Cross-Sport Champion: Hubs 7-12
My quest to find the best quad-sport hub across the last year of full sports seasons has reached the second-to-last segment, and with it a change in tone.
I was somewhat surprised when doing this, but there weren’t many individual standout teams among the bad performers. The 103-59 Yankees elevated their New York hub, and the AFC finalist Titans added a nice bump to the Tennessee hub, but there wasn’t a team in the bottom 18 hubs that even reached their sport’s championship game, let alone a title. When I started this, I figured there would be a champion in some sport whose compatriots all had miserable seasons, and we’d see the 0.16 boost somewhere in the lower tiers. But we don’t see our first 0.16 until the second half of today’s entrants, and we don’t even get a 0.08 second-place boost until even further along the line.
It’s just interesting, is all. It makes sense that teams giving their crews a big boost would then land higher in the rankings — that’s what “boost” means — but I admit it surprised me.
On to Hubs 7-12.
(Keep up with the series so far with the breakdown, Hubs 25-30, Hubs 19-24, and Hubs 13-18.)
T12. Ghostbusters (New York 2 combined result: 0.556)
New York Giants: 4-12
New York Mets: 86-76
Brooklyn Nets: 42-40
New York Islanders: 48-34
Bonus awarded: 0.01 for Nets’ playoff appearance; 0.02 for Islanders’ second-round playoff loss
Listen, if we initiated this in real life I have no idea if the teams and fans would care, really. It’s just a silly extra thing to monitor that doesn’t actually matter. I like to think it’d be fun, but maybe it would be largely ignored across the sports world. But I very much believe that, based on these results, Giants/Mets/Nets/Islanders fans would laugh forever about comfortably bested their New York City counterparts in the Jets/Yankees/Knicks/Rangers. That much I’m pretty sure of.
11. The Hangover (Las Vegas combined result: 0.564)
Las Vegas Raiders: 7-9
Oakland Athletics: 97-65
Sacramento Kings: 39-43
Vegas Golden Knights: 43-39
Bonus awarded: 0.01 for Athletics’ playoff appearance; 0.01 for Golden Knights’ playoff appearance
The Raiders finishing 7-9 last year actually surprised me, and I had to follow them for my job. It just never felt like a 7-9 team. I do appreciate the parallel of the Kings and Golden Knights having reverse records, which is fun to see if not actually meaningful except to show that those two were comfortably 0.500 combined. And sorry, Billy Beane, your shit still doesn’t work in the playoffs.
10. The Mighty Ducks (Minneapolis combined result: 0.578)
Minnesota Vikings: 10-6
Minnesota Twins: 101-61
Minnesota Timberwolves: 36-46
Minnesota Wild: 37-45
Bonus awarded: 0.02 for Vikings’ second-round playoff loss; 0.02 for Twins’ second-round playoff loss
The football/hockey contingent here was just along for the ride, while the baseball/football side of things really did the heavy lifting. Both the Vikings and Twins had strong regular seasons combined with a trip to the second round of the playoffs (the Vikings by beating the Saints in the Wild Card round, the Twins by not having to play in the Wild Card game to begin with). That shows how this goes: You can have two good teams and two not-good teams and have a strong enough (10th place!) finish, but you’re still clearly outside of the upper tier (just take a look at the combined result of Hub 9 in about one line of text).
9. The Wizard of Oz (Kansas City combined result: 0.620)
Kansas City Chiefs: 12-4
Kansas City Royals: 59-103
Utah Jazz: 50-32
Buffalo Sabres: 33-49
Bonus awarded: 0.16 for Chiefs’ championship; 0.01 for Jazz’ playoff appearance
This, I think, is how it should work. If there were no playoff bonuses awarded, this hub would have had a combined result of 0.450, sixth-worst in the league. If the Chiefs had lost in the Super Bowl instead of winning, it would have been 0.560, a few notches lower. But a championship run gets heavily rewarded … as, I think, it should be. I don’t subscribe to “any season that doesn’t end in a championship was a failure” or anything like that, but you still should get a pretty heavy bonus for winning it all. (Also, look at the gap between KC and Minneapolis. 0.620 to 0.578. That’s what it means to win a crown.)
8. Magic Mike XXL (Tampa combined result: 0.645)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 7-9
Tampa Bay Rays: 96-66
Orlando Magic: 42-40
Tampa Bay Lighting: 62-20
Bonus awarded: 0.02 for Rays’ second-round playoff loss; 0.01 for Magic’s playoff appearance; 0.01 for Lightning’s playoff appearance
Even small bonuses carry significance; it took us until the No. 8 hub to find one where three of its member all made their respective postseasons, even if only one of the (the Rays) even advanced at all, and the Rays only by winning a one-game series against the A’s 1-0. Of course, to even make the playoffs a team needs to have a strong contribution to its hub’s total, but the bonuses add up as well.
7. Good Will Hunting (Boston combined result: 0.677)
New England Patriots: 12-4
Boston Red Sox: 84-78
Boston Celtics: 49-33
Boston Bruins: 49-33
Bonus awarded: 0.01 for Patriots’ playoff appearance; 0.02 for Celtics’ second-round playoff loss; 0.08 for Bruins’ championship loss
It literally took us until Hub No. 7 to find a championship-round losing team, and this also marks the first team in this exercise in which all four teams finished above .500. Imagine how it might have gone if the Red Sox had played to anywhere near expectations. But regardless, the Boston hub continues what almost certainly (I don’t dare go back and check) the best run of success for any hub in this exercise over the last several years.