Twenty years ago, MLB’s pennant winners faced off to decide something more than the World Series. The Yankees and the Braves weren’t just trying to be the champions of 1999; they were jockeying for the title of team of the decade. “Instead of playing for one year,” Yankees pitcher David Cone said, “we’re playing for 10.”
The Braves had engraved “Team of the 90’s” on their 1995 World Series rings, which proved premature. Four years later, GM John Schuerholz explained that the team had stolen the moniker from the press, protesting, “We didn’t designate ourselves that.” The ’99 conversation was mostly a media creation; when Bud Selig gave the victorious Yankees the Commissioner’s Trophy, he didn’t also anoint them the team of the decade. And while Cone, the future media member, was willing to play along, most members of the competing teams downplayed the debate.
“Team of the decade? Big deal,” Braves right fielder Brian Jordan said. A writer for the Gannett News Service, searching for a kicker and stymied by dismissive or noncommittal quotes from Brian Cashman, Bobby Cox, Joe Torre, and Paul O’Neill, resorted to citing reliever Allen Watson, then a Yankee for all of three months. Watson obliged with, “These two teams were always in it in the ’90s. This will be the clincher.”
The Yankees swept the series, which seemed to seal the deal. The Braves had beaten the Yankees by 74 cumulative regular-season wins from 1990-99, but in contemporary writers’ eyes, the Yankees’ three championships, three pennants, and five playoff appearances (three via division title) trumped the Braves’ one championship, five pennants, and eight playoff appearances (all via division title).
The 2019 World Series didn’t feature two teams that owned the 2010s the way the Yankees and Braves owned the 1990s. But the Astros-Nationals showdown, which the Nationals won in seven games, did have the potential to decide a decade that was still up for grabs. The 2010s may be baseball’s least clear-cut decade ever. Had they clinched their second championship in three years, the Astros could have bolstered their claim to the mostly-meaningless-but-still-fun-to-talk-about title, but their defeat calls their candidacy into question.
Historically speaking, the through line in the “team of the decade” debate is that the Yankees usually win. The Cubs and Red Sox, respectively, took the first two decades of the 20th century, but since Babe Ruth arrived in the Bronx, the Yankees have arguably only missed out on the unofficial honor twice, in the 1970s (A’s over the Reds) and 1980s (close call, but probably the Dodgers). The Yankees won the most regular-season games in the 2010s, as they had in the ’80s, but for the first time since the 1910s, they didn’t win a World Series or a pennant. As 1980s Yankee Dave Winfield told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in the ’90s, “Since we didn’t win a World Series, it’s difficult to come up with the right way to describe what we did. I guess you could call us a significant team of that decade.” The Yankees were a significant team of the 2010s, too, but they weren’t the team of the decade.
So, which team was? As always, the most interesting aspect of this exercise isn’t the answer, but the criteria by which one picks a winner. As Rafael Palmeiro asked back in ’99, “How do you judge the team of the decade? Is it on championships or on postseason appearances? How do you do it?”
We could come up with a points system to settle this—this many points for a championship, this many points for a pennant, that many points for a postseason appearance—but that wouldn’t make this endeavor any less arbitrary than it already is, so let’s just try to talk it out. As I see it, there are seven clubs with serious claims to the crown. Let’s take them one at a time, listed alphabetically by city. (We’ll sidestep the age-old fight about the definition of a decade; apologies to the people who think this decade began in 2011.)
Boston Red Sox
Pros: They won the World Series in 2013 and 2018, which made them the only franchise with championships in both halves of the decade, and they won four division titles. The 2018 squad was one of the most successful teams of all time, winning 108 games and blitzing the Yankees, Astros, and Dodgers 11-3 in October. David Ortiz said, “This is our fucking city,” which may have been baseball’s most inspiring sound bite of the past 10 years.
Cons: Including postseason games, they tied with Cleveland for the fifth-most wins during the decade, finishing 15 behind the Nationals. Maybe it shouldn’t matter how you win your championships, but the 2013 title kind of came out of nowhere, sandwiched between two last-place finishes (and three in four years). The two title winners had almost nothing in common: Xander Bogaerts was the only member of both the 2013 and 2018 World Series rosters. The Red Sox cycled through four heads of the baseball operations department and four field managers. Again, you can consider continuity irrelevant, but can a team be the best of the decade if it always wanted to change leadership?
Chicago Cubs
Pros: If you were filling in a time traveler from late 2009 on the events of the past 10 years in baseball, what’s the first thing you would tell them? The Cubs won the World Series. To impartial observers, the Cubs’ 2016 title was the narrative peak of the 2010s. It transcended the sport in a way that no other championship did this decade or likely ever will again.
