Yesterday the Dodgers became the third team to win 100 games this season. It’s the third straight year that there have been three 100-win teams, so if you don’t pay much attention to history you might think it’s pretty common. Not really. Despite the three-peat in that department it was only the eighth time it’s ever happened in big league history. Before this three-year run it had only happened in 1942, 1977, 1998, 2002 and 2003.
There has never been a year with four 100-win teams, but the Braves (96 wins with five to go), Twins (96 with six to go) and Athletics (94 with six to go) have an outside shot at it.
To get to 100 wins you have to be good, but it sure helps if there are some bad teams around to feed on. And yep, there are a lot of bad teams around. Indeed, 2019 just tied a record for bad teams, in fact, at least to the extent you use 100-losses as a proxy for “bad. With the Royals “earning” their 100th defeat at the hands of the Twins, we now have four 100-loss teams in the bigs this year: the Royals, Tigers, Orioles, and Marlins and that has only happened once, in 2002. That year the Tigers, Brewers, Devil Rays and Royals all lost at least 100.
We won’t break that record -- the next biggest loser is Toronto, who has 93 losses but only six games to play -- but it’s been quite the year of extremes, that’s for sure.
