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Championship series repeats

Posted by Andy on October 9, 2009

The possibility exists that the Phillies and Dodgers will meet in the NLCS for the second straight year. That got me wondering about the last time the same two teams met up in consecutive years in either championship series. Think about it for a minute and then click through for the answer.

I'm willing to bet that a lot of you guessed the Yankees and Red Sox in 2003 and 2004. While it's true that those same 2 teams met back-to-back in the ALCS in those 2 years, it's actually been done more recently.

Check out the postseason page and see.

2008 World Series (4-1): Philadelphia Phillies (92-70, NL) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (97-65, AL)
ALCS (4-3): Tampa Bay Rays vs. Boston Red Sox* NLCS (4-1): Philadelphia Phillies vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
ALDS (3-1): BOS* vs. LAA ALDS (3-1): TBR vs. CHW NLDS (3-0): LAD vs. CHC NLDS (3-1): PHI vs. MIL*
2007 World Series (4-0): Boston Red Sox (96-66, AL) vs. Colorado Rockies* (90-73, NL)
ALCS (4-3): Boston Red Sox vs. Cleveland Indians NLCS (4-0): Colorado Rockies* vs. Arizona Diamondbacks
ALDS (3-0): BOS vs. LAA ALDS (3-1): CLE vs. NYY* NLDS (3-0): ARI vs. CHC NLDS (3-0): COL* vs. PHI
2006 World Series (4-1): St. Louis Cardinals (83-78, NL) vs. Detroit Tigers* (95-67, AL)
ALCS (4-0): Detroit Tigers* vs. Oakland Athletics NLCS (4-3): St. Louis Cardinals vs. New York Mets
ALDS (3-1): DET* vs. NYY ALDS (3-0): OAK vs. MIN NLDS (3-0): NYM vs. LAD* NLDS (3-1): STL vs. SDP
2005 World Series (4-0): Chicago White Sox (99-63, AL) vs. Houston Astros* (89-73, NL)
ALCS (4-1): Chicago White Sox vs. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim NLCS (4-2): Houston Astros* vs. St. Louis Cardinals
ALDS (3-0): CHW vs. BOS* ALDS (3-2): LAA vs. NYY NLDS (3-0): STL vs. SDP NLDS (3-1): HOU* vs. ATL
2004 World Series (4-0): Boston Red Sox* (98-64, AL) vs. St. Louis Cardinals (105-57, NL)
ALCS (4-3): Boston Red Sox* vs. New York Yankees NLCS (4-3): St. Louis Cardinals vs. Houston Astros*
ALDS (3-0): BOS* vs. ANA ALDS (3-1): NYY vs. MIN NLDS (3-1): STL vs. LAD NLDS (3-2): HOU* vs. ATL
2003 World Series (4-2): Florida Marlins* (91-71, NL) vs. New York Yankees (101-61, AL)
ALCS (4-3): New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox* NLCS (4-3): Florida Marlins* vs. Chicago Cubs
ALDS (3-1): NYY vs. MIN ALDS (3-2): BOS* vs. OAK NLDS (3-1): FLA* vs. SFG NLDS (3-2): CHC vs. ATL
2002 World Series (4-3): Anaheim Angels* (99-63, AL) vs. San Francisco Giants* (95-66, NL)
ALCS (4-1): Anaheim Angels* vs. Minnesota Twins NLCS (4-1): San Francisco Giants* vs. St. Louis Cardinals
ALDS (3-1): ANA* vs. NYY ALDS (3-2): MIN vs. OAK NLDS (3-2): SFG* vs. ATL NLDS (3-0): STL vs. ARI
2001 World Series (4-3): Arizona Diamondbacks (92-70, NL) vs. New York Yankees (95-65, AL)
ALCS (4-1): New York Yankees vs. Seattle Mariners NLCS (4-1): Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Atlanta Braves
ALDS (3-2): SEA vs. CLE ALDS (3-2): NYY vs. OAK* NLDS (3-0): ATL vs. HOU NLDS (3-2): ARI vs. STL*
2000 World Series (4-1): New York Yankees (87-74, AL) vs. New York Mets* (94-68, NL)
ALCS (4-2): New York Yankees vs. Seattle Mariners* NLCS (4-1): New York Mets* vs. St. Louis Cardinals
ALDS (3-2): NYY vs. OAK ALDS (3-0): SEA* vs. CHW NLDS (3-0): STL vs. ATL NLDS (3-1): NYM* vs. SFG

The Cardinals and Astros met in both the 2004 and 2005 NLCS.

