baseball stoopid stats (2016 edition) #4: wins, losses and games over 500 (by state)

I presented a chart of all major league baseball franchises and their cumulative games above .500 (along with a table of active franchises ranked by wins) here.

Then I combined the franchises based on the geographic location indicated in their names. That chart and table are here.

For my third trick, I combine the teams based on their home state. Note that for these purposes I treat the District of Columbia, Quebec and Ontario as if they are states. To date, 28 states have had major league franchises. Of those, 19 had at least one franchise in 2016. The winningest, New York, has had 27,614 wins and stands 3,279 wins over .500 -- thanks largely to the Yankees and their significantly winning record. In 28th is Iowa, whose only major league team, the Keokuk Westerns, went 1-12 in 1875.

While New York and Pennsylvania are ahead in wins, it's only a matter of time before California, with five franchises, passes them. Barring changes in the the number and/or locations of teams, that is. New York and Pennsylvania are ahead simply because they each had three teams for the majority of the 20th century, and two teams for most or all of the rest. California didn't hava franchise until 1958 when the Dodgers and Giants moved there. It expanded to three with the inception of the Angels in 1961, then to four when the A's moved to Oakland in 1968 and five when the Padres were introduced in 1969.

By the way, in 2016 Florida (with two teams) passed Washington (one team) to move into 15th place.