oWAR (normalized)
The 2001 Mariners are the category leaders. Thanks in large measure to Ichiro Suzuki’s rookie MVP season, the Mariners accumulated a 39.9 team oWAR, a figure that was nine points higher than any other AL team that season. It measured 2.27 standard deviations superior to the 22.10 AL average.
The 1927 Yankees, the Murderer’s Row team of Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri and Meusel, also exceeded their AL season norm by more than two standard deviations, 2.05 to be exact.
In a season when the average AL team generated 20.88 oWAR, the Yanks piled up a breathtaking 44.8, one of the highest totals of all time.
Here’s how the 10 .700 teams plus the Dodgers (as of Sept. 25) line up on oWAR adjusted for era. The figure represents the number of standard deviations above the league average for that season.
Rank Season/Team St. Dev.
1 2001 Seattle Mariners 2.27
2 1927 New York Yankees 2.05
3 1939 New York Yankees 1.96
4 1902 Pittsburgh Pirates 1.94
5 1990 New York Yankees 1.60
6 1954 Cleveland Indians 1.53
7 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers 1.32
8 1906 Chicago Cubs 1.07
9 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates 0.95
10 1931 Philadelphia Athletics 0.36
11 1907 Chicago Cubs 0.05
Pay close attention to the far left column. At the end of the exercise, the key won’t be any of the performance data but rather the average ordinal rank of the teams in each of the five categories.