The Best Athletics Seasons and Every October Run
Every pennant, title and postseason series in Athletics history, from Connie Mack's first champions to the five-game heartbreaks of the 2000s, with the club's best regular seasons ranked by record.
The Athletics have won nine World Series, five in Philadelphia and four in Oakland, and they have lost five more. Between those titles lie some of the most lopsided losing seasons any club has recorded, a forty-year gap in which the franchise never reached October, and a run of five-game playoff defeats in the 2000s that became its own piece of baseball folklore. The postseason story is really two stories, one set in the 1910s and 1929 to 1931 and one set in the 1970s and 1988 to 1990, with a long and mostly unhappy stretch in between.
This article walks through the whole October ledger, series by series, and ranks the regular seasons that put the club there. All records come from the historical record and run through the 2025 season. The franchise played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, in Kansas City from 1955 to 1967, in Oakland from 1968 to 2024, and in 2025 as simply the Athletics, with home games in West Sacramento, California. Kansas City never sent the club to October at all.
For the full story of how the club moved and changed, read the history of the Athletics. This piece is narrower: wins, losses, series and the seasons that mattered.
The ledger in one table
Before the eras, here is the whole résumé, as the historical record shows it. A pennant means the club won its league, which before 1969 was the only way into the World Series.
| Item | Count | Years |
|---|---|---|
| League pennants | 15 | 1902, 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1988, 1989, 1990 |
| World Series titles | 9 | 1910, 1911, 1913, 1929, 1930, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1989 |
| World Series lost | 5 | 1905, 1914, 1931, 1988, 1990 |
| Division titles | 17 | 1971 to 1975, 1981, 1988 to 1990, 1992, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2012, 2013, 2020 |
| Wild-card berths | 4 | 2001, 2014, 2018, 2019 |
The 1902 pennant produced no World Series because the modern World Series did not begin until the following year. That leaves 14 World Series appearances and a 9-5 record in them, a strong conversion rate. Counting every postseason series in the historical data, from 1905 through 2020, the club went 18-20. The wins cluster in two eras and the losses in a third, which is the shape of the rest of this article.
1902 to 1914: Connie Mack builds the first champions
Connie Mack managed the club for its first 50 seasons, from 1901 to 1950, and his record with the franchise, 3,582 wins and 3,814 losses in 7,466 games, tells you that his best teams were bunched together. The first of them won the 1902 pennant at 83-53. The club won again in 1905 at 92-56, then lost the World Series to the New York Giants, 4-1.
The great run began in 1910. The 1910 Athletics went 102-48 and beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-1. The 1911 team went 101-50 and beat the Giants, 4-2. After a third-place finish in 1912 at 90-62, the club won 96-57 in 1913 and beat the Giants again, 4-1. That is three titles in four years, with a fourth pennant in 1914 on top.
The pitching staff behind it carried a workload that modern teams would not recognize. Eddie Plank is still the club's all-time wins leader with 284, and its strikeout and shutout leader as well, with 1,985 and 59. Charles Bender won 193 for the franchise, and Rube Waddell's 1.97 earned run average with the club is the best of any pitcher with 1,000 innings for it. Eddie Collins, the second baseman, won the 1914 Most Valuable Player award, and Home Run Baker is among the Hall of Famers who played at least four seasons for the team.
The run ended with a thud. The 1914 Athletics went 99-53, won the pennant and were swept 4-0 by the Boston Braves, who are today's Atlanta Braves. Nothing in the regular-season record hinted at what was coming, and what was coming was one of the steepest drops in baseball history.
1915 to 1924: from the top to the bottom
The year after the sweep, the club went 43-109 and finished eighth. The next year was worse: 36-117 in 1916, the lowest win total in franchise history for a full schedule. The club then finished last in the eight-team American League every year through 1921, with records of 55-98 in 1917, 52-76 in 1918, 36-104 in 1919, 48-106 in 1920 and 53-100 in 1921. A seventh-place finish in 1922 and sixth and fifth after that were the improvement, and the franchise did not post a winning record again until 1925.
I will not speculate about the exact trades and sales that scattered the 1914 roster, because the historical record does not carry them. What the data shows is the scale of the swing: from 1914 to 1915 the club lost 56 wins' worth of ground in a single year, going from 99 victories to 43. It is the clearest example in the franchise's history that greatness here has always come in bursts.
1925 to 1931: the best teams the franchise ever had
Mack's second great team grew out of that rebuild, and by the record it was better than the first. The club finished second in 1925 (88-64), 1927 (91-63) and 1928 (98-55) before breaking through.
- 1929: 104-46, World Series champions. The club won the pennant and beat the Chicago Cubs 4-1.
- 1930: 102-52, World Series champions. The club beat the St. Louis Cardinals 4-2.
