Joe,
I sorted things - we only "agree" on 15 of the 28. Actually 13, but when we happened to pick two teams in teh same dynasty, I counted it as a match (teh 69-70 O's, and like that).

Tamer didn't do teh pre-1901 teams, so I am going to eliminate your 1896 pick and my 1903 pick as a "wash" due to different sampling.

Here's our remaining 12 team disagreement:

We're quite close on several, just a coin flip away, and I'm betting that you may say "yes, that's too close to call, but I like the AL better" kind of thing.

Your list is HEAVILY biased toward teh era when the talent distribution was poorer (pre WWII). My method takes the 48 Indians over the 54 Indians. The 1912 Giants over the 1912 Red Sox, the 78 Dodgers over the 74 Dodgers (clsose to teh same team)

My teams may be pitching heavy.

A tourney with these 24 teams would be awesome. Someone run that for me...thanks.

Oh, and *looking* at the list and comparing against studies/reading I have done in the past, I would have probably selected teh 1912 Red Sox, the 1946 Red Sox and the 1961 Yankees. Possibly one of the early 1930s A's as well (I love Jimmie Foxx).

2-29 or 2-33 is the official list for Studes, Dial, and myself. 2-29 is if all the teams in a great franchise run (e.g., Orioles '69-'71) are accepted. If that's frowned upon, 2-33 is the list.

I will do my best to find some time soon to compare z-score, R/Ravg, and OPS+/ERA+ lists, highlighting the teams that aren't on all three lists.

Heh, forgot to read Dial's latest post.

WRITE-IN
-----------------
1983 Orioles

And then was born the Curse of Wild Bill Hagy....

I'm not sure if "OLD" Bill (was, is, became) a curse but, I do know one thing. The 1983 Baltimore Orioles were as great if not greater than most of the teams on any of the lists in this thread or the other thread. Yet it doesn't surprise me in the least that this crowd would show them no love while going GAGA over those trumped up infant killers from Seattle in 2001.

Andy... I rarely if ever use the the word "Luck" when describing what happens on the baseball field. Let's just say the 01 Mariners were gifted with an unrealistic set of fortuitous circumstances throughout the entire regular season. Hell, they lapped everyone in the game. Still, they stumbled and lost the race.

On the other hand, The 1983 Orioles after years of excuse making and blaming everthing but themselves for *not* bringing home the Big One, flatly stated BEFORE the season began that "They" would be the 1983 World Champions. That's the proof of a great team... HELL, they had to be great to overcome the mediocrity of Joe Altobelli.

So yes, the 01 Mariners had a "great" season, that doesn't make them a "great" team. Certainly not one of the (28) Thirty Greatest of All-time. So my 'write-in' was in backlash to the 2001 Seattle Mariners. (All apologies to BL...!)

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trevise

1910 A's
1912 Giants
1927 Yankees
1929 A's
1939 Yankees
1942 Cardinals
1946 Red Sox
1948 Indians..Boudreau 9K's 106 rbi in 152 games...under-rated historically
1967 Cardinals
1968 Tigers
1970 Orioles
1973 A's
1975 Reds
1984 Tigers
1989 A's
1995 Indians
1995 Braves
1998 Yankees

trevise,

I lived and died with those 83 Boids, and drove up from DC at least 25 times, plus took a train to Philly for the last game of the Series, getting a face value first row upper deck box seat from a disgusted Philly fan who'd given up after game 4. Turned around from my seat after those two Murray home runs and gave it to the Vet crowd---and was very lucky I didn't get picked up and thrown over the railing. It would have been almost worth it. Just a great, great team.

But better than the 2001 Mariners? In my heart, absolutely. But in my head, I know that the 2001 Mariners were an all-time great team, top 10 if not any higher than that, even if they folded like a paper doll's dress in the LCS. That 2001 AL that they won 116 games in wasn't exactly the semi-minor league (with a total of one HOF regular player or starting pitcher in its second division) that the 1954 Indians lucked into when they won 111. Those Mariners were a bleeping unbelievable (regular season) team. We can't deny that.

BTW the "Hagy curse" was because the O's stiffed him during the postseason by not letting him and his buddies sit together in Section 34. You'll note that they haven't won squat since. Angelos reinforced the curse when he fired Jon Miller and then Davey Johnson. That franchise is doomed until The Little Man dies.

Andy,

We'll have to agree to disagree RE: 01 Mariners then.

That franchise is doomed until The Little Man dies.

See # 7... :) ...

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trevise

Let's just say the 01 Mariners were gifted with an unrealistic set of fortuitous circumstances throughout the entire regular season.

Let's not. An unrealistic set of circumstances? Which one or more of their 116 victories didn't occur? Which of their comfortably league-leading batting, pitching, and fielding was simply a mirage? Even their Pythagorean record, which tends to be lower with many dominant teams, gives them 109 victories. Surely you wouldn't deign to strip off any more of those 109 victories as luck. How many teams all-time have a Pythagorean winning percentage of .673? Even the great 1998 Yankees are a game lower. Why was that team's regular season apparently realistic and normalized in terms of luck, unlike the Mariners'? Was luck the factor that caused the 13-game Pythagorean difference (or the 18-game actual difference, for that matter) between the 2001 Mariners and the 1983 Orioles?

