baseball stoopidstats -- 2017 edition, number 5

Congratulations to the Houston Astros on winning the World Series.* The Astros have now won almost half as many series as is their fair share.

One of the statistics that I track and update every year is what I call, for lack of a better name, World Series Wins per Share Ratio. The intent is to compare the number of times a franchise has won the World Series with the number of times it would have been expected to win if World Series victories were simply distributed at random among the franchises. To calculate this, you simply divide A by B where:

• A is equal to the number of times a franchise has won the World Series;
• B is the sum, for all years that the franchise existed (and that there was a World Series), 1/N (where N is the number of franchises in the year.

If a team's ratio is 1, that means they have won exactly their share of World Series. If its ratio is 2, that means they have won twice as many World Series as their share. Etc.

I should note that I am only counting the modern World Series, which began in 1903. Also, for the purposes of calculating B, I do not include Federal League teams in N, since the FL didn't participate.

The spreadsheet for 2017 is here. The table on the right shows the results as of 2017.





*Though, seriously, whoever decided to move them to the American League is demented. So is whoever changed their name to Astros. Colt .45's was a way cooler name.