# Would you like the team you root for to have a long stretch of reaching the postseason? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 5, 2020, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202 "2020-05-05T18:13:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/21 "2020-05-06T07:06:01Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > A related question is, before 2004, would you rather have been a Red Sox fan or a Cubs fan? The Red Sox would reach the World Series but lose, while the Cubs would never get there at all. Yup. Sox for sure. Or to put it another way, it was a whole lot more fun being a 1990-1993 Bills fan than a 1990-1993 Cardinals or Lions fan. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/22 "2020-05-06T11:14:48Z")
\*\* > [@](#): > > Would you like the team you root for to have a long stretch of reaching the postseason? \*\* This is a trick question, right? LOL ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/23 "2020-05-06T12:09:53Z")
I’d rather not be a perennial playoff team if I get more championships out of the fewer appearances. For example, I’d take a paltry 6 playoff appearances every 20 years if it also comes with 2 Superbowl wins every 20 years. I’d rather that than 16+ playoff appearances but only 0-1 championships every 20 years. I say this because that’s my actual experience as a Giants fan. Sometimes good for maybe a 4-5 year stretch, other times bad for a decade plus. But in those 4-5 year stretches they’ve now stolen two Superbowl wins twice, two decades apart. If they stay on track, getting good around 2025 and then winning a couple Superbowls, I’m fine with the decades of suck in between. In my mind, I still have 8 years to wait: 1986, 1990 2007, 2011 2028, 2032 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/24 "2020-05-06T12:18:04Z")
**TriPolar** , the question isn’t whether we want our team to lose the championship, and I have no idea where you’re getting that from. The question is whether we want them to make it to the postseason. Which is a prerequisite for winning the championship. If you vote “no”, then you’re saying that you don’t want your team to make it to the postseason. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/25 "2020-05-06T12:26:16Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **TriPolar** , the question isn’t whether we want our team to lose the championship, and I have no idea where you’re getting that from. The question is whether we want them to make it to the postseason. Which is a prerequisite for winning the championship. If you vote “no”, then you’re saying that you don’t want your team to make it to the postseason. To be fair, it can be a difficult question to parse. Are we asking would we have been happy rooting for a team that just finished a 15 year run of incredible regular season success, and 1 championship, or are we being asked would we be happy rooting for this hypothetical run for the next 15 years? For me, those really are the same thing - but I can see how maybe if you’re a Giants fan (NY or SF), or (ugh) a Yankees fan, that changes the calculus. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/26 "2020-05-06T12:45:59Z")
But the “and one championship” isn’t part of the question at all. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/27 "2020-05-06T12:57:49Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But the “and one championship” isn’t part of the question at all. The question I posed in the poll is “Would you want your team to “be like the 1990s Atlanta Braves”?” and I then expounded on what exactly the 1990s Atlanta Braves did in my OP. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/28 "2020-05-06T13:06:35Z")
Of course, if I take the “90s” part literally, it’s better than I thought. The \*\*1990s \*\*Atlanta Braves only played nine completed seasons, made the postseason eight times, and won the 1995 World Series. I’ll take a World Series every nine years, thanks. That’s a better ratio of championships to seasons than any franchise in the sport except the Yankees. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/29 "2020-05-06T13:26:25Z")
The Nationals finished over .500 every season since 2012, won the division 4 times, and made the playoffs 5 times. That falls short of what the Braves, and more recently the Dodgers, accomplished. Even without what happened in October, I would have been ok with that. I think the WS win will lessen the sting of future sub .500 seasons that will probably come sooner than later; this is an old team. ---
