How MLB Teams Have Fared The Year After Losing League Championship Series

The first year of Stephen Vogt’s tenure as manager of the Cleveland Guardians went about as well as anyone could imagine. The club won the American League Central by 6.5 games and made it to the AL Championship Series for the first time since 2016.

The 2024 Guardians will go down as one of the franchise’s biggest success stories, regardless of how their season ended, as they improved their win total by 16 victories year-over-year and set the bar for what the 2025 team can do.

BetOhio.com – where the best Ohio sports betting promo codes can be found – wanted to break down how MLB teams have fared the year after losing in the League Championship Series, as the Cleveland Guardians did in 2024. So we dug into baseball-reference.com to find out. These results are from all 48 LCS losing teams since 2000.

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Trends For Teams Year After Losing League Championship Series

Next Year Result	No. of Teams	Pct. Of Teams
Won World Series	4	8.3%
Lost World Series	6	12.5%
Lost Championship Series	3	6.3%
Lost Division Series	14	29.2%
Lost Wild Card Round	4	8.3%
Missed Playoffs	17	35.4%

The 46 teams that played a full season averaged 91.24 wins in the year after an LCS loss since 2000. This data excludes the COVID-shortened 2020 season.

It seems oddsmakers aren’t expecting a lot from Vogt’s bunch in his second season with the team. DraftKings Ohio Sportsbook lists Cleveland at +300 odds to win the AL Central again, as of Feb. 13. That ranks fourth out of five teams, behind the Minnesota Twins (+210), Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers (+270 each). Throw in a preseason win total over/under of 82.5 and you have a decent idea of where the oddsmakers at DraftKings see Cleveland going this season, though the Guardians are more than capable of proving naysayers wrong.

How Have MLB LCS Losers Fared?

This analysis is part of our Ohio sports betting coverage at BetOhio.com.

This century, the losers of the MLB’s Championship Series from both leagues have mostly fared well the following season all in all. Of the 48 teams, four of them (or 8.3% of the total) won the World Series the following year and another six (12.5%) reached the World Series but lost.

Most memorably for Buckeye State fans and Ohio sportsbook apps customers, the 2016 Chicago Cubs were one of those teams. A year after losing the NLCS to the New York Mets, the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years, beating Cleveland in a seven-game series and erasing a 3-1 series deficit to do so.

Of the 48 LCS losers, 17 (or 35.4%) made the postseason the following season, with the most common playoff round of defeat being the MLB Divisional Series, where 14 of the 48 teams (or 29.2%) fell. Three of the 48 team (or 6.3%) that lost a League Championship Series were eliminated at the same stage again the following year. That included the 2015 and 2016 Toronto Blue Jays; the latter, of course, lost to Cleveland.

For Vogt’s bunch, the goal is to join the likes of the 2021 Atlanta Braves, 2016 Cubs, 2006 St. Louis Cardinals and 2004 Boston Red Sox in hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy one year after being eliminated in an LCS. Cleveland looks to win it all for the first time since 1948 and the bet365 Ohio Sportsbook gives the Guardians +2800 odds to do so.

USA Today photo by Vincent Carchietta

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Author

Christopher Boan

Christopher Boan writes for BetOhio.com and has been covering sports and sports betting for more than seven years, with experience at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.