[mike777]

What team do you pick as the greatest baseball team of all time?

Bill James picked the 98 Yankees followed by the 37, then 39 and 38 Yankees.

Key players were:
98 Yankees

Jeter, Mariano, Posada, Pettitte


1937
New York
Yankees
AL

Gehrig, DiMaggio, Ruffing, Dickey

[ArtK78]

I thought that there was a general consensus that the 1927 Yankees was the greatest team of all time.

[nigel_k]

1906 Cubs

[JLOGIC]

I had to suffer through the astros-braves series as they put up smoltz/glavine/maddux (often with a good 4th pitcher too). That has to be the best pitching team ever.

[mike777]

Rather suprisingly he did not list the 27 yankees or 06 cubs in his top 25.


However the 07 and 08 Cubs made the list.

[mike777]

JLOGIC, on 2011-May-09, 14:37, said:

I had to suffer through the astros-braves series as they put up smoltz/glavine/maddux (often with a good 4th pitcher too). That has to be the best pitching team ever.

In fact he had the 95 Atlanta team fifth and 97 team is seventh.

[awm]

Seems to me this would not be a modern team.

The modern game has too many good players. There are also too many short playoff series, which are something of a crapshoot. The point is, I don't think any team in the modern era has dominated as thoroughly as teams did "back in the day."

If you list the great players from the 1998 Yankees, you can see that most of them were still on the team for the next few years (heck the four players Mike named were still on the team last year, more than a decade later). You have to ask, if the '98 team was so good, why was the '99 team (which had almost all the same players back and even won the world series) not even close to the best ever?

In contrast, the 1937-1939 Yankees all made the list. I think that indicates that those teams were better relative to the league (and more of a "dynasty").

There is a natural tendency to prefer modern teams and players in this sort of thing. If we think that it's a "close race" between the modern team and the old time team, probably the old time team was actually better.

Of course, all of this is relative to the competition... I do not think there is much doubt that athletes are better conditioned today, strategy is better today, and that if we could somehow take a modern team back in time to play a series with a team from years ago, the modern team would demolish their opponents.

[mike777]

awm, on 2011-May-09, 15:05, said:

Seems to me this would not be a modern team.

The modern game has too many good players. There are also too many short playoff series, which are something of a crapshoot. The point is, I don't think any team in the modern era has dominated as thoroughly as teams did "back in the day."

If you list the great players from the 1998 Yankees, you can see that most of them were still on the team for the next few years (heck the four players Mike named were still on the team last year, more than a decade later). You have to ask, if the '98 team was so good, why was the '99 team (which had almost all the same players back and even won the world series) not even close to the best ever?

In contrast, the 1937-1939 Yankees all made the list. I think that indicates that those teams were better relative to the league (and more of a "dynasty").

There is a natural tendency to prefer modern teams and players in this sort of thing. If we think that it's a "close race" between the modern team and the old time team, probably the old time team was actually better.

Of course, all of this is relative to the competition... I do not think there is much doubt that athletes are better conditioned today, strategy is better today, and that if we could somehow take a modern team back in time to play a series with a team from years ago, the modern team would demolish their opponents.

Indeed his last factor and perhaps the most controversial one is a timeline adjustment. Bill thinks the modern ball player and teams are in general much much better than the "older" ones.


"The eighth consideration that is necessary is a time-line adjustment. A time-line adjustment is necessary because

a) The quality of play has improved over time,

b) Weak competition is easier to dominate than strong competition, therefore,

c) Without a time-line adjustment, we will tend to show the best teams in baseball history as concentrated in the first half of baseball history, when the reality is that the best teams are probably more concentrated in the second half of baseball history than the first."
-------

After 7 out of 8 factors:


"To this point in our analysis, 68 of the top 100 teams in history, and 9 of the top 10, played before 1960--that is, in the first half of baseball history. 51 of the top 100 played before 1940. All of the top teams in baseball history played a long time ago.

I don’t believe that that is true—nor, I think, does anyone else, now that Dutch Schultz has gone to his reward. (Dutch was a very active member of SABR back in the old days, when SABR was a collection of cranks and hobbyists, rather than a collection of academics and quasi-academics. Dutch was a very sweet man and I was quite fond of him, but Dutch resented the hyping of Joe DiMaggio when Joe came to the majors in 1936, and never accepted that DiMaggio was a better ballplayer than his hero, Al Simmons. He sincerely believed that baseball had reached its apogee about 1934, and had been in decline ever since. There would never be another Al Simmons in his eyes.)"

[cherdano]

I find it amazing that this kind of discussion constantly comes up in US sports. I have never seen a single such discussion in German sports - they don't have the similar "All-time top 10 players" either.

[mike777]

cherdano, on 2011-May-09, 16:43, said:

I find it amazing that this kind of discussion constantly comes up in US sports. I have never seen a single such discussion in German sports - they don't have the similar "All-time top 10 players" either.

We do have a lot of top ten lists in almost all areas of life. Top ten places to eat, top ten presidents, top ten all-time movies, songs, books, tv shows, bridge players, etc......

[jjbrr]

2004 red sox and it's not even close at all.

[y66]

The 2004 Red Sox had the most formidable offensive lineup I've ever seen in person. Curt Shilling pitched well that year but I didn't think the rest of the bullpen was that great. Pretty decent in the clutch pinch running department and in the back office.

[PassedOut]

JLOGIC, on 2011-May-09, 14:37, said:

I had to suffer through the astros-braves series as they put up smoltz/glavine/maddux (often with a good 4th pitcher too). That has to be the best pitching team ever.

The Atlanta Braves from 1991-2005 won consecutive division titles. And it was definitely their star pitchers who made that happen, although the two Jones's played important roles as well.

[JLOGIC]

PassedOut, on 2011-May-10, 22:55, said:

The Atlanta Braves from 1991-2005 won consecutive division titles. And it was definitely their star pitchers who made that happen, although the two Jones's played important roles as well.

Thanks for rubbin that in bro!

[matmat]

cherdano, on 2011-May-09, 16:43, said:

I find it amazing that this kind of discussion constantly comes up in US sports. I have never seen a single such discussion in German sports - they don't have the similar "All-time top 10 players" either.

US sports fans also detest ties. I don't think the two are unrelated.

[Mbodell]

awm, on 2011-May-09, 15:05, said:

Seems to me this would not be a modern team.

It depends on if you think the greatest team is the team that was the furthest ahead of its peers, or the team that would win if you could some how magically summon them to play a game in some neutral-platonic-ideal game.

If the former, it is going to extremely likely be an early team. If the latter, it is going to be extremely likely to be a recent team. Progress and all that.

The same applies to Bridge teams as well.

[Winstonm]

How can any credible list exclude the Bad News Bears?

[Lobowolf]

IIRC, James has said that if Tom Seaver had come to the Reds earlier, it would have been one of the mid-70's (75 or 76) Cincy teams.