**Author:** ![dogbutler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogbutler/32/428_2.png) [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/30 "2020-05-06T15:35:16Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Well, sorry, but NO SHIT. Pretty much _ **all** _ sports fans want their team to win it all every year, and if you’re interpreting any of us to be saying otherwise, I think you’re mistaken. > > In retrospect, yes, the 1990s Braves were, at a certain level, underperformers, and given how many times that they made the postseason (and the World Series), yeah, probably, they should have won it all more than they did. But, I don’t think that, _at the time_, Braves fans looked at the start of every postseason, and said, “Oh, sure, we made the playoffs, but we aren’t going to win it all, so it doesn’t matter.” > > Once you get to the postseason, weird things happen, and the best team in any given league often _doesn’t_ wind up winning the championship that season. But, if a team makes it to the playoffs, they at least have a chance, and it gives their fans something extra to get excited about. If you don’t make the playoffs, obviously, you have _no_ chance. > > I lived through the Packers of the 1970s and 1980s, who were, for the most part, mediocre to terrible. My team had exactly 2 playoff appearance, and only one playoff win, in 20 years. > > Over the past 28 years, the Packers have been competitive most of the time, have made the playoffs most seasons, and have two Super Bowl rings. Yeah, maybe they should have more than that, and maybe they’ve squandered some of Aaron Rodgers’ best seasons. OTOH, it’s been a lot better era to be a Packer fan than it was when I was a kid. This. only one team wins every year. But post season tailgates are a lot more fun that watching somebody else’s team play in the 1st round. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/31 "2020-05-09T17:35:17Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Wow! I can’t believe so many people want their teams to lose the big games. Lions fan In the 54 years of the Super Bowl era they have only made the playoffs 12 times. Five of those were during the decade of milk, honey, and Barry Sanders. In the 44 years without Sanders the Lions managed just seven playoff appearances. Their sole playoff win was in 1991 season with Sanders. I just want my team to _be in_ big games. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2020, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/32 "2020-05-10T17:26:19Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I lived through the Packers of the 1970s and 1980s, who were, for the most part, mediocre to terrible. Yep. And all those years they went 8-8 and had they won the last game of the year they’d have snagged a wild card. It was maddening. The Pack have consistently made the post season for 2 decades now. Only 3 Super Bowl appearances and just 2 wins. But I’ll take that over 20 years of almost no play off appearances at all. And those horrible seasons they had in the 70’s and 80’s? There’s nothing worse than it only being week 7 and your team is already eliminated from contention. It sucks! ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/33 "2020-05-11T15:50:30Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > The question I posed in the poll is “Would you want your team to “be like the 1990s Atlanta Braves”?” and I then expounded on what exactly the 1990s Atlanta Braves did in my OP. In fairness, your topic title is also just “Would you like the team you root for to have a long stretch of reaching the postseason?” which makes no mention of number of championships. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/34 "2020-05-11T17:19:50Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Yep. And all those years they went 8-8 and had they won the last game of the year they’d have snagged a wild card. It was maddening. > > The Pack have consistently made the post season for 2 decades now. Only 3 Super Bowl appearances and just 2 wins. But I’ll take that over 20 years of almost no play off appearances at all. > ! In the NFL it’s kind of a no-brainer. Less than half the league has had more than 1 one win in a 15 year stretch. Only 6 teams have gotten more than 2 wins in a stretch. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/35 "2020-05-11T19:23:52Z")
I’m thinking of this as NY Giants fan. Over the last 10 years the team won 1 Super Bowl (yay!), and outside of that year, appeared in 1 playoff game, that they got crushed in (wah!). Would you trade that one SB win for 10 years of high quality football where maybe you don’t win it all? Before you say no… the team has been unwatchable for 3 years, and before one brief dip into the post season in 2016, were barely .500 for a few seasons before that. It’s a drag, and winning in 2011 seems really far away. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/36 "2020-05-12T03:38:28Z")
