have ever had was from 1995 to 2003. They made the playoffs four times during those nine years, reaching the ALCS three times. Their peak was an incredible 116-win season in 2001. That was the year Ichiro Suzuki arrived from Japan and won the AL MVP and Rookie of the Year Awards.

In 2002, the Mariners won 93 games, which is tied for the second-most games they’ve ever won in a season. They would win 93 games again in 2003. They missed the playoffs both years.

The 2002 season looked like a nice follow-up year to their 116-win season in 2001. The Mariners moved into a tie for first place in the AL West on April 10 and maintained their spot at the top of the division into the summer. On August 22, they and the A’s were tied at 77-51, with the Angels a single game back.

The A’s were on a roll, though, having already won nine straight games. They would eventually win 20 straight and leave the Mariners and Angels in their wake, finishing with a record of 103-59. For their part, the Angels went 99-63 to take the wild card spot. That meant the Mariners and Red Sox, both at 93-69, would be sitting home watching the postseason on TV.

The top hitters on the 2002 Mariners were John Olerud (.403 OBP, 102 RBI), Bret Boone (24 HR, 107 RBI), Mike Cameron (25 HR, 80 RBI), Ichiro Suzuki (111 R, 31 SB, .388 OBP) and Edgar Martinez (.403 OBP). Unfortunately, Edgar suffered a ruptured left hamstring in April and missed two months. The primary DH while Edgar was out was Ruben Sierra, who hit .251/.309/.407. He was no Edgar Martinez.

On the mound, 39-year-old Jamie Moyer was the top starting pitcher. He had a 3.32 ERA in 230.7 innings. Joel Pineiro was just as good as Moyer in keeping runs from scoring (3.24 ERA), but in fewer innings (194.3). In his third year with the Mariners, reliever Kazahiro Sasaki saved 37 games.

This 2002 team is the first in a long line of non-playoff teams for the Mariners that will likely stretch to 17 seasons this year. They were a good team, though, winning 93 games. That win total and a +115 run-differential makes them the fifth-best team to miss the MLB playoffs in the wild card era.