OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - 384 to 1 -- Massive playdown to crown Greatest Team of All Time

rockford · 01-09-2024, 10:38 AM

Howdy all,

I’ve been an on-and-off OOTP binger for close to 15 years, and recently dove back in with the purchase of OOTP24. I’ve almost exclusively played fictional leagues, but I thought I’d do something different to help reacquaint myself with both the game and baseball history.

I set out to identify a very large field of teams that could, at least in some fan’s fevered imagination, be considered among baseball’s greatest.

My original intention was to set up a series of huge tournaments. But I soon realized a different approach might provide more “accurate” results. I decided to sacrifice the drama of, say, a seven-game series format in favor of a much larger sample size.

The field was broken down into 16-team leagues, which would play 10 154-game seasons. All variables like injuries, rain outs, storylines, player personalities, etc., were disabled, and each season was played “fresh,” so that player development would not be a factor. As a more or less random choice, 1962 was selected as the baseline year, and four-man rotations were used.

Teams were selected for the playdown (tournament doesn’t seem like the right word) based on two simple criteria:

1) Being a pennant-winner, or
2) Recording at least a .599 season winning percentage

Those criteria were met by 383 teams between 1901 and 2023. I decided to add a “wild card” team from Minnesota Twins history to complete the field. (Unfortunately, I forgot to consider that the 2023 season wasn’t part of the current game, so I ended up adding several more Twins teams to reach 384. More on this later, but the addition of these teams indicates the field should be widened if I decide to go through another iteration.)

Enough boring background. Let’s start getting into some results.

Teams were ranked based on their historical winning percentage, from the top-ranked 1906 Cubs at .763 to #384, the 1973 Mets at .509. A “straight draft” approach was used to divide the 384 teams into 24 16-team leagues.

I don’t know if it’s worthwhile posting the results of all 24 leagues, but here are the Top 20 teams after this qualifying round, along with their winning percentage through 10 seasons and their original seeding in parentheses.

1. 1933 Yankees .656 (233)
2. 1911 A’s .634 (32)
3. 1943 Cardinals .634 (22)
4. 2017 Nationals .627 (288)
5. 2019 Astros .627 (45)
6. 2001 Mariners .625 (6)
7. 1937 Yankees .618 (43)
8. 1910 Cubs .617 (34)
9. 1932 Yankees .616 (12)
10. 1939 Yankees .612 (11)
11. 1969 Twins .603 (294)
12. 1955 Dodgers .602 (82)
13. 1902 Pirates .597 (2)
14. 1905 Giants .596 (18)
15. 1942 Cardinals .594 (17)
16. 1969 Orioles .592 (31)
17. 1938 Yankees .590 (58)
18. 1998 Yankees .587 (9)
19. 1951 Giants .585 (137)
20. 1985 Cardinals .584 (143)

A total of 96 teams will move on to the quarterfinals, where they will be re-seeded, broken down into 16-team leagues and put through 10 seasons of competition.

More later, including a look at how “dead ball era” teams fared in the qualifying round.

01-09-2024, 10:38 AM	#1
rockford Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jan 2024 Posts: 107	384 to 1 -- Massive playdown to crown Greatest Team of All Time Howdy all, I’ve been an on-and-off OOTP binger for close to 15 years, and recently dove back in with the purchase of OOTP24. I’ve almost exclusively played fictional leagues, but I thought I’d do something different to help reacquaint myself with both the game and baseball history. I set out to identify a very large field of teams that could, at least in some fan’s fevered imagination, be considered among baseball’s greatest. My original intention was to set up a series of huge tournaments. But I soon realized a different approach might provide more “accurate” results. I decided to sacrifice the drama of, say, a seven-game series format in favor of a much larger sample size. The field was broken down into 16-team leagues, which would play 10 154-game seasons. All variables like injuries, rain outs, storylines, player personalities, etc., were disabled, and each season was played “fresh,” so that player development would not be a factor. As a more or less random choice, 1962 was selected as the baseline year, and four-man rotations were used. Teams were selected for the playdown (tournament doesn’t seem like the right word) based on two simple criteria: 1) Being a pennant-winner, or 2) Recording at least a .599 season winning percentage Those criteria were met by 383 teams between 1901 and 2023. I decided to add a “wild card” team from Minnesota Twins history to complete the field. (Unfortunately, I forgot to consider that the 2023 season wasn’t part of the current game, so I ended up adding several more Twins teams to reach 384. More on this later, but the addition of these teams indicates the field should be widened if I decide to go through another iteration.) Enough boring background. Let’s start getting into some results. Teams were ranked based on their historical winning percentage, from the top-ranked 1906 Cubs at .763 to #384, the 1973 Mets at .509. A “straight draft” approach was used to divide the 384 teams into 24 16-team leagues. I don’t know if it’s worthwhile posting the results of all 24 leagues, but here are the Top 20 teams after this qualifying round, along with their winning percentage through 10 seasons and their original seeding in parentheses. 1. 1933 Yankees .656 (233) 2. 1911 A’s .634 (32) 3. 1943 Cardinals .634 (22) 4. 2017 Nationals .627 (288) 5. 2019 Astros .627 (45) 6. 2001 Mariners .625 (6) 7. 1937 Yankees .618 (43) 8. 1910 Cubs .617 (34) 9. 1932 Yankees .616 (12) 10. 1939 Yankees .612 (11) 11. 1969 Twins .603 (294) 12. 1955 Dodgers .602 (82) 13. 1902 Pirates .597 (2) 14. 1905 Giants .596 (18) 15. 1942 Cardinals .594 (17) 16. 1969 Orioles .592 (31) 17. 1938 Yankees .590 (58) 18. 1998 Yankees .587 (9) 19. 1951 Giants .585 (137) 20. 1985 Cardinals .584 (143) A total of 96 teams will move on to the quarterfinals, where they will be re-seeded, broken down into 16-team leagues and put through 10 seasons of competition. More later, including a look at how “dead ball era” teams fared in the qualifying round.