nate silver did a BP article detailing the biggest collapses in baseball history. the phillies barely cracked the top 10, because they were playing a strong schedule. i think their collapse was so memorable because they went on a 10 game losing streak and just played terribly for the last two weeks. some notable teams that had bigger collapses: -1978 red sox (96.5% to make playoffs on august 12th with an 8 game lead on the yankees - red sox went 26-22 the rest of the way while the yanks were 35-13) -1942 brooklyn dodgers (96.9% to make the playoffs; 79-33, 9.5 games ahead of the Cardinals. went 25-17 the rest of the way while the cardinals were 38-6, the second-best 44 game stretch in baseball history) -1969 cubs (97.90% on august 19th; 77-45 and 8 games ahead of the mets, went 15-25 down the stretch) -2003 mariners (97.91% on june 18th, 7.5 games ahead of the A's in the AL west and 8.0 games ahead of the red sox in the wild card; finished 45-47) -1993 giants (98.25% on august 7th, 74-47 and 9.5 games ahead of the braves, finished 29-22 but braves went 39-11) -1951 brooklyn dodgers (99.74% on august 12th, 73-36 and 12.5 games ahead of the new york giants, finished 25-24 while giants went 37-8) -2007 mets (99.8% on september 12th, 83-62 and 7.0 games ahead of the phillies; went 5-12 the rest of the way while the phillies went 13-4. what was notable about the mets' collapse is that they lost to some awful teams - they went 1-5 against the nationals during that stretch and lost 2 out of 3 in their last series against the marlins) -1995 angels (99.988% on august 20th, 66-41 and 9.5 games ahead of the rangers and 12.5 games ahead of the mariners in the AL west, 12.0 games ahead of the yankees for the wild card. finished 12-26. the odds of them missing the playoffs were 8,332-to-1) That seems like there are far too many instances of those collapses happening for those percentages to be accurate. Statistically, the 1995 Angels shouldn't have even happened once in MLB history and you've got 7 other collapses where the odds were over 96.5%.