Cons: The Cubs won only two division titles, and the dynasty they seemed to be building in 2016 has fizzled thus far, heading downhill fast from great team to good team to one-and-done wild-card winner to third-place finisher and playoff no-show. Concurrently, the Astros superseded them on the influencer front, as their even more drastic teardown produced a more well-rounded core that didn’t suffer from the Cubs’ problems with pitching development.
Houston Astros
Pros: They won one World Series, two pennants, and three division titles and made the playoffs four times. Their three-year run from 2017-19 is one of the winningest of all time: They became the sixth team to win at least 100 games in back-to-back-to-back seasons, and of the previous five, only the 1969-1971 Orioles won more total games. While the 2019 Astros fell two wins short of the 2018 Red Sox (including one all-important World Series win), they were still the most talented team of the decade, and probably one of the most talented teams of all time. (If we’re going on talent and underlying performance rather than record and rings, the Astros may have been better than the Red Sox last year, too.) The Astros were also the decade’s most innovative and influential team, for good or ill: They pioneered tanking, and they were the first team to embrace the revolution in player development that initiated a new phase in front-office maneuvering, athletic training, and player approach. Oh, and they had José Altuve.
Cons: It’s not clear that the “team of the decade” criteria includes a character clause, which could disqualify the Astros—although they wouldn’t be the only team of the decade to have behaved badly—but there are good arguments against them that rest only on field-level flaws. Although they finished just behind the Dodgers for the most wins in the second half of the decade, they won the fewest games in the first half of the decade. The 2010 and 2014 Astros were bad, and the 2011-13 Astros were abysmal and embarrassing. They lost the most games over a three-year span since the expansion ’60s Mets, lowlighted by a 4-34 stretch in 2012 that marked the most losses in a span of so many games since 1916. Although their extreme rebuild paid dividends, the Astros finished 15th in wins (including playoffs) during the decade as a whole. Can we crown a club the team of the decade if it was the worst team for half that time and, for a while, one of the worst teams ever?
Los Angeles Dodgers
Pros: The Dodgers had the Yankees’ decade, but better. Counting postseason games, the Dodgers edged out the Yankees for the most wins of the 2010s, with 952. They tied the Yankees for the most playoff appearances of the decade (seven), but all of the Dodgers’ playoff appearances came via division title, whereas the Yankees won four wild cards. Also unlike the Yankees, the Dodgers won two pennants. By WAR, Clayton Kershaw was the best pitcher of the decade and the best player not named Mike Trout.
Flags fly forever, so one could argue that the Royals are more deserving than the Dodgers of a place in this discussion: The Royals were one of the decade’s most exciting teams, but going up against multiple teams with as many or more titles and many more wins and postseason appearances, the Royals can’t win an argument on those grounds. The Dodgers’ case is compelling in a different way. Speaking about the Braves in ’99, Torre said, “They’re there every single year, going to postseason play. To me, that’s emblematic of a very successful franchise.” Or as then–Astros GM Gerry Hunsicker said, “Yes, getting to the World Series is the goal of every team, but consistency is more important. That’s the no. 1 criteria for evaluating a franchise.” If so, the Dodgers did better than anyone.
Cons: They didn’t win a World Series. That’s it. It’s the only strike against them, but it’s a big one.
San Francisco Giants
Pros: The argument for the Giants is simple and persuasive: Count the rings. The Giants won the World Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014, which gives them the most titles of the 2010s. After factoring in framing, Buster Posey led non-Trout position players in WAR, and Madison Bumgarner led the majors in championship win probability added. By, like, a lot.
Cons: The Giants won only two division titles (in weak divisions) and made the playoffs only once outside of their championship years. They won more than 88 games twice, never won more than 94, and ranked ninth overall including playoffs in wins during the decade. “Even-year magic” was fun for a while, but it only underscored the fact that the Giants weren’t good enough to qualify for the playoffs in back-to-back years. Unless you think winning the World Series makes a team the best by default, the Giants were never the best team in their league, let alone in the majors. Can you be the team of the decade without ever coming close to being the best team in one year?
St. Louis Cardinals
Pros: Judging by wins and playoff appearances, the Cardinals had the best decade of any team that wasn’t shut out in October. They won one World Series and two pennants, trailed only the Yankees and Dodgers in wins and playoff appearances (six), and were the only non-Yankees team to finish with a winning record every year. They won 35 postseason games, the most of any team in the 2010s.
