2024 MLB playoffs: Ranking teams by World Series pressure - ESPN

Which playoff team most needs to win the World Series?

Fans of each team currently vying for the 2024 title would surely say, «Mine!» Nevertheless, every team has a different context, one that builds and ebbs and flows with each season. Teams age. Free agents leave and arrive. Playoff disappointments pile up. Playoff absences chafe.

Each season, we assess franchises by employing an old Bill James method for calculating «pressure points.» The basic version assumes that the more success a team has without winning it all, the more their pressure builds. Not until they win it all does that pressure finally release, resetting the valve, and everyone who follows that team can relax. Thus, by that token, only fans of the Texas Rangers are currently in a state of pure release — because Texas won last year.

This time, we mixed things up a little to account for other forms of pressure to create a new Pressure Index. Let's see how it all came out.

Here are the factors, ranked in order by the weight they carry in the final calculation:

1. Drought pressure. This is all about flags, both World Series titles and pennants. The championship part of this factor counts twice as much as the pennant factor and there is a cap on how many points a team can accumulate. The only capped-out drought team right now is in the playoffs: The Cleveland Guardians, owners of baseball's longest title drought. Teams coming off a title have no drought pressure.

2. Knock-knock pressure. There is a whole different pressure for a franchise that lingers well below .500 year after year than one who consistently plays winning baseball and yet can't seem to get anywhere in October. Looking at the most recent 25-year window, the knock-knock factor counts winning