Top 8 Historical Teams of All Time

daves · 05-11-2016, 07:15 PM

With the ability to have historical exhibition series, who would you list of your Top 8 teams of ALL TIME? The only criteria I would like to add, no duplicate teams. Yes only one Yankees team.

TribeFanInNC · 05-11-2016, 07:49 PM

I just saw an article this week about the top team Elo ratings of all time. I'll have to find the link when not ony iPod.

daves · 05-11-2016, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

I just saw an article this week about the top team Elo ratings of all time. I'll have to find the link when not ony iPod.

The thing about those lists is there are 4 Yankee teams.

thehef · 05-11-2016, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daves

With the ability to have historical exhibition series, who would you list of your Top 8 teams of ALL TIME? The only criteria I would like to add, no duplicate teams. Yes only one Yankees team.

When putting together these types of lists, one typically assumes that one criteria is that the team also won the title... Not always, though.

At any rate, if you go by this - Bleacher Report's Official Rankings of the 50 Greatest Teams in MLB History | Bleacher Report - which does give credit for winning the title - and filter out duplicate teams, you'd have the following:

1. 1927 Yankees
2. 1975 Reds
3. 1929 Athletics
4. 1902 Pirates
5. 1970 Orioles
6. 1984 Tigers
7. 1907 Cubs
8. 1905 Giants

With these teams just missing the cut:
9. 1986 Mets
10. 1955 Dodgers
11. 1942 Cardinals

Now if you were to include teams that were excellent during the regular season (and there therefore likely be dominant in an OOTP historical replay) but lost in the post-season, you'd have to consider the 1906 Cubs (instead of the 1907 Cubs), 1931 Athletics (instead of the 1929 A's), and maybe 1954 Indians & 2001 Mariners...

pgjocki · 05-11-2016, 11:33 PM

While those historic teams were great at the time I have a hard time thinking they could hold their own against today's athletes.

How many pitchers were throwing 100mph to Ruth? Just one example but I think (my opinion) that any of the last 5 World Series winners would absolutely embarrass the teams from the early 1900's

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

monkeyman576 · 05-12-2016, 12:31 AM

1. 1927 Yankees
2. 1975 Reds
3. 1939 Yankees
4. 2004 Red Sox
5. 2001 Mariners
6. 1988 Dodgers
7. 1969 Orioles
8. 1998 Yankees
9. 1955 Dodgers
10. 1929 Athletics

There were more dominant teams in the earlier years of baseball history, but I don't think that necessarily makes them better than current teams, given the level of athleticism and statistical analysis available today. So I included teams like the 2004 Red Sox,2001 Mariners, and 1988 Dodgers, even if there may have been more dominant teams in the early 20th century.

hockeyman001 · 05-12-2016, 09:15 AM

Personally I think the difference in eras would make it very hard to pull off, and if the sim engine were to adjust for the differences in the style of play, the results would end up looking very unrealistic for whichever teams were taken "out of era"...however as a fan of the art of hitting a baseball, I've always thought it would be impressive to take some of the best offenses of the recent 90s-2000s and put them in a cage match exhibition series, and just for fun, throw in some of the better rotations that were assembled during just that more recent era.

For that, the 8 teams could be something like:
-1999 Indians (>1000 runs, best offense ever)
-1995 Mariners
-2001 Oakland A's
-2003 Boston Red Sox (actually had better offense than the 04 group)
-1998 Braves (one of the best rotations ever)
-1997 Rockies
-2001 Diamondbacks
-2003 Cubs

TribeFanInNC · 05-12-2016, 10:07 AM

Here's the Elo article on ESPN's 538 I referenced before:
The Best MLB Teams Of All-Time, According To Elo | FiveThirtyEight

Article also has the best team from each franchise ranked from best to worst. I would use that list if you don't want to have 5 Yankees teams.

(although I would find a way to sneak in the '54 Indians, who are ninth....

)

TribeFanInNC · 05-12-2016, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hockeyman001

-1999 Indians (>1000 runs, best offense ever)

1995 Indians projected to 950 runs, had a better team OPS+ (116 v. 111), and projected 103 pythagorean wins.

More runs was just an era thing. Any lineup where Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome have to hit sixth and seventh is awesome.

