Starks' latest in The Athletic is 1000% worth a read if you're a subscriber. It's really dang good. Since it's paywalled, just a few selected quotes:
Now that Astros have won World Series again, what's their place in history?Quote:
You can think whatever you want to think. You can judge them however you want to judge them. You can boo them and loathe them and call them stuff that will never make it into a script of "Teletubbies." But here's the deal with the 2017-22 Astros now that they've sealed World Series championship No. 2:
They've moved into a space where you'll find only the greatest baseball teams of modern times. I hate to break that to you, but it's true. And if you're one of those people who don't want to visit that place, guess what? They don't give all the algorithms in Texas what you think.
Quote:
Six years of ridiculous dominance
W-L: 541-329
Win percentage: .622
Games over .500: 215
Run differential: +1,167
World Series won: 2
World Series appearances: 4
ALCS appearances: 6
Quote:
Two titles and a .622 win pct.? That's greatness
I spent hours Saturday afternoon looking into every team in history that did what these Astros have now done win multiple World Series and have a winning percentage that good over six seasons. What better way to spend a Saturday afternoon, right? (Don't answer that!)
Before we get to them, it might be more impressive to mention some of the teams that aren't on the list.
The Yankees of 1996-2003? Not on it.
The Big Red Machine? Nope. Not on it.
The Orioles of the late 1960s/early '70s, the A's of the '70s, the Red Sox of the 2000s, the Giants of the 2010s? Sorry. Not there, either.
Sooo … do we have your attention yet? To find the last team to do what the 2017-22 Astros have done, you have to go back more than six decades.
Lots and lots and lots of more pretty cool stats about 4 WS in 6 years, 6 straight LCS, lose WS and then win the very next year, etc.
He did spend a little time on 2017 of course but here's his closing:
Quote:
But I started this opus by saying it was complicated. It deserves to be complicated. It doesn't matter how much they spin 2017. It doesn't matter how much they drop hints that everyone else was doing it.
It happened. It'll get talked about forever. And they'll never escape it. They'll never stop being The Team America Loves to Hate. But that's OK, too. Why don't we all just make a pact. Feel free to boo them and root for every team that plays them. But please, please, please also look at the facts.
I've given you a lot of them. They tell a story that needs to be told. This is a special team, filled with great players, run by one of the smartest front offices in any sport and managed by a human being as beloved as any who has ever managed any team. So let's feel all of those things. I honestly think that would be 100 percent cool with the Houston Astros themselves.
Really well done.
