Greatest Team Tournament

[gstatman]

Greatest Team Tournament - Part One: The 1970s

Have you ever watched a great team play, perhaps your favorite team, and wondered how that team stacked up against other great teams of that era? How about how that team would measure against the all-time great teams? Could a one-year wonder capture the flag over Murderers’ Row or the Big Red Machine? Even great teams that stay intact for years have that signature season. But, could that signature season be good enough to beat a ragtag bunch of players that had the talent to win the pennant, but just fell short?

The Greatest Team Tournament will look to test the mettle of those perennially great teams with flashes in the pan, other great teams from other eras, and consistently good teams that never got over the hump. Greats will share the field across seasons and eras. Some teams may even face their past or future selves from another year!

The tournament starts with the Preliminary Round, which is run decade-by-decade from the 1900s to the 1990s and will determine the best teams of each ten-year period in a 162-game regular season and three rounds of playoffs. The tournament will culminate in a 64-team, 162-game Elimination Round, where teams will play 162 games against each other to see who will advance. The winner will be crowned the greatest team in the 20th century.

Our first decade will be the 1970s (1970-1979). We take 32 of the best teams between 1970 and 1979 and pit them against each other to find out which team is the decade's best. All 20 World Series finalists are represented, as well as 12 other teams that came up short.

Will one of the Big Red Machine teams of Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, and Tony Perez win out over the great Thurman Munson-led Yankee teams or the Reggie Jackson-led Athletic dynasty of the ‘70s? Will the Earl of Baltimore helm his team to the title, will Tommy Lasorda’s family in Los Angeles win, or will it be the “We Are Family” Pirates with Willie Stargell? Will the Phillies or Royals teams that just missed the Series catch lightning in a bottle and finally beat the Reds, Dodgers, or Yankees teams that held them back in real life?

Coming up in the next post: the format of the Greatest Team Tournament for the 1970s.

[mjj55409]

The 1970s are one of my favorite decades (not in the 19th century, of course). I was just coming of age as a baseball fan. Go George Foster!

[gstatman]

Originally Posted by mjj55409

The 1970s are one of my favorite decades (not in the 19th century, of course). I was just coming of age as a baseball fan. Go George Foster!

I was born in the 1970s and my first game was in 1983, so you can guess what the next decade will be! The inspiration for this decade to be my first choice was because of a great book that I recently read called "Big Hair and Plastic Grass" (the one with Oscar Gamble and his huge Afro on the cover).

The 1970s were a great decade for dynasties (Athletics), near dynasties (Reds, Yankees), and other great teams. The Orioles (1970 WS, 1979 AL) and Pirates (1971 WS, 1979 WS) bookended the decade beautifully.

[gstatman]

OK, so you know the concept of the Greatest Team Tournament, but how will the champion be crowned? The best teams of each decade in the 20th century will battle it out in separate mini-tournaments and a grand tournament will take the best of those teams and determine the true “Team of the Century”.

For each decade, 32 of the top teams of the decade will be selected for play in a Preliminary Round. The roster of teams will be evenly split between the National League (16) and American League (16). Each league will have four divisions, named after people off the field that made big news that decade. Within each league, each team will be ranked according to their team performance and statistics. Playoff teams will be weighted higher than non-playoff teams. Of course, World Series winners will get most of the top spots in each division while non-playoff teams will mostly garner lower-ranked spots.

The 16 teams in each league will play each other in an unbalanced 162-game schedule. Each team will play the other three teams in their division 22 times apiece while each team will play its 12 non-divisional foes eight times. The four division winners in each league will advance to the playoffs. The team in each league with the best record will play the division winner with the worst record in one League Division Series matchup. The other two division winners will meet in the other League Division Series matchup. The two winners in each League Semifinal will meet in the League Championship Series. The winner of each League’s Championship Series will meet in the Decade Series to determine the top team of the 1970s. The only time an American League and National League would meet would be in the Decade Series.

In the spirit of a team competition, a full 162-game schedule should be able to showcase a team’s full pitching staff, the top-to-bottom starting lineup, bench, and reserve roster. Injuries will happen and the rookies and traded players will undoubtedly play a role for their teams in this tournament. While the 162-game schedule will filter out the pretenders from the rest of the contenders, this is, after all, a tournament. The results of the 162-game schedule may crown the “Team of the Decade”, but those results will help determine the participants and the seeds of the Grand Tournament, which is a 64-team tournament that will determine the “Team of the Century”.

After the Preliminary Rounds have been played, all teams that make the League Championship Series will qualify for the Grand Tournament. The other 24 teams will be selected as at-large bids to the tournament to complete the 64-team field. They will be ranked based on their performance in the Preliminary Rounds. Each round will be a 162-game head-to-head matchup between two teams with the team that wins the most games advancing to the next round. It will take six series wins to win the Grand Tournament and be remembered as the best team of the 20th century.

Coming up in the next post: the teams, seeds, and divisions for the 1970s Preliminary Round of the Greatest Team Tournament.