The Game · 05-12-2016, 11:57 AM

'98 Yankees
1906 Cubs
1954 Indians
2001 Mariners
'89 A's
2004 Red Sox
'75 Reds
'95 Braves

dmacgreg37 · 05-12-2016, 12:15 PM

I took that bleacher report top-50 and there were 20 orgs that had teams on it. It just so happened that 10 were AL and NL. If you took the best team from each org, you'd have gotten this.

AL

1970 Orioles
1929 A's
2002 Angels
2001 Mariners
2004 Red Sox
1927 Yankees
1954 Indians
1993 Blue Jays
2005 White Sox
1984 Tigers

NL

1994 Expos
2008 Phillies
1942 Cardinals
1905 Giants
1995 Braves
1907 Cubs
1986 Mets
1955 Dodgers
1902 Pirates
1975 Reds

Might try to run with this for a season and see what happens.

hockeyman001 · 05-12-2016, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TribeFanInNC

1995 Indians projected to 950 runs, had a better team OPS+ (116 v. 111), and projected 103 pythagorean wins.

More runs was just an era thing. Any lineup where Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome have to hit sixth and seventh is awesome.

True, but the 1999 Indians also had injuries that kept their production down from being even higher. Imagine how many more runs the 1999 team would have put up if Sandy Alomar, Travis Fryman, and Kenny Lofton had played and (in Fryman's case) not battled nagging injuries that whole season. The biggest advantages the 1995 team had were (obviously) Albert Belle, and better pitching. Both were amazing teams, guess when I wrote that it mostly just boiled down to a personal preference I have for the '99 squad, which, while the pitching was downright bad at times, I still think underperformed relative to its capabilities.

reflections · 05-12-2016, 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pgjocki

While those historic teams were great at the time I have a hard time thinking they could hold their own against today's athletes.

How many pitchers were throwing 100mph to Ruth? Just one example but I think (my opinion) that any of the last 5 World Series winners would absolutely embarrass the teams from the early 1900's

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

Curious how many players nowadays do you think could of played back then though. Without all the hi tech training and physical training things. Pitchers actually throwing complete games 70 percent of the time, no video, no sabermetrics.
So true if you transported teams from the first half of baseballs history to the current days, more than likely they would be overmatched...but transporting the last 5 World series winners to the beginning days of baseball would also have a negative effect.

The Game · 05-12-2016, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reflections

Curious how many players nowadays do you think could of played back then though. Without all the hi tech training and physical training things. Pitchers actually throwing complete games 70 percent of the time, no video, no sabermetrics.
So true if you transported teams from the first half of baseballs history to the current days, more than likely they would be overmatched...but transporting the last 5 World series winners to the beginning days of baseball would also have a negative effect.

I disagree with that. If players from today played say any of the early Giants teams and played like they do today, they would kill any early teams. Better Defense, better base running, much harder throwing pitchers. John McGraw would die when Johnny Cueto is tossing 97ish, then 1 pitcher after another 6th-9th inning, also throwing 97, while Christy Mathewson is topping out at 88. i also think that there would be more HR hit by even the Royals in 1905 in the Polo Grounds then they could hit in Kauffman in 2015.

webrian · 05-12-2016, 10:48 PM

It doesn't matter to me which era any team played in. They were great in their own time and shouldn't be penalized or put any higher on the pedestal for it.

Talking about transporting players from, say, 1905 to the current day, without taking into account that they, too, would benefit from the technological, nutritional and environmental benefits that today's players do is shallow and short-sighted. I can totally imagine Ty Cobb or Christy Mathewson being just as dominant in 2016 as they were in their own time. They worked with what they had then. If they existed in our current day — or even if they were time-machined up to our present tense — they'd work with what WE have. It's what was inside them that made them great.

monkeyman576 · 05-13-2016, 12:18 AM

The top level players were just as good as our top level players(if not better), but I think there is a lot more depth today than there was back in the day.

daves · 05-15-2016, 05:46 PM

I am going to run a few double eliminations on some of the above responses.

Thanks.

jeffself · 05-24-2016, 12:44 PM

Greatest run differential in history. They also beat the 1927 Yankees in an simulation using the old Pursue the Pennant computer game back in the early to mid-90's.

italyprof · 05-26-2016, 06:15 PM

I think that the general consensus here is off somewhat. Yes, today's athletes due to better training and nutrition etc. are better individual athletes on average.

