Standout One-Hit Wonder Teams

[LAWeaver]

What about the Phillies in 08? I don't think they've made the postseason since, but then again, I'm not a huge fan of baseball

[Cosmic]

2007 Buffalo Sabres

They went to Game 7 of the conference finals the year before and probably only lost because of injury, but they do sort of fit the spirit of this thread because those were two great seasons in a sea of bad. The team was pre-adapted to the tight game the refs were calling immediately after the first lockout.

[Sport]

What about the Phillies in 08? I don't think they've made the postseason since, but then again, I'm not a huge fan of baseball

Guess not. They made the playoffs in 07, lost the World Series in 6 in 09, lost the NLCS in 2010, and lost the NLDS in 2011. They were one of the top teams for a decent stretch there.

[TalktoChuck]

2007 Colorado Rockies

This has to be one of the flukiest one-hit wonders too. That team had no business getting in the playoffs, let alone getting to the World Series.

[Kramerica Industries]

The 2008 Phillies defended their title better than any other team since the '99 Yankees, in the sense that they repeated as league champions in 2009 before losing in the World Series. They also posted the league's best record in 2010 (97-65) and 2011 (102-60). There's a bemusing irony that they won their "only" World Series when they were at their weakest (91 wins and of the eventual Roy Halladay/Cole Hamels/Roy Oswalt/Cliff Lee four-some, only Hamels was there in 2008), but that's the way things are.

The 2004 Tampa Bay Lightning are only "one-hit" because of seriously unfortunate circumstances beyond their control. That team had risen quite sharply between 2002 and 2003, taking the eventual champions to five games and three overtimes in the second round in 2003, and won the Cup a season later with a seriously young core (their purported big three was 28 [st. Louis] and 24 [Lecavalier and Richards]). The lockout destroyed that team's ascendancy track. Whether they would've won future Cups is up for debate, but they came back from the lockout without their Cup-winning goalie, and it took them over seven years to finally find another who would be around long-term.

And I'll echo the comments about the 2005 Houston Astros. Yeah, it was tough for them following Beltran's departure after his godly 2004 playoff year, but they were one win away from the World Series in 2004 (where they likely get wrecked by the American League winner; sigh) and finally got over that hump after some trying circumstances in 2005. Those consecutive Houston/St. Louis NLCS meetings in 2004 and 2005 are a rather underrated part of recent baseball memory, but that's likely a result of the NL being so clearly the inferior league around this time (the disparity was enormous around the mid-to-late '00s) and the fact that the Yankees/Red Sox thing was at its peak around this exact same time. Doesn't take brain surgery to figure out which rivalry got more attention.

[The_Admiral]

Those consecutive Houston/St. Louis NLCS meetings in 2004 and 2005 are a rather underrated part of recent baseball memory

Properly rated as crappy.

[Kramerica Industries]

I dunno, were they really that crappy or is that more of a "fan of a different NL Central team from those two NL Central teams" sort of deal, especially with regard to the Cubs and their late-season collapse in 2004? 2004 was a seven game series with a pair of walk-offs in the fifth and sixth games, and 2005 looked like Houston was prime to advance, then Albert Pujols happened to Brad Lidge, and the Astros had to find a way to win the series in St. Louis, which they had failed to do a year earlier. I know I'm reaching into my biases by this point, but the consecutive NLCS meetings there should've rated as better than the consecutive ALCS meetings in 2003 and 2004, but that's because the selfish and "3-0, g-ddammit" person in me feels 2004 should've ended in a sweep.

(forgive me, I just woke up from a weird nap and am kinda writing in a daze, so I might be making no sense ATM. I see an emoticon but I can't figure out the way in which it's being used.)

[The_Admiral]

I just loathed those Clemens teams so much. The Astros were the "boring bunch of white guys" team before the Cardinals ever were. Speaking of being overlooked, Phil Garner is underrated as one of baseball's great imbeciles.

[ninersdd]

Yeah I remember I didn't really like the Astros then. I was seriously considering rooting for the Yankees had they met in the World Series that year.(which was very close to happening)

[Kramerica Industries]

hah, ok, point taken on that one. I almost certainly would hold the same POV if I hadn't been blinded from it at a younger age. I never said that I had a sense of ethics some ten years ago. If I did, I would've been a Mets fan.

