Royals ranked as second-worst team in baseball in the Wild Card era

Flags fly forever, but do they cover up a lot of losing? Stephen J. Nesbitt of The Athletic wanted to evaluate how each team has fared in the Wild Card era (since 1995), using metrics like championships, pennants, playoff appearances, and 90+ loss seasons as metrics. What he found was that despite their 2014-15 stretch where they won two pennants and a championship, the Royals are the second-worst team in baseball over the last 29 years, with only the Pittsburgh Pirates faring worse.

Here is his formula:

Winning the World Series (WS): 9 points

Losing in the World Series (WSL): 6 points

Losing in the Championship Series (CS): 3 points

Losing in Division Series (DS): 2 points

Losing in Wild Card (WC): 1 point

As of last year, the scoring system also incentivizes division titles (+1 point) and penalizes prolonged losing cycles, docking teams (-1 point) each time they lose at least 90 games in consecutive seasons.