SeriesPost table

Post season series information

Usage

data(SeriesPost)

Format

A data frame with 440 observations on the following 9 variables.

yearID

Year

round

Level of playoffs

teamIDwinner

Team ID of the team that won the series; a factor

lgIDwinner

League ID of the team that won the series; a factor with levels AL NL

teamIDloser

Team ID of the team that lost the series; a factor

lgIDloser

League ID of the team that lost the series; a factor with levels AL NL

wins

Wins by team that won the series

losses

Losses by team that won the series

ties

Tie games

Source

Lahman, S. (2026) Lahman's Baseball Database, 1871-2025, 2026 version, https://sabr.org/lahman-database/

Examples

data(SeriesPost)

# How many times has each team won the World Series?

# Notes: 
# - the SeriesPost table includes an identifier for the 
# team (teamID), but not the franchise (e.g. the Brooklyn Dodgers
# [BRO] and Los Angeles Dodgers [LAN] are counted separately)
#
# - the World Series was first played in 1903, but the 
# Lahman data tables have the final round of the earlier 
# playoffs labelled "WS", so it is necessary to
# filter the SeriesPost table to exclude years prior to 1903. 

# using the dplyr data manipulation package
library("dplyr")
library("tidyr")
library("ggplot2")

## WS winners, arranged in descending order of titles won
ws_winner_table <- SeriesPost %>%
  filter(yearID > "1902", round == "WS") %>%
  group_by(teamIDwinner) %>%
  summarise(wincount = n()) %>%
  arrange(desc(wincount))
ws_winner_table
#> # A tibble: 31 × 2
#>    teamIDwinner wincount
#>    <fct>           <int>
#>  1 NYA                27
#>  2 SLN                11
#>  3 BOS                 9
#>  4 LAN                 8
#>  5 CIN                 5
#>  6 NY1                 5
#>  7 PHA                 5
#>  8 PIT                 5
#>  9 DET                 4
#> 10 OAK                 4
#> # ℹ 21 more rows

## Expanded form of World Series team data in modern era

ws <- SeriesPost %>%
        filter(yearID >= 1903 & round == "WS") %>%
        select(-ties, -round) %>%
        mutate(lgIDloser = droplevels(lgIDloser),
               lgIDwinner = droplevels(lgIDwinner))

# Bar chart of length of series (# games played)
# 1903, 1919 and 1921 had eight games
ggplot(ws, aes(x = wins + losses)) +
  geom_bar(fill = "dodgerblue") +
  labs(x = "Number of games", y = "Frequency")


# Last year the Cubs appeared in the WS
ws %>% 
  filter(teamIDwinner == "CHN" | teamIDloser == "CHN") %>% 
  summarise(max(yearID))
#>   max(yearID)
#> 1        2016

# Dot chart of number of WS appearances by teamID
ws %>% 
  gather(wl, team, teamIDwinner, teamIDloser) %>%
  count(team) %>%
  arrange(desc(n)) %>%
  ggplot(., aes(x = reorder(team, n), y = n)) +
    theme_bw() +
    geom_point(size = 3, color = "dodgerblue") +
    geom_segment(aes(xend = reorder(team, n), yend = 0), 
                 linetype = "dotted", color = "dodgerblue", 
                 size = 1) +
    labs(x = NULL, y = "Number of WS appearances") +
    scale_y_continuous(expand = c(0, 0), limits = c(0, 42)) +
    coord_flip() +
    theme(axis.text.y = element_text(size = rel(0.8)),
          axis.ticks.y = element_blank())
#> Warning: attributes are not identical across measure variables; they will be dropped


# Initial year of each round of championship series in modern era
SeriesPost %>% 
    filter(yearID >= 1903) %>%   # modern WS started in 1903
    group_by(round) %>%
    summarise(first_year = min(yearID)) %>%
    arrange(first_year)
#> # A tibble: 28 × 2
#>    round first_year
#>    <chr>      <int>
#>  1 WS          1903
#>  2 NWS         1924
#>  3 NNC         1925
#>  4 NSC         1932
#>  5 NLC         1934
#>  6 ALC         1937
#>  7 NLP1        1939
#>  8 NLP2        1939
#>  9 ALCS        1969
#> 10 NLCS        1969
#> # ℹ 18 more rows

# Ditto, but with more information about each series played
SeriesPost %>% 
  filter(yearID >= 1903) %>%
  group_by(round) %>%
  arrange(yearID) %>%
  do(head(., 1)) %>%
  select(-lgIDwinner, -lgIDloser) %>%
  arrange(yearID, round)
#> # A tibble: 28 × 7
#> # Groups:   round [28]
#>    yearID round teamIDwinner teamIDloser  wins losses  ties
#>     <int> <chr> <fct>        <fct>       <int>  <int> <int>
#>  1   1903 WS    BOS          PIT             5      3     0
#>  2   1924 NWS   KCM          HIL             5      4     1
#>  3   1925 NNC   KCM          SLS             4      3     0
#>  4   1932 NSC   CAG          NEG             4      3     0
#>  5   1934 NLC   PS           CAG             4      3     1
#>  6   1937 ALC   KCM          CAG             4      1     1
#>  7   1939 NLP1  BEG          NE              3      1     0
#>  8   1939 NLP2  HG           PS              3      2     0
#>  9   1969 ALCS  BAL          MIN             3      0     0
#> 10   1969 NLCS  NYN          ATL             3      0     0
#> # ℹ 18 more rows