--

I feel like baseball is loaded with great one-hit wonder type teams from the pre-1969 era, so we have to tread carefully if we're delving into this era. The 1950 Phillies work, and the 1914 Boston Braves are an incredible example of this. The 1954 New York Giants would be a horrible example, however, as the Giants were an NL superpower around this time but, well, only made it to the World Series in the years when they finished #1 in their league, obviously. I feel like it was during that 1903-1968 time period where we probably got the truest World Series champions, only because some 83-win team couldn't sneak in by virtue of winning a horrible division and then slide past an overachiever, the Mets, and a team who had pitchers who had no idea how to field-and-throw balls hit back to them, for example. The 2000 Yankees and their 3-15 finish to the regular season also should've been much costlier than it actually was. I wouldn't recommend we go back to that playoff construct and not just because it's impractical, but the accomplishments were probably more impressive. Maybe they were. Depends on how one goes about the "fewer teams vs. talent pool less diluted" argument.

[Unocal]

If you want to talk about a Tampa Bay Lightning one-hit wonder, I'd mention their 1996 team.

They made the playoffs the year before their Cup run- it wasn't shocking to me that I felt they could make a Cup run.

Now, 1996- they fell apart in just 2 years. Nobody from that team was on the 2003-2004 teams.

[Kramerica Industries]

They would fit that description, I agree but, at the expense of telling you what the parameters are supposed to be of your thread, I'm not really sure if a team that loses in the first round of a four-round playoff circuit is really of legitimate "one-hit wonder" fame anyway. Anybody could do that.

[SFGiants58]

Ahem...

1995-6 Florida Panthers

[Raysfan12]

I would say 1985 Kansas City Royals. They haven't appeared in playoffs, much less a World Series, ever since that year.

[wonderbread]

As of right now the 2012 red sox

[Kramerica Industries]

I would say 1985 Kansas City Royals. They haven't appeared in playoffs, much less a World Series, ever since that year.

I dunno, the Royals had been a pretty powerful team in that era. Won the AL West in 1976-78 and 1980 (in addition to being a "half winner" in 1981, which got them into the playoffs with a pathetic 50-53 record) so, while there was certainly turnover from the 1976 team to the 1985 team, the Royals were the pre-eminent team from their division after the A's dynasty window closed.

As of right now the 2012 red sox

2012 Red Sox in one direction, 2013 Red Sox in the other. I don't think I'll ever be able to make sense of what happened last year.

[pianoknight]

Are we looking at the entire history of a team?

The Raiders-Buccs Super Bowl was brought out as an example, but obviously the Raiders have had a lot of success in the past. Doesn't really make them a "one-hit wonder" since they've won a bunch of previous Super Bowls.

Not really a one-season thing, but I'll toss Boise State football into the mix. They had a few magical seasons (Bowl win over Oklahoma) and have now sort of fallen back to the middle of the pack in the Mountain West / WAC / Big East / whatever. Some of the blame can be laid on administration here, as TCU was similarly riding a wave at the time and they parlayed it into Big 12 membership. The BSU brass certainly didn't help their chances by trying to be a power broker and hop conferences multiple times.

[Raysfan12]

I would say 1985 Kansas City Royals. They haven't appeared in playoffs, much less a World Series, ever since that year.

I dunno, the Royals had been a pretty powerful team in that era. Won the AL West in 1976-78 and 1980 (in addition to being a "half winner" in 1981, which got them into the playoffs with a pathetic 50-53 record) so, while there was certainly turnover from the 1976 team to the 1985 team, the Royals were the pre-eminent team from their division after the A's dynasty window closed.

Whoops! It's easy to forget sometimes that the Royals were good in that era with Brett and Saberhagen. All I was saying is that they have never matched the '85 season ever since.

[Coast2CoastAM2006]

since then only one wild card appearance and one divisional title and a string of playoff misses from 83 to 2008.

[infrared41]

I would say 1985 Kansas City Royals. They haven't appeared in playoffs, much less a World Series, ever since that year.

The Royals were practically MLB's model franchise between say 1975-85. Lost to the Yankees in the ALCS a couple times, lost to the Phillies in the 1980 World Series. Lost to the Tigers in the 1984 ALCS. They were more of a "they finally won the World Series" than a one-hit wonder.

EDIT: Plus what Kramerica said.