- 1931: 107-45, pennant winners. The 107 wins are the most in franchise history, and the .704 winning percentage is the best the club has ever posted. The St. Louis Cardinals beat them 4-3 in the World Series.
The 1931 team lost the Series in seven games. A club that wins 107 and then loses a seven-game final is the sharpest near-miss in the franchise's record. The roster read like a Hall of Fame class: Lefty Grove won the 1931 Most Valuable Player award, Jimmie Foxx won it in 1932 and 1933, and Mickey Cochrane won it in 1928. Al Simmons, whose .356 career average with the club is the best in franchise history among players with 3,000 at-bats, was in the lineup too.
The team did not fall apart overnight. The club finished second in 1932 at 94-60 and third in 1933 at 79-72, and then began the longest drought in its history.
1932 to 1970: forty years away from October
The club finished fifth in 1934 and then sank. Between 1934 and 1967 its best finish was fourth, reached in 1948 and 1952. It was last in the eight-team American League in 1935, 1936, 1938, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1945, 1946, 1950, 1954, 1956 and 1960, and last again in the ten-team league in 1964, 1965 and 1967. The 1950 season produced a 52-102 record in what turned out to be Connie Mack's final year as manager.
The club moved to Kansas City for 1955. Across 13 seasons there it never had a winning record and never finished higher than sixth, a mark reached in 1955 at 63-91. Its best attendance in the city, 1,393,054, is in the historical data, but it did not translate to wins.
The recovery began after the move to Oakland. The club went 82-80 in 1968, the first year in the new city, then 88-74 and second place in 1969 and 89-73 and second again in 1970. By then the first postseason in four decades was close at hand.
1971 to 1975: the Oakland dynasty
The 1971 club went 101-60 and won the first of five straight division titles. It lost the American League Championship Series to the Baltimore Orioles, 3-0. Then came the stretch that makes the 1970s Athletics famous: three consecutive World Series titles, the only run of three straight in franchise history.
| Year | Record | ALCS | World Series |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | 101-60 | Lost to Baltimore 0-3 | Did not play |
| 1972 | 93-62 | Beat Detroit 3-2 | Beat Cincinnati 4-3 |
| 1973 | 94-68 | Beat Baltimore 3-2 | Beat the New York Mets 4-3 |
| 1974 | 90-72 | Beat Baltimore 3-1 | Beat Los Angeles 4-1 |
| 1975 | 98-64 | Lost to Boston 0-3 | Did not play |
Three details about that table. First, two of the three titles went to seven games, so the margin was thin. Second, the 1975 club won more games than any of the champions (98, against 93, 94 and 90) and was swept in the ALCS. Third, the players were stars: Reggie Jackson won the 1973 Most Valuable Player award, Vida Blue won both the MVP and the Cy Young Award in 1971, and Catfish Hunter took the Cy Young in 1974. Rollie Fingers, who saved 136 games for the club, closed games. Dick Williams managed from 1971 to 1973 and won 288 games against 190 in that time.
The next five years were barren. The club went 87-74 and finished second in 1976, then fell to 63-98 in 1977 and 54-108 in 1979. Free agency began to change who could keep a roster together in those years, though the historical data does not carry contracts, so read that as context rather than a measured cause.
1981 to 1992: La Russa and three straight pennants
The 1981 season was split by the players' strike. The Athletics, at 64-45 on the whole year, won the division series over Kansas City 3-0 and were then swept by the New York Yankees 3-0 in the ALCS. It was a short season and a brief October.
The real revival followed Tony La Russa's arrival in 1986, a tenure that lasted until 1995 and produced 798 wins against 673 losses. The Athletics won 104 games in 1988, 99 in 1989 and 103 in 1990, three straight pennants. Jose Canseco won the Most Valuable Player award in 1988 and Rickey Henderson in 1990. Bob Welch took the Cy Young Award in 1990, and Dennis Eckersley won both the Cy Young and the MVP in 1992, a year in which his saves were part of a division title. Mark McGwire, the franchise leader with 363 home runs, and Canseco, with 254, anchored the lineup.
- 1988: 104-58, the best record of the Oakland years. The club beat Boston 4-0 in the ALCS and lost the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-1.
- 1989: 99-63. The club beat Toronto 4-1 in the ALCS and swept the San Francisco Giants 4-0 in a World Series remembered for the earthquake that interrupted it. The title was the ninth in franchise history.
- 1990: 103-59. The club swept Boston 4-0 in the ALCS, then was swept itself by Cincinnati, 4-0, in the World Series. It had drawn 2,900,217 fans that season, the highest figure in the franchise's history.
- 1992: 96-66, a division title and then a 4-2 ALCS loss to Toronto.
After 1992 the club missed October for seven seasons. It dropped to 68-94 in 1993 and did not finish above second place again until 2000, and the first sign of the next revival was an 87-75 second-place finish in 1999.
