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Don't know if the wording of the title makes sense, but I want to know what team had the longest losing streak that was the shortest in MLB history (or at least the live ball era)

A completely made up example (LLS -Longest Losing Streak):

2016
Yankees LLS 5
Red Sox LLS 6
Braves LLS 8
2015
Yankees LLS 7
Red Sox LLS 4
Braves LLS 3.

The Braves would have the shortest longest losing streak

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  • I'm going to take a guess and say the 2001 Seattle Mariners who's shortest longest winning streak was 4, that is the season they won 116 games.
    – New-To-IT
    Jun 13, 2016 at 19:30
  • @New-To-IT I thought so too along with the 1998 Yankees. I used those teams as benchmarks, and was able to find teams with shorter losing streaks thus far.
    – user527
    Jun 13, 2016 at 19:44
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    The wording certainly makes sense. The "diameter" of a mathematical object can be defined as the longest of all the shortest paths between all possible pair of points in the object. (That is, find the two points where the shortest path between them is maximal; that's the diameter. On a square, for example, the points are two opposing corners and the diameter is the length of the diagonal.) There are many other similar definitions in mathematics.
    – Eric Lippert
    Jun 13, 2016 at 22:41

2 Answers 2

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Since 1920, the start of the live-ball era, the shortest losing streak among MLB teams with 100+ wins in one season appears to be 3.

The following teams achieved this (including a couple of teams that didn't get to 100 wins):

The following teams have also achieved this, but with a 4-game (or more) non-winning streak (ie, a tie occurred among the losses):

I used Baseball Reference's streak analyzer for my findings. In theory, a .500 team can have a losing streak of only 1. Moreover, it is possible that a under 100-win team can have a shorter losing streak than 3. However, with respect to conjecture, these scenarios are unlikely...but will yield to any season that happens to have a shorter losing streak than 3.

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    Does anyone understand why the links here have game_start=10&game_end=135? That would seem to me to be restricting things to only a bit of the season which seems wrong, but I'm not confident enough to change it.
    – Philip Kendall ♦
    May 15, 2018 at 8:23
  • @PhilipKendall Baseball reference uses 10 and 135 respectively as placeholder text. The links must've included those parameters accidentally during the answerer's research. I would say it's safe to remove.
    – user16112
    Apr 15, 2019 at 17:43
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Going way, way, way, way back the record is held by the Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869 with their undefeated season; exactly how many matches they won depends on which matches you want to count, but they didn't lose any. 1869 obviously isn't the live ball era, but it is the year that MLB recognise as the start of professional baseball.

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