But, first of all that suggests that even the worst teams today are better than the best teams of the 1920s or 1950s and that is ridiculous, because it is meaningless, and allows no way to do comparison.

Instead, one has to put a team from recent years IN the normalized (e.g. adjusted for era) baseball environment of the team it plays against and vice-versa. Bill James did this as a thought experiment with the 1961 Yankees, and showed that they were highly over-rated (I am a die-hard Yankees fan by the way). If the 1961 Yankees, who really only hit home runs and did little else (see the OBPs of leadoff hitters Bobby Richardson and Tony Kubeck for instance) had to play against the 1914 Athletics, they would be in trouble. If the 1914 Athletics had to play in 1961, they would also have some disadvantages but there is good reason that they would hold their own.

So you have to normalize, adjust for era. The 1990s teams all had great offenses, but when you control for run environment at Bill James does in his Historical Baseball Abstract, which is must reading for everyone here (says the prof), you find that Honus Wagner in one of his great seasons, despite low HR totals because of the environment and time he played in, were much more impressive than most of the high HR seasons of the steroid era. Scoring 4 runs in 1907 was worth scoring maybe 7 in 1999. Hitting 40 homers in the 1970s was worth hitting well over 50 in the late 90s when it happened all the time.

italyprof · 05-26-2016, 06:28 PM

cont'd.

So anyone who does not think that Jackie Robinson would still have been a great athlete today has to explain why he would be excluded from the nutrition and training and sophisticated analyses and use of tech and stats etc. that everyone else uses today.

And anyone who thinks that say Bartolo Colon would have been the greatest pitcher of all time had he pitched in the 1960s, better than Gibson, or Seaver or Koufax, has to explain why given the conditions of that time he would still be in better shape than they are (!!).

So, 8 teams?

I would go with the 1998 Yankees as better rounded over 1927 but it is close.

1953 Dodgers

1976 Reds

1970 Orioles

1929 Athletics though it is close with the 1912-14 version

1962 Giants (look at their bench)

1995 Braves (maybe best staff ever)

1919 Red Sox maybe?

Honorable mention: 1894 Orioles, 1986 Mets, 1907 Pirates,

The 2001 Mariners instead, Bill James has also shown, merely had an unusually large number of players with anomalous good seasons, but who did not repeat those performances (obviously Ichiro and Edgar were exceptions to this). They played way over their heads.

1954 Indians similar story.

Back to players for a moment: as soon as the steroids were made difficult to use, batting records went right back to their historical average levels. So almost any offensive numbers from 1994-2004 or so are suspect and the idea that those posting those numbers did so because they were in better shape or whatever is silly. The main factors were first steroids, so when you judge a team like the 1995 Indians or 2004 Red Sox versus the 1927 Yankees or whatever you have to ask "why don't Ruth and Gehrig get to use steroids too?" and if they do you have to figure they outclass Albert Belle or Jim Thome.

And the other factor is smaller stadiums. The ballparks of the 1960s and 70s were cavernous and with artificial turf widespread they sparked a golden era of stolen bases (Wills, Brock, Rickey, Coleman, Raines, etc.). They also reduced homers. The 1990s Camden Yards type parks fostered the long ball and with Godzilla batting after a dose of the stuff you got all those records made.

But I think give the best players the same conditions as other players in the era they have to play in and Warren Spahn or Willie Mays, Ty Cobb or or Walter Johnson rank with anyone, just as Greg Maddux or Pedro, Barry Bonds (before steroid use), Derek Jeter or Albert Pujols would be great players in any time as well, but with different stats to reflect the different era.

