The View From Wisconsin

The Milwaukee Brewers have the second longest drought between playoff appearances among current major league franchises. The team with the longest current drought, of course, is the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals franchise, which hasn't played a post season game since 1981.

The five longest playoff appearance "droughts:

1. Washington/Montreal, 26 seasons
2. Milwaukee, 25 seasons
3. Kansas City, 22 seasons
4. Pittsburgh, 15 seasons
5. Toronto, 14 seasons
   

Philadelphia is on the verge of breaking its tie with the Blue Jays for fifth - if, of course, they can hold off the Mets this weekend.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays, of course, don't quite count, since they've never hosted a post-season game in their franchise history (and, at the rate they're going, they never will).

As for League Pennant droughts:

1. Chicago Cubs, 62 seasons
2. Texas Rangers (fka Washington Senators), 46 years (longest w/o a World Series appearance as a franchise)
3. Seattle Mariners, 30 seasons (no pennants)
4. Pittsburgh Pirates, 28 seasons
5. Washington Nationals (fka Montreal Expos), 26 seasons (no pennants)

And, of course, the World Championship droughts (for teams that have actually won a World Series):

1. Chicago Cubs, 99 seasons
2. Cleveland Indians, 59 seasons
3. San Francisco (then New York) Giants, 53 seasons
4. Pittsburgh Pirates, 28 seasons
5. Philadelphia Phillies, 27 seasons

This begs for a "futility index" - a measure of the absolute frustration of the fans of a particular team, when it comes to years between post-season success. For our purposes, this would be three points for each year since the last playoff appearance, two for each year since last league title, and one point for each year since their last world championship banner. Teams that haven't won any of those are only counted back to their first year in the majors (thankfully).

And the "futility index" top ten:

1. Chicago Cubs, 223 points
2. Washington Nationals, 168 points
3. Milwaukee Brewers, 163 points
4. Texas Rangers, 162 points
5. Kansas City Royals, 132 points
6. Pittsburgh Pirates, 129 points
7. Seattle Mariners, 108 points
8. Baltimore Orioles, 102 points
9. Cleveland Indians, 97 points
10. Philadelphia Phillies, 97 points*
11. Cincinnati Reds, 87 points

* - Should the Phillies win the Eastern Division title, their Futility score will drop to 55 points, and the Reds will move into 10th.