Which playoff team most needs to win the World Series?
Fans of each team currently vying for the 2024 title would surely say, "Mine!" Nevertheless, every team has a different context, one that builds and ebbs and flows with each season. Teams age. Free agents leave and arrive. Playoff disappointments pile up. Playoff absences chafe.
Each season, we assess franchises by employing an old Bill James method for calculating "pressure points." The basic version assumes that the more success a team has without winning it all, the more their pressure builds. Not until they win it all does that pressure finally release, resetting the valve, and everyone who follows that team can relax. Thus, by that token, only fans of the Texas Rangers are currently in a state of pure release -- because Texas won last year.
This time, we mixed things up a little to account for other forms of pressure to create a new Pressure Index. Let's see how it all came out.
The new Pressure Index formula
Here are the factors, ranked in order by the weight they carry in the final calculation:
1. Drought pressure. This is all about flags, both World Series titles and pennants. The championship part of this factor counts twice as much as the pennant factor and there is a cap on how many points a team can accumulate. The only capped-out drought team right now is in the playoffs: The Cleveland Guardians, owners of baseball's longest title drought. Teams coming off a title have no drought pressure.
2. Knock-knock pressure. There is a whole different pressure for a franchise that lingers well below .500 year after year than one who consistently plays winning baseball and yet can't seem to get anywhere in October. Looking at the most recent 25-year window, the knock-knock factor counts winning seasons weighted from most recent to most distant. The Yankees, with their active streak of 32 straight winning seasons, have the most knock-knock points. The 2024 season standings were included in this calculation.
3. Departing star pressure. Using AXE ratings, we simply tally up the average AXE of a team's pending free agents. Players with a club option are not included in this tally. Using the average here adds to the pressure of clubs like the Yankees who have a superstar player (Juan Soto) about to hit free agency.
4. Exodus pressure. Another free agent factor: Again using AXE ratings, we simply tally up the total AXE points for a team's pending free agents. Players with a club option are not included in this tally. Losing a star player hurts, but so too does having a lot of holes to fill.
5. Father Time pressure: The older a team is, the shorter its window of opportunity for elite contention. This factor is based on average team ages, hitters and pitchers combined.
The rankings
1. Milwaukee Brewers
Pressure Index: 108.9
Last World Series title: Never
No titles ever. No pennants since 1982. Eight straight winning seasons. And while the Brewers don't have a high volume of pending free agents, they do have an important player hitting the market: shortstop Willy Adames, who is a beloved figure in the clubhouse and throughout Milwaukee, in addition to being a first-division regular at a key position. Milwaukee was the most pressurized team in the previous version of the system and it hasn't changed. One saving grace: Milwaukee has this season's sixth-youngest team age.
Still, from a narrative standpoint, things are getting anxious for the typically upbeat Milwaukee faithful. On Tuesday, Brewers owner Mark Attanasio addressed this, saying, "When I was first sitting in this seat in 2004, it was all about how we had lost for 11 seasons at that point and hadn't been in the playoffs at that point for over 20 seasons. We had no expectancy. Now we have a high expectation. I prefer that."
See, pressure isn't all bad. And the Brewers are about to face a ton of it in Game 3 of their wild-card series against the Mets on Thursday.
2. San Diego Padres
Pressure Index: 107.0
Last World Series title: Never
The Padres are third behind Cleveland and Milwaukee in drought points, with no titles since the beginning of time (but only since 1969, when the franchise began, actually counts) and no pennants since 1998. San Diego's knock-knock factor isn't as high as it feels like it should be, given the aggression with which the Padres have pursued the transaction market under general manager A.J. Preller. Simply put, as a franchise, the Padres have just had too many lengthy sub-.500 droughts. The Padres have a significant group of pending free agents, including late-career breakout star Jurickson Profar.
3. New York Yankees
Pressure Index: 105.7
Last World Series title: 2009
If there was a factor for tension headaches created by the intensity of media coverage, the Yankees would never leave the top spot of this list. But we're leaving that out. The Yankees' title and pennant droughts feel epic, and in the context of that franchise, they kind of are. It's a middling factor in this system. But as mentioned, no team has a higher knock-knock factor given the Yankees' annual finish above break even. Then you have the free agents, including Soto, Gerrit Cole (since his opt-out is out of the team's control, it counts) and Gleyber Torres. So yes, there is a lot of pressure around this franchise. But isn't that always the case?
4. Cleveland Guardians
Pressure Index: 105.5
Last World Series title: 1948
The Guardians' title drought is somehow a little understated in a system like this. Sure, the very fact that it has reached 75 years is remarkable in itself. But when you think back to how close Cleveland came in 1997 and 2016, it ratchets things up a notch. The Guardians have also generally been good during the past quarter century, especially the past decade, so that tightens the screws a little more. What eases things is that the Guardians aren't looking at the debilitating departure of free agents. Then there is this: Cleveland has the youngest team age in the majors. Not just playoff teams -- all teams. So there isn't really a "window closing" effect hitting this club. That doesn't mean the kids aren't aware of the weight of history that comes with playing in Cleveland.