05-11-2016, 07:15 PM	#1
daves Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 3,635	Top 8 Historical Teams of All Time With the ability to have historical exhibition series, who would you list of your Top 8 teams of ALL TIME? The only criteria I would like to add, no duplicate teams. Yes only one Yankees team. __________________

05-11-2016, 11:33 PM	#5
pgjocki All Star Starter Join Date: Jun 2013 Location: Maryland - just outside DC Posts: 1,483	While those historic teams were great at the time I have a hard time thinking they could hold their own against today's athletes. How many pitchers were throwing 100mph to Ruth? Just one example but I think (my opinion) that any of the last 5 World Series winners would absolutely embarrass the teams from the early 1900's Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk __________________ - - - World Series championships: 1926, 1931, 1934, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1964, 1967, 1982, 2006, 2011

05-12-2016, 12:31 AM	#6
monkeyman576 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 2,951	1. 1927 Yankees 2. 1975 Reds 3. 1939 Yankees 4. 2004 Red Sox 5. 2001 Mariners 6. 1988 Dodgers 7. 1969 Orioles 8. 1998 Yankees 9. 1955 Dodgers 10. 1929 Athletics There were more dominant teams in the earlier years of baseball history, but I don't think that necessarily makes them better than current teams, given the level of athleticism and statistical analysis available today. So I included teams like the 2004 Red Sox,2001 Mariners, and 1988 Dodgers, even if there may have been more dominant teams in the early 20th century. Last edited by monkeyman576; 05-12-2016 at 12:34 AM.

05-12-2016, 11:57 AM	#10
The Game Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Inside The Game Posts: 30,807	'98 Yankees 1906 Cubs 1954 Indians 2001 Mariners '89 A's 2004 Red Sox '75 Reds '95 Braves __________________ Go today don't wait for tomorrow It isn't promised, all the time you get borrowed Don't live your life for other people Don't bottle your emotions till they crack and fill a couple just sorrows Take your mind and refocus go get a paper write your goals out Throw your middle fingers to all your haters "Stay Strong"

05-15-2016, 05:46 PM	#17
daves Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 3,635	I am going to run a few double eliminations on some of the above responses. Thanks. __________________

05-11-2016, 07:49 PM	#2
TribeFanInNC Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 4,019	I just saw an article this week about the top team Elo ratings of all time. I'll have to find the link when not ony iPod.

05-12-2016, 09:15 AM	#7
hockeyman001 Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: May 2016 Posts: 33	Personally I think the difference in eras would make it very hard to pull off, and if the sim engine were to adjust for the differences in the style of play, the results would end up looking very unrealistic for whichever teams were taken "out of era"...however as a fan of the art of hitting a baseball, I've always thought it would be impressive to take some of the best offenses of the recent 90s-2000s and put them in a cage match exhibition series, and just for fun, throw in some of the better rotations that were assembled during just that more recent era. For that, the 8 teams could be something like: -1999 Indians (>1000 runs, best offense ever) -1995 Mariners -2001 Oakland A's -2003 Boston Red Sox (actually had better offense than the 04 group) -1998 Braves (one of the best rotations ever) -1997 Rockies -2001 Diamondbacks -2003 Cubs

05-12-2016, 10:07 AM	#8
TribeFanInNC Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 4,019	Here's the Elo article on ESPN's 538 I referenced before: The Best MLB Teams Of All-Time, According To Elo \| FiveThirtyEight Article also has the best team from each franchise ranked from best to worst. I would use that list if you don't want to have 5 Yankees teams. (although I would find a way to sneak in the '54 Indians, who are ninth.... )

05-12-2016, 12:15 PM	#11
dmacgreg37 Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 488	I took that bleacher report top-50 and there were 20 orgs that had teams on it. It just so happened that 10 were AL and NL. If you took the best team from each org, you'd have gotten this. AL 1970 Orioles 1929 A's 2002 Angels 2001 Mariners 2004 Red Sox 1927 Yankees 1954 Indians 1993 Blue Jays 2005 White Sox 1984 Tigers NL 1994 Expos 2008 Phillies 1942 Cardinals 1905 Giants 1995 Braves 1907 Cubs 1986 Mets 1955 Dodgers 1902 Pirates 1975 Reds Might try to run with this for a season and see what happens.

05-12-2016, 10:48 PM	#15
webrian Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jun 2012 Posts: 232	It doesn't matter to me which era any team played in. They were great in their own time and shouldn't be penalized or put any higher on the pedestal for it. Talking about transporting players from, say, 1905 to the current day, without taking into account that they, too, would benefit from the technological, nutritional and environmental benefits that today's players do is shallow and short-sighted. I can totally imagine Ty Cobb or Christy Mathewson being just as dominant in 2016 as they were in their own time. They worked with what they had then. If they existed in our current day — or even if they were time-machined up to our present tense — they'd work with what WE have. It's what was inside them that made them great.

