Very interesting article. I hope we are at 5 as well.

I don't think this team makes the playoffs next season, 2016 seems a likely time to pick, but I agree 2017/2018 maybe a safer pick.

Interesting data set to ponder. Hopefully we're done with 90+ loss seasons.

Since you have the data, let me as a slightly different question. Of teams that lost 90 games in a season, what percentage made it to the playoffs after 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, etc.?

So, for instance, say we look at the teams that lost 90 game in 2010, 2011 and 2012:

24 Teams had 90 losses in those 3 seasons. Of them, 4 made it back to the postseson the next year. That's 25%.

18 of those teams have had up to two years to bounce back, and of those, 5 have (that includes those that bounced back in 1 year). That's 28%.

12 of those teams have had up to three years to bounce back, and five of them have (again, including those that bounced back in years 1 or 2). That's 42%.

BTW, among those teams that haven't yet, there are Washington, the Royals and Seattle, all of whom could do it this year.

Good question, John.  Looking at the data that way removes the skew in the average from teams that have taken the long route in their rebuild.  We can add 2011 and 2012 to get a few more data points.

41 teams lost 90 games and faced a rebuild.  8 of them made the playoffs the next year (19.5%).

36 of them have had at least 5 years since that first 90 loss season.  20 of them had made the playoffs by that point (55.6%).

After 11 years, 90.6% of the teams had made it back to the playoffs.

The Royals are the team that break the chart.  Every other team with at least 15 years since losing 90 games has made the playoffs.

Looking at the data this way gives us an average rebuild of more like 4-5 years.  If the Twins don't make the playoffs by 2016, they'll be beyond the average rebuild time.

P.S. Joe Mauer.

Interesting numbers. Thanks for the breakdown. I think we can take away from this that rebuilds take time. Few teams can flip their fortunes from awful to good in a single season.

First, thank you very much for that breakdown. That is much more clear.

The question is whether we should be focusing on the first year of those 90 loss seasons or the last year. Unfortunately, for this data, it's the last, which puts the "reubild" out to the end of the decade.

I don't feel like that's accurate in this case - there are signs of a steadily improving organization and talent level just below the surface of the majors. But it shows that it ain't easy to bounce back from 90 loss seasons.

Hey John, the data is in fact from the first 90 loss season and not the most recent. Additional 90 loss seasons are ignored after the first one until the team makes the playoffs. So, for the Twins that is 2011 and they are included in the teams that have had 1 and 2 seasons to rebuild. The Cubs, for example, show up multiple times as they went from 90 losses to playoffs and back to 90 losses with 2011 being most recent.