The last time it happened in the AL was in 1977 and 1978 (Yankees and Royals.) The last time it happened in the NL was 1991 and 1992 (Braves and Pirates.)

Related posts:

    Winning Game 1 of a post-season series
    Great 1-2-3 Rotation Combos In a Best-of-7 Series
    Mailbag: World Series Winners and ERA Leaders
    Yankees’ record when facing elimination
    Division Series Odds and Ends

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Postseason. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

6 Responses to “Championship series repeats”

  1. DavidRF Says:
    October 9th, 2009 at 1:29 pm

    Might be fun listing all of them:

    AL:
    03-04 - NYY/BOS
    76-78 - NYY/KCR
    73-74 - OAK/BAL
    69-70 - BAL/MIN

    NL:
    04-05 - STL/HOU
    91-92 - ATL/PIT
    77-78 - LAD/PHI

  2. DavidRF Says:
    October 9th, 2009 at 1:36 pm

    And because it beats working... here's the WS rematches:

    77-78 - NYY/LAD
    57-58 - MLN/NYY
    55-56 - BRO/NYY
    52-53 - NYY/BRO
    42-43 - STL/NYY
    36-37 - NYY/NYG
    30-31 - PHA/STL
    21-23 - NYG/NYY
    07-08 - CHC/DET

    ... hopefully, I got them all...

  3. Andy Says:
    October 9th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    it sure does beat working, heh. thanks for doing the research.

  4. cubbies Says:
    October 9th, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    the only team to play the same teams 2 years in a row in the playoffs since the LCS started:
    yankkes 77-78(vs royals and dodgers)
    also, the world series in both years had the same outcome (yankees 4-2)

  5. Djibouti Says:
    October 9th, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    From '76-'78 12 playoff spots went to 5 different teams (NYY: 3, KCR: 3, PHI: 3, LAD: 2, CIN: 1). What's really odd is that in '79 only CIN made the playoffs, and then in '80, NYY, KCR, and PHI were all back in it. So 4 out of 5 playoff seasons featured NYY, KCR, and PHI, and the 5th had none of them.

    For comparison's sake, the last 16 playoffs spots have gone to 12 different teams.

  6. Djibouti Says:
    October 9th, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    Just for fun (also avoiding work) here's all the teams in division play that have made 3 consecutive playoffs:
    CLE '95-'99
    NYY '95-'07
    OAK '00-'03
    BOS '03-'05, '07-'09
    MIN '02-'04
    LAA '07-'09
    ATL '95-'05
    HOU '97-'99
    STL '00-'02, '04-'06
    PHI '07-'09

    So there is no 3 year period where 3 teams in the same league all made the playoffs (loose parallel to the '76-'78 playoffs). In fact, there's only two 2 year periods where 3 teams repeated and that was '02-'03 and '03-'04 both in the AL. '02-'03 had MIN, NYY, and OAK; '03-'04 had MIN, NYY, BOS. But since ANA pops in there as the odd man out in '02 and '04 we have another situation where 12 playoff spots went to 5 different teams. Extending it further to include '05, 16 possible playoff spots went to 6 different teams. The pattern of the same teams continues to repeat through the rest of the decade, but since there's only 14 teams in the league it seems silly to say how many different teams occupied 32 spots (9 in case you're wondering). I don't think any of this means anything, but it seems the NL had a lot more parody in the aughts than the AL.

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