[Highlander]

According to OOTP, anyway!

That is the goal.....to find out which team in the history of baseball is, according to OOTP, the best ever. Well, almost. I'm starting with teams from 1903 (the first World Series year) and going to 2022.....but leaving out 2020. I think most would agree that the best team of all time likely comes from one of those years, though.

So, how do we get there? How do we narrow down teams from 119 years' worth of teams? I've thought a lot about it came up with a system comprised of 4 rounds. I've already completed round 1, so the good news is that we are down to 119 teams. Still a lot, but a little easier to deal with than what I started with!

Before I get to how I narrowed down to those teams, I need to share what criteria I am using for a team to be called "the best" in this project. To me, the World Series champion is not always the best team from that season. They were clearly a very good team, but to me, a team that wins 110 out of 162 games is a "better team" than one that wins 87 games but gets hot in a couple of short series.....or has a pitcher that can dominate in a short series. Some may disagree, and that is fine, but I want the team I name as the best of all time to prove it over multiple seasons in multiple eras....and that is what they will have to do.

A couple of other notes.....based on the above, playoffs will not be used. The team with the best record moves on....period. If there is a tie, run differential will be used. Injuries will be turned off....I want all teams at full strength all season (although suspensions will be allowed). Player development will be turned off. In a few early tests, there were too many prospects who developed quickly enough to become a much bigger factor than they were in real life. The same was true with older players who really fell apart much more than in real life. Other things like morale, personalities, finances, spring training, the All-Star game, etc. will also be turned off. In round one, the DH will be used for years that had it.....but then, once eras start to mix, it will be used all the time. I think that covers most of the "under the hood" stuff. If someone has other questions, let me know. I've been pretty happy with most of the results I've gotten stat-wise, so it's working OK. There will always be a few guys that come out of nowhere to be bigger factors than in real life, but I've tried to limit them as much as possible.

On to Round 1! For the first round, I played 119 seasons...one for each year 1903-2022 (minus 2020....too many skewed stats with all of the low AB and IP totals). Each season was only comprised of the "best" teams from that year. The criteria I used were teams that either made the playoffs or won 90+ games were included. The only exceptions to this were when that total came out with an odd number of teams. I would then take the remaining team with the next best record to even it up. In early seasons, there were often only 4 teams included in a given season.....in later years, there were usually 10 or more. A full 162 game season was done for each year and the team with the best record moved on to round 2.....run differential was used to settle any ties (there were a few). Some teams that advanced were exactly the one you would expect.....other teams were not, but it does give a different perspective for which team might have actually been "the best" that year.

119 teams doesn't really work, though, as you need even numbers to make these types of projects work. I decided that the team that was able to compile the best record in their season would get a bye into round 3. That team, with a 112-50 record, was the 1907 Cubs. A 107 game winner in their "real life" season, the Cubs were not a surprise contender for the bye. They will be the first official round 3 team. For the rest of the teams to make it to the 3rd round, they will have bit tougher road.

Round 2 will see the remaining 118 teams randomly paired up. Each pair will play 2 full seasons against each other....one in each of their years. So the teams from 1921 and 2015 would play a season set in 1921 and one set in 2015. The team with the best combined record will move on to round 3.

That will leave 60 teams in round 3. Those 60 teams will randomly be placed in 6 groups of 10. You guessed it.....each group will play 10 seasons, with one set in each year represented in that group. The teams with the best combined records move on to round 4.

Finally, in the final round, there will be 6 teams standing. They will go through that round 3 process one more time. Six teams.....six seasons.....six different years. The best combined record for those 6 seasons will be.....The Greatest Team of All-Time.

I'm sure there are a million different ways to do a project like this, but this is what I settled on. Hopefully there are some great moments....and a few surprises. I'll do my best to keep this going and report my results as I go along. Round one was a lot of fun and it should only get better!

My next post will share the results of the first Round 2 matchup I did. Remember that the 1907 Cubs got the bye, and they will be joined by either the 1971 Baltimore Orioles or the 2010 Philadelphia Phillies!