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John Clayton says that an NFL franchise gets to hang a DYNASTY!! pennant when --- > it has 3 Super Bowls in 6 years.  Dr. D will buy that.

Bill James takes this question to a more fine-grain level.  To absolutely everybody's surprise and amazment, he came up with a "points system" to grade Dynasties.  You know what his main reason was, this time?  To get himself an objective grade for the Red Sox he'd been a part of.  :- )  Hey, how about a M's blog Tomorrow's News Today points system.  Fire me up, Matty.

Mojo sez,

mojician: I'd like the record to reflect that I called a Giants World Series win on the night of the NL Wild Card game and right before the World Series started. My foresight is not quite 20-20, so I predicted a series win in five games. I want bragging rights and a bracket of some kind.

The bragging rights are more legit than they might seem at first sight.  Per BJOL, the 2010-14 Giants were standing on the brink of a "Dynasty" when Mojo made his call.  Then they won the World Series -- 3rd time in 5 years -- and scrabbled up to the very lowest "Dynasty" rung.  With 10 points.  

What I want to know is, what tipped Mojo off?  And does he ceremoniously settle the D-crown onto their exalted brows, now?

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We'd all agree that, as 3-peaters go, the San Francisco Giants are rather underwhelming.  Nobody sweats a weekend matchup against them.  But -- a weekend matchup against the 1998-2001 Yankees?  With Pettitte, El Duque, Cone, and David Wells fronting Mariano Rivera?  A lineup with Jeter, O'Neill, Posada, Tino, Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, and Knoblauch?

You get the idea.  There are juggernauts, and then .... there are the 2014 Giants.

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The Giants have had five (5) dynasties by James' count:

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The '00's Christy Mathewson Dynasty.  This was part of the John McGraw run.  Bill points out that the Giants were the big team in New York, not the Yankees.  Until the Yankees finally wiped them out twice in 1936-37, long past the Ruth transition.

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The '20's Bill Terry - Frankie Frisch Dynasty.  Still in John McGraw's unbelievable run.   James says that this team put everybody in the HOF, and none of them deserved it.  Here's where you had a Yankee syndrome:  everybody playing in NY got twice the credit that they would have in Cleveland.

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The '30's Carl Hubbell - Mel Ott Dynasty.  Bill says that Hubbell was THE best pitcher in the NL, and Ott was BY FAR the best position player.  The Giants have had a real tendency to go Stars & Scrubs.

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The 2000-2004 Barry Bonds Dynasty.  It may be that no single team was ever carried by one player, as much as this team was.

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The 2010-14 Posey - Bumgarner Dynasty.   True, they won the tournament three times, but averaged a mere 87 wins over this five years in which they "ruled" baseball.   Each of the three Giants teams (2010, 12, 14) won in a distinctive way.

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The 1960's Giants do not register on the dynasty clicker.  They had three magnificent players, Willie Mays, Juan Marichal, and Willie McCovey.  As Bill puts it, they won 92 games every year in the decade, and finished -2 behind the Koufax Dodgers every year.  Had Sandy Koufax decided to fix cars, and Don Drysdale decided to model briefs, the 1960's Giants might have won 4 World Series.  Sometimes you get two great teams going at it hammer and tongs.

They were the opposite of the current Giants:  they won less, with more, than maybe any team in history.  These 2010-14 Giants may have won more, with less, than any Dynasty ever.

Still.  If you go back to the Korean War, there are only three teams that ever 3-peated in 5 years.  2014 Giants, 2000 Yankees, 1974 A's.

Enjoy,

Jeff