Consistent World Series appearances, division championships, etc?
It’s quite likely we will go generations, a lifetime and never see one.
Anyway, it’s impossible to predict by definition, because the rise of the Braves shocked everyone. That’s part of that story. They finished in last in 1990 and had been a dumpster fire for years.
Didn’t we already have one since then - early 2010s San Francisco?
The Dodgers have seven straight division championships and two world series appearances in the last seven years, which is pretty damn good, and they don’t seem to be anywhere near the end of their run.
Yanks have a decent chance. Sox have…to quote North Dallas Forty…confused brains and luck.
Not nearly comparable. The Giants were in the playoffs 3 out of 5 seasons 2010-2014, and won the Series each time. The Braves were in the playoffs 14 out of 15 seasons 1991-2005, winning 5 pennants and 1 World Series. The Giants won more World Series, but didn’t really have that long a run.
The Yankees had a better run since the Braves, being in the playoffs 17 out of 18 seasons, and winning 7 pennants and 5 World Series between 1995-2012.
The Dodgers have the current longest run, although the Yankees and Astros have each made the playoffs 3 of the past 4 seasons.
I’d argue the Yankees by definition cannot do the same thing. Not that they don’t develop good young players, but the Yankees buy a lot of their success, whereas the Braves started almost wholly by putting together young guys and players other teams no longer wanted. It is hard to overstate how unlikely their sudden rise seemed - or for that matter the fact they remained on top. They did on a number of occasions in the late 90s have the highest payroll in the NL, but never by much, and then other teams overtook them but they kept winning. This was, remember, a team that in the 1980s was largely a baseball backwater. In 1988, 1989 and 1990 they were dead last in the NL in attendance.
For the same reason I’d argue the Dodgers’ recent run isn’t remotely comparable. They have outspent the rest of the league by truly astounding figure over that period of time, only twice surpassed in any given year (both by the Cubs) - in 2013 they spent $100 million more than the SECOND biggest spending in the NL. What the Braves did was way, way more impressive, and the Dodgers are a very long way from winning as much as the Braves did.
The Braves under Bobby Cox (and okay, John Schuerholz) were in some regards the most successful baseball franchise in history. Yes, I realize the Yankees from 1950-64 were dominant, but the league was smaller, less diverse, and less complex (i.e. no free agency). Yes, the Yankees won a spate of championships between 1996 and 2001, but year-in and year-out, the Braves from 1991 to the late 2000s were just a damn fine ball club. Cardinals fans talk about “the Cardinal way” since TLR’s arrival in 1996, but they don’t compare to Atlanta under Cox and Schuerholz.
The reputation of the Braves from that era is not one of great success, it is their utter failure to win more than one World Series while appearing in the post-season 14 times in 15 years.
That’s the reputation, but almost every other team with their level of talent misses the play-offs a few times, misses a few more NLCS’s than they do, and has fewer World Series appearances, and no championships.
I disagree. If other teams had that kind of talent they would have won the big one more often. It was a great team in ways, great enough to succeed in the regular season, but the post-season was much tougher for them and they folded often. I think they were lucky to make it as far as they did each season. It’s the odd kind of luck that keeps giving you the second best hand in a poker game.
You don’t get lucky enough to make it to the postseason 14 times in a row. They were beaten by teams that had their number. There were a couple of teams that beat them that, in my view, maybe shouldn’t have - the 1993 Phillies and the 2003 Cubs come to mind. But most of the teams had one more player or two that just gave them an edge over the Braves.
You ever hear anyone say about their team “I hope we can be like the Braves in the 90s.”?
I’m sure a lot of fans would be happy going into spring training every year knowing you had a real shot at a World Series and you’d be playing meaningful ball after the all star game and not having your best players sold off as rentals.
Building a fan base in a transplant town like Atlanta isn’t easy. Sure, you can pull a Marlins and buy a World Series and then sell it off and play in front of 500 fans the next year, most of them rooting for the opponent.
Yes.
The 1996 Yankees also.
The 1996 Braves should have repeated as World Series champions…
Weirdly, the one they won they probably should have lost - I would expect that Indians team to win about 55 games if they’d played each other 100 times.
It’s unfortunate that Cleveland was the team they beat, since they deserved a title in that era. (The Yankees gave them another chance two years later and they lost to the frikkin Marlins.) The other teams that beat them in the Series, the Twins, the Blue Jays, and the Yankees, all had other championships within a few years before or after.