2000 to 2006: the five-game problem
The postseason experience of the Moneyball years can be summed up in one score line: 3-2. The club made the playoffs five times between 2000 and 2006 (division titles in 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2006, and a wild card in 2001) and won only one series.
| Year | Record | Series | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 91-70 | ALDS vs New York Yankees | Lost 2-3 |
| 2001 | 102-60 | ALDS vs New York Yankees | Lost 2-3 |
| 2002 | 103-59 | ALDS vs Minnesota | Lost 2-3 |
| 2003 | 96-66 | ALDS vs Boston | Lost 2-3 |
| 2006 | 93-69 | ALDS vs Minnesota | Won 3-0 |
| 2006 | 93-69 | ALCS vs Detroit | Lost 0-4 |
Four straight division series, from 2000 through 2003, went the full five games and ended in a loss. The 2002 team won 103 games and the 2001 team won 102, which are among the most wins the franchise has ever recorded, and neither survived the first round. The low-payroll, data-driven approach those teams used became famous through Michael Lewis's book Moneyball, but the lesson in the series results is a statistical one: a five-game series is short enough that the better team often loses. A club with a 60 percent chance of winning each game still loses a five-game series about one time in three.
The 2006 team finally broke the streak with a three-game sweep of Minnesota. The Detroit Tigers then swept the ALCS, and the club would not win another playoff series for 14 years. In the AL West over those seasons the Athletics shared the division with the Mariners and Angels; the 2000 race, for example, ended with Oakland at 91-70 and Seattle at 91-71, which is why the Seattle Mariners history shows a wild-card team in the same October.
Managers across the era were Art Howe (600-533, 1996 to 2002), Ken Macha (368-280, 2003 to 2006) and later Bob Melvin, whose 853-764 record with the club from 2011 to 2021 covers more games than any other Oakland-era manager.
2012 to 2020: wild cards and one-game exits
Melvin's clubs won the division in 2012 at 94-68 and 2013 at 96-66. Both teams lost the ALDS to Detroit in five games, 3-2 each time, making six five-game division series losses for the franchise since 2000 (the four above plus 2012 and 2013).
The wild-card era brought a different kind of disappointment. In 2014 the club went 88-74 and lost the one-game wild-card playoff to Kansas City. In 2018 and 2019 it won 97 games each year, finished second in the division both times, and lost the one-game playoffs to the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay, 0-1 in the series count each time. Three Octobers in six years ended after a single game.
The 2020 team, in a 60-game season, went 36-24 and won the division. It beat the Chicago White Sox 2-1 in the wild-card round, the first postseason series win for the club since 2006, and then lost the ALDS to Houston, 3-1. Houston was in the American League West by then, so a division rival ended the division winner's season. The history of the Houston Astros covers what that rival was building in those years.
The worst years, for context
A fair accounting of the best seasons has to include the troughs that bracket them, because the record is so bimodal. The five worst seasons in the historical data by winning percentage are 1916 (36-117), 1919 (36-104), 1915 (43-109), 2023 (50-112) and 1920 (48-106). The 2023 season is the lone modern entry, and it came three years after a division title. In 2024 the team finished 69-93 in its final Oakland season, and in 2025 it played in a new home and went 76-86.
The 2025 season included a Rookie of the Year winner, Nick Kurtz, the ninth in franchise history. The club's home games that year were played at Sutter Health Park, which the site's reference data lists at about 14,000 capacity, with grass and an open roof. Its listed dimensions are 330 feet to left, 403 to center and 325 to right. The club's 2025 home attendance, 768,464, was roughly a quarter of the 1990 peak. For how the park plays, read the Sutter Health Park guide. Check the club's official site for what comes after 2025.
Common questions
How many World Series have the Athletics won? Nine: 1910, 1911, 1913, 1929, 1930, 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1989. Five were won as the Philadelphia Athletics and four as the Oakland Athletics.
What was the club's best regular season? By winning percentage, 1931, when the club went 107-45. Among the Oakland seasons, 1988's 104-58 is the high mark.
Did the club ever win a title in Kansas City? No. The 13 Kansas City seasons produced no winning record in the historical data and no postseason appearance.
Which series went the distance most often? The six 3-2 division series defeats (2000 to 2003, 2012 and 2013) are the most striking, along with the seven-game World Series loss in 1931 and the seven-game wins in 1972 and 1973.
Who were the greatest players in these Octobers? The lists are long. For position-by-position rankings, see the best players in Athletics history.
Where to go next
If you want the October story in the context of the other American League West clubs, the Los Angeles Angels history covers one more rival. The history of the World Series explains the formats in which these Octobers were played. For live records, see the Athletics team page, for ballpark data the Sutter Health Park page, and for news coverage the club's topic page.