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The best of the best: Ranking the 12 winningest teams in MLB history

By Bill Felber

NEW YORK - 1927. (L-R) Babe Ruth, outfielder, Miller Huggins, manager, and Lou Gehrig, first baseman, all of the New York Yankees, take a break at the batting cage before a game in Yankee Stadium before a game in the 1927 season. (Photo by Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images)
NEW YORK - 1927. (L-R) Babe Ruth, outfielder, Miller Huggins, manager, and Lou Gehrig, first baseman, all of the New York Yankees, take a break at the batting cage before a game in Yankee Stadium before a game in the 1927 season. (Photo by Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images) /
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Joe DiMaggio, leader of the 1939 New York Yankees. (Photo by New York Times Co./Getty Images)
Joe DiMaggio, leader of the 1939 New York Yankees. (Photo by New York Times Co./Getty Images) /

1939 New York Yankees, 106-45, .702

.700 Club rank: 12

This is the first of three New York Yankees teams on this MLB history list, all of them eventual World Series winners.

The 1939 team may be best known for its star who did not finish the season. Lou Gehrig, captain and long-time first baseman, left the lineup in May shortly before being diagnosed with the disease that would take his life two years later.

So it is a bit ironic that the Yanks were as good as they were in a season they got so little production out of Gehrig. They didn’t need him. Joe DiMaggio batted .381, four other regulars joined him above .300, and the Yanks averaged 6.4 runs per game, a half-run more than any of their competitors.

An astonishing 31 times during 1939 the Yankees scored in double figures. The Philadelphia Athletics could tell you all about New York’s offense. In a June 28 doubleheader at Shibe Park, the Yanks beat up the visiting A’s 23-2 and 10-0, scoring in nine of their 18 at-bats.

For the season, the average score of a Yanks-A’s game was 8-3.

New York could pitch as well as hit. The Yanks also led the AL in fewest runs allowed, giving up just 3.7 in a season when teams averaged 5.2 runs every nine innings. Red Ruffing was a 21-game winner, but seven Yankees pitchers won in double figures.

Amazingly, that means the Yankees’ Pythagorean record in 1939 — what they should have done based on their production — was 111-43, a .721 percentage that is five games better than how they actually played.

As dominant as the Yankees were, they were also actually unlucky.

That year’s World Series was no contest, the Yanks sweeping the National League champion Cincinnati Reds while outscoring them 20-8. Of the 36 innings played in that World Series, the Reds led for just four.

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