05-13-2016, 12:18 AM	#16
monkeyman576 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 2,951	The top level players were just as good as our top level players(if not better), but I think there is a lot more depth today than there was back in the day.

05-24-2016, 12:44 PM	#18
jeffself Bat Boy Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 14	1939 Yankees were the best Greatest run differential in history. They also beat the 1927 Yankees in an simulation using the old Pursue the Pennant computer game back in the early to mid-90's.

05-26-2016, 06:15 PM	#19
italyprof All Star Reserve Join Date: Feb 2014 Posts: 991	I think that the general consensus here is off somewhat. Yes, today's athletes due to better training and nutrition etc. are better individual athletes on average. But, first of all that suggests that even the worst teams today are better than the best teams of the 1920s or 1950s and that is ridiculous, because it is meaningless, and allows no way to do comparison. Instead, one has to put a team from recent years IN the normalized (e.g. adjusted for era) baseball environment of the team it plays against and vice-versa. Bill James did this as a thought experiment with the 1961 Yankees, and showed that they were highly over-rated (I am a die-hard Yankees fan by the way). If the 1961 Yankees, who really only hit home runs and did little else (see the OBPs of leadoff hitters Bobby Richardson and Tony Kubeck for instance) had to play against the 1914 Athletics, they would be in trouble. If the 1914 Athletics had to play in 1961, they would also have some disadvantages but there is good reason that they would hold their own. So you have to normalize, adjust for era. The 1990s teams all had great offenses, but when you control for run environment at Bill James does in his Historical Baseball Abstract, which is must reading for everyone here (says the prof), you find that Honus Wagner in one of his great seasons, despite low HR totals because of the environment and time he played in, were much more impressive than most of the high HR seasons of the steroid era. Scoring 4 runs in 1907 was worth scoring maybe 7 in 1999. Hitting 40 homers in the 1970s was worth hitting well over 50 in the late 90s when it happened all the time.

05-26-2016, 06:28 PM	#20
italyprof All Star Reserve Join Date: Feb 2014 Posts: 991	cont'd. So anyone who does not think that Jackie Robinson would still have been a great athlete today has to explain why he would be excluded from the nutrition and training and sophisticated analyses and use of tech and stats etc. that everyone else uses today. And anyone who thinks that say Bartolo Colon would have been the greatest pitcher of all time had he pitched in the 1960s, better than Gibson, or Seaver or Koufax, has to explain why given the conditions of that time he would still be in better shape than they are (!!). So, 8 teams? I would go with the 1998 Yankees as better rounded over 1927 but it is close. 1953 Dodgers 1976 Reds 1970 Orioles 1929 Athletics though it is close with the 1912-14 version 1962 Giants (look at their bench) 1995 Braves (maybe best staff ever) 1919 Red Sox maybe? Honorable mention: 1894 Orioles, 1986 Mets, 1907 Pirates, The 2001 Mariners instead, Bill James has also shown, merely had an unusually large number of players with anomalous good seasons, but who did not repeat those performances (obviously Ichiro and Edgar were exceptions to this). They played way over their heads. 1954 Indians similar story. Back to players for a moment: as soon as the steroids were made difficult to use, batting records went right back to their historical average levels. So almost any offensive numbers from 1994-2004 or so are suspect and the idea that those posting those numbers did so because they were in better shape or whatever is silly. The main factors were first steroids, so when you judge a team like the 1995 Indians or 2004 Red Sox versus the 1927 Yankees or whatever you have to ask "why don't Ruth and Gehrig get to use steroids too?" and if they do you have to figure they outclass Albert Belle or Jim Thome. And the other factor is smaller stadiums. The ballparks of the 1960s and 70s were cavernous and with artificial turf widespread they sparked a golden era of stolen bases (Wills, Brock, Rickey, Coleman, Raines, etc.). They also reduced homers. The 1990s Camden Yards type parks fostered the long ball and with Godzilla batting after a dose of the stuff you got all those records made. But I think give the best players the same conditions as other players in the era they have to play in and Warren Spahn or Willie Mays, Ty Cobb or or Walter Johnson rank with anyone, just as Greg Maddux or Pedro, Barry Bonds (before steroid use), Derek Jeter or Albert Pujols would be great players in any time as well, but with different stats to reflect the different era.