5. New York Mets
Pressure Index: 104.4
Last World Series title: 1986
The Mets' title drought, which dates to the Dwight Gooden/Darryl Strawberry heyday, is getting pretty long in the tooth, but they do have a couple of fairly recent pennants (2000 and 2015). What's interesting about the Mets is the factors that lift them in these rankings are largely part of the first-year design by the new David Stearns front office. Seeking to successfully thread the needle of winning now while creating payroll flexibility beyond this season, Stearns accomplished exactly that. To do it, he has collected an unusual quantity of older pending free agents, brought in on short-term deals. Thus, the Mets are baseball's oldest team, and their list of free agents is long -- Pete Alonso, Luis Severino, Jose Quintana, J.D. Martinez and Sean Manaea just for starters. But this is all on purpose. So it's an unusual way of creating right-now pressure, but since it's another New York team, it doesn't feel weird to put them here.
6. Los Angeles Dodgers
Pressure Index: 103.1
Last World Series title: 2020
The Dodgers' 2020 championship will never feel as meaningful as the titles from other seasons because of all the oddities of that campaign and, in particular, its brevity. This system doesn't discount that flag, but from a narrative standpoint, there are many who feel like for all the dominance of the Dodgers during their current run of 12-straight playoff appearances, they need a "normal" championship to fully release the pressure. The Dodgers are also baseball's third-oldest team and rank in the top four in the free agent factors. On the flip side, and we can't account for that in the system as Shohei Ohtani's run in Chavez Ravine is just getting started.
7. Philadelphia Phillies
Pressure Index: 99.1
Last World Series title: 2008
The Phillies' title drought isn't that long and they have a recent pennant. They've generally been good, so there's a knock-knock factor but not as high as most of the teams above them. The Phillies have a low volume of pending free agents, but they do have a couple of key contributors on their list in Jeff Hoffman and Carlos Estevez. Mostly though, as with all Philly teams, the pressure comes from not wanting to get on the bad side of their own fans.
8. Kansas City Royals
Pressure Index: 94.6
Last World Series title: 2015
The teams at the bottom of these rankings have no real pressure, if we're being honest. No one thought the Royals would be in the 2024 playoffs when the season began. It's all joy. On top of that, they have a recent title and two recent pennants. Finally, in a perverse way, the Royals' stockpile of lousy seasons keeps their knock-knock factor low. Sure, they have a lot of looming free agents, but none of them are core players. More than any other playoff team, the Royals have eased their organizational pressure simply by playing into October.
9. Detroit Tigers
Pressure Index: 89.2
Last World Series title: 1984
While no one thought the Royals would be in the playoffs when the season began, no one thought the Tigers would be here just a month ago (let alone that they would knock the Astros out of the playoffs). They have absolutely no reason to worry about anything. They should be commemorated in a Bobby McFerrin song. The Tigers haven't won a title since 1984, so that ups their score a little, but they do have multiple pennants over the past couple of decades. Also, the Tigers have baseball's second-youngest team age and unlike a team that expected to contend and added veterans at the deadline, Detroit has gotten even younger as the season has progressed. Because they unloaded vets rather than adding them, the Tigers have no pending free agents. In every respect, the four-decade title drought aside, it's all gravy from here on for the Tigers. Which, as much as anything, makes them dangerous.
Teams eliminated from the playoffs
Baltimore Orioles (104.3, rank before elimination: 6): The Orioles haven't won a title or a pennant in more than 40 years, but they've started to compile some winning seasons in the aftermath of their deep-cut rebuilding project of a few years ago, so their knock-knock points are increasing again. Baltimore will also have a pair of significant free agents in Corbin Burnes, their ace starter, and franchise stalwart Anthony Santander.
Atlanta Braves (99.9, rank before elimination: 8): If not for their 2021 title, the Braves would have scored much higher. They have a string of good seasons and have very few poor campaigns in their recent history. That's a lot of knocking. They have baseball's second-oldest roster. Atlanta also ranks seventh in the majors in free agent AXE, but their average (19th) illustrates that's mostly a question of volume. (They did lose in the wild-card round without Spencer Strider, Ronald Acuna Jr., Austin Riley and Chris Sale, though, so the pressure wasn't quite as intense as it might have been.)
Houston Astros (97.6, rank before elimination: 10): The Astros generally rank at the bottom of this system because of all their recent postseason success, and that remains true -- but they are getting older and have some really notable possible free agents: Justin Verlander, Yusei Kikuchi and franchise fixture Alex Bregman.