Cons: The Cardinals were always good, but rarely really great: Only once did they outdo every other team in wins, with 100 in 2015, and even then the Blue Jays had the better Pythagorean record. Three other teams won more rings, so the Cardinals’ case is kind of a hybrid: They weren’t the most successful team in terms of either titles or wins, and it’s tough to be the team of the decade by combining a bit of both columns but not topping either.
Washington Nationals
Pros: They won a World Series, and they did it in historic fashion. Not only did the Nats get off to the slowest regular-season start by a World Series winner and defeat the strongest-ever slate of post–wild card opponents, as measured by combined regular-season wins (304, by the Dodgers, Cardinals, and Astros), but they trailed in five elimination games and came back to win them all, something no previous postseason team had done even four times. The Nats tied for the fourth-most playoff appearances during the decade and finished with the fourth-most wins. They also introduced us to perhaps the most highly touted hitting and pitching prospects ever in Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg, and their decision to shut down Strasburg in 2012 was a watershed in the history of pitcher usage and protecting pitcher health.
Cons: Until they went all the way this season, they hadn’t won a postseason series. Maybe that made their eventual victory even sweeter, but for much of the decade they were regarded as underachievers.
The Verdict
I’m not enough of an October truther to pick the Dodgers based on their big-sample regular-season success; I’m treading close to the tired rhetorical territory of “It’s not best player, it’s most valuable player” here, but you can’t be the team of the decade if you didn’t win even one championship, the objective every team is trying to attain. The decade’s 10 titles were distributed over seven teams, but for me the discussion comes down to two of them: the Giants and the Astros. This is a study in contrasts: first half of the decade vs. second half of the decade, old-school vs. new-school, regular-season lightweights that excelled in the playoffs vs. regular-season juggernauts that won two penants and a title of their own. Considering their extended dry spells, either one would probably be the most imperfect team of the decade that the sport has ever seen. There’s no unassailable answer.
Based on my brief survey of earlier eras, every previous team of the decade has won the most titles or at least tied for the most titles during that time. Picking the Astros over the Giants would be a break from tradition. And if we were bestowing this laurel to the team that provided the most blissful fan experience, the Giants would be the better choice. They offered their supporters more parades, shorter stretches of abject futility and, perhaps, fewer ethical quandaries. If we could all go back to January 1, 2010 and choose a trajectory for our favorite team to have over the next 10 years, it would be the Giants’. Maybe that makes them the team of the decade.
As dynasties go, though, the Giants’ was the weirdest ever. The Giants made the most of a period of unusual parity and unpredictability, when the league was largely devoid of the superteams that formed in the second half of the decade. It wouldn’t be fair to call their postseason success a fluke, but in the time of 10 playoff teams and two wild cards, October success is so subject to randomness that it seems simplistic to turn the “team of the decade” decision into an addition problem that considers one qualification alone. It would be just as reductive to choose Houston because bookstores sell Astroball and not Sabeanball, and taking the team with more rings almost always is the right choice, because winning the World Series three times typically coincides with unsurpassed skill. The Giants are just outliers that mystified us in 2014 and continue to confuse us today. We’re warily circling the continual tug of war between process and outcome, a philosophical fight that will rage for many decades to come.
So, somewhat reluctantly, and acknowledging the perils of recency bias, I’ve reached a 51/49 conclusion: The Astros are the team of the 2010s. Frankly, I’d defend this selection more forcefully if Game 7 had played out differently and George Springer’s second-inning liner had dropped, or Yordan Álvarez’s third-inning flyout had gone a few feet farther, or Howie Kendrick’s seventh-inning backbreaker had gone a few feet foul; then the Astros would have had a more unimpeachable résumé. Is it silly that the outcome of a single game can affect how I feel about a whole decade? Yes. But no one ever said this exercise was serious. Any Giants fans who feel bitter about it can console themselves by rewatching their three sets of World Series DVDs.
In their final form, the Astros surpassed every other collection of talent assembled since 2010, if not since baseball began. Their extreme rebuild set the tone for the teens, providing proof of concept for a model that spread not just within baseball, but to other sports. Between tanking and data-driven development, they were the earliest and most aggressive adopters of this era’s most momentous disruptions in roster construction. As a result, they’re the franchise that every team was or is trying to emulate, and—here’s the historian’s perspective, not the fan’s—the one that will likely seem most synonymous with this moment when we look back in later years.
That doesn’t mean the Astros were the greatest successes or good for the game, but they were the team that embodied and best explained the game as it functioned from 2010 to 2019. In some respects, this decade didn’t have a happy ending. It didn’t even have a happy ending for Houston! But for better or worse, the story of the 2010s starts and ends with the Astros.
Thanks to Lucas Apostoleris of Baseball Prospectus for research assistance.