Uh, making the playoffs is a prerequisite for winning a championship. If this is really a “would you rather…” question, I guess I’d take the one championship over no championships, but that’s not how it works in real life. Rivaling the Braves, the San Jose Sharks have missed qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs only twice since the 1997-98 season - 19 of 21 seasons, one playoff was canceled for a lockout when the Sharks roster was stacked. Is twenty years of 82 crappy games each year really worth the one championship? ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/37 "2020-05-12T11:15:04Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > In the NFL it’s kind of a no-brainer. Less than half the league has had more than 1 one win in a 15 year stretch. Only 6 teams have gotten more than 2 wins in a stretch. I think of it as if you could magically have chosen your team’s performance over the last 20 years, would you rather have experienced the past 20 years for the Buccaneers or Bengals? The Bucs have been shitty for much of the past 20 years, but they do have a Superbowl win. The Bengals made it to the playoffs every year for like a decade, but not a single playoff win. I’d pick the Bucs instead of the Bengals without hesitation. > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > I’m thinking of this as NY Giants fan. Over the last 10 years the team won 1 Super Bowl (yay!), and outside of that year, appeared in 1 playoff game, that they got crushed in (wah!). That’s a very odd time frame to choose. The Giants have one Superbowl win over the past 10 years, true, but they also have 2 Superbowl wins over the past 13 seasons. Does the 2007 win not count for some reason? ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/38 "2020-05-13T16:24:38Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > I think of it as if you could magically have chosen your team’s performance over the last 20 years, would you rather have experienced the past 20 years for the Buccaneers or Bengals? > > The Bucs have been shitty for much of the past 20 years, but they do have a Superbowl win. The Bengals made it to the playoffs every year for like a decade, but not a single playoff win. > > I’d pick the Bucs instead of the Bengals without hesitation. That’s not the right question though. Of course if you could “choose” to force a 20 year historical outcome, you might say, take a championship versus none at all. But from a living your life as it plays out POV, if you rephrased this not as having foreknowledge built in to the decision but weighing the total statisticsal JAR (Joy Above Replacement Level) – are you a sports fan to experience the highest high, or also to avoid misery? Because that would boil down to how miserable as a fan you are to have “19 years of being shitty”, which in turn boils down to how invested you are overall. If for example, you never even bother to really “tune in” until halfway or more through the season, and you then surface for air and say “so how’re the Bucs doing this year? - bad as usual? _change channel_” - then the pain of yet another slog of a losing season is more or less background noise in your life, and it won’t weigh as much against the thrill of riding a post-season run to the championship that one time. But if you are the kind of fan to spend all summer griping about moves the Bucs made, fantasing that the prospects they have coming up or players they’ve signed or traded for might turn a corner and do something amazing, watch every game and follow every headline until they are well and truly done, and then continue to think about “well at least X was good, maybe next year…” throughout the end of the season and into the post-season… …Then I would say that NOT being miserable and sarcastic except for the last game or two of the playoffs, and being energized, invested, and excited for the entire regular season (and off-season) for most of 20 years, is worth more than a 1-in-20 miracle run that you then eventually feel a bit bitter about (“why did they let X go, he was key!”, “…and Y was never the same player before or since”, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/39 "2020-05-13T17:09:14Z")
My Kansas City Royals had a long stretch in which they won two American League pennants and one World Championship. If that had come with fifteen years of playoff losses rather than fifteen years of crap, I think I would be able to live with it. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202/40 "2020-05-13T17:20:37Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > That’s a very odd time frame to choose. It’s both a round number and the time since their last playoff win. I’m not saying their other wins don’t matter, but over a long stretch of time would you prefer 1 championship followed up by irrelevance, or would you prefer to be perennially “in it”? It’s the difference between the Giants and the Yankees lately. The Giants have more recently won championships, but it feels a lot more like they are a mismanaged team that stumbled into the win, while the Yankees haven’t won as recently, but are usually knocking on the door to make a run. Yeah, not winning is a disappointment, but with the Yanks, I’m not giving up on the season a third of the way through. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-like-the-team-you-root-for-to-have-a-long-stretch-of-reaching-the-postseason/853202.md?page=3)