So yes, the 01 Mariners had a "great" season, that doesn't make them a "great" team.

How can one dismiss utter dominance over 162 games as "unrealistic" and "fortuitous" but consider dominance over 11 to 21 postseason games a definitive stamp of all-time greatness? The Mariners won every season series in the regular season. Eighteen teams, eighteen winning records. Their unbalanced schedule was the toughest of any first-place team's.

If the 2001 Yankees did what the Mariners did that year, they'd be hailed as one of the several greatest teams ever, just one that scored three runs fewer than its opponent in a five-game span. A 116-win Yankees squad, leading the league in batting, pitching, and fielding, not considered among the all-time greats? It wouldn't happen, regardless of postseason success or failure.

The 1983 Orioles...flatly stated BEFORE the season began that "They" would be the 1983 World Champions. That's the proof of a great team.

If Ichiro had predicted 116 wins before the 2001 season, would that have convinced you of the Mariners' greatness? Perhaps he did and no one understood him?

"Your list is HEAVILY biased toward teh era when the talent distribution was poorer (pre WWII). My method takes the 48 Indians over the 54 Indians. The 1912 Giants over the 1912 Red Sox, the 78 Dodgers over the 74 Dodgers (clsose to teh same team)"

I don't think it is though Chris. I have at least 2 teams from every decade. I think yours is biased towards the post 1950 era too much.

Here's our remaining 12 team disagreement, sorted by selector for easier viewing:

Dial 1905White Sox
Dial 1912Giants
Dial 1948Indians
Dial 1949Dodgers
Dial 1968Tigers
Dial 1974Athletics
Dial 1976Yankees
Dial 1978Dodgers
Dial 1985Cardinals
Dial 1991Pirates
Dial 1998Astros
Dial 1999Diamondbacks

Dimino 1909Pirates
Dimino 1912Red Sox
Dimino 1917White Sox
Dimino 1923Giants
Dimino 1931A’s
Dimino 1931Cardinals
Dimino 1942Cards
Dimino 1946Red Sox
Dimino 1953Yanks
Dimino 1954Indians
Dimino 1961Yanks
Dimino 1974Dodgers

Interesting list, for sure. I'll just throw a few things out as I look them over. I would be willing to cancel out the 1912 Sox/Giants (two great teams, I was very close to taking the Giants actually, they'd be in my next 5 or 6 for sure), the 1974/78 Dodgers, and the 1948/54 Indians as you suggested. It'd be interesting to look at those teams, but I imagine they'd be close calls either way. The would narrow it down to 9 teams each, or about 1/3 of our lists.

The 1905 White Sox won 18 fewer games than the 1909 Pirates. Their PythaganPat was 9 games behind. The White Sox gave up 4 more runs and scored 87 fewer.

Wait is their something wrong with your formula?

1905 White Sox OPS+ 103, ERA+ 124
1909 Pirates OPS+ 113, ERA+ 131

How did you chose them? Standard deviations couldn't possibly be that far off just 4 years apart could they? I don't see any way possible that one could think the 1905 White Sox were a better team than the 1909 Pirates.

Looking at the players too, I don't see how one could like the White Sox talent base over the Pirates. Both were led by their SS, the Pirates had Wagner, having one of his best, if not his best season. The White Sox had George Davis, another all-time great, but no Wagner.

Fielder Jones was probably the 2nd best player on the '05 Sox. The Pirates had Fred Clarke, Tommy Leach and even had a catcher with a 106 OPS+, George Gibson.

The pitching staffs were comparable, but the Pirates' was better too IMO.

I'll hold off on going further, just to make sure that the formulas you guys are using are right, I just don't see how the 1905 Sox could rate better than the 1909 Pirates in any mathematical system. The AL was definitely more compact than the NL in 1905, but part of the reason for that is that Pirates were so spectacular. In an 8-team league, I'd think one phenomenally great team could screw with the standard deviations all by themselves. Is that what is happening here?

The 1905 AL was probably a little tougher than the 1909 NL, I'll concede that. The Hall of Merit has inducted 11 regular players from the 1905 AL (Burkett, J.Collins, Crawford, Davis, Flick, Keeler, Lajoie, Plank, Wallace, and Young) and 2 part-timers (Cobb and Walsh). The 1909 NL only has 7 (Brown, Clarke, Dahlen, Magee, Mathewson, Sheckard, Wagner) and one part-timer (Wheat).

But so much tougher that a 110-win, 105-pythag win team with 2 guys in the Hall of Merit and two other reasonable candidates (Leach and Willis) and a catcher that could hit (very rare in 1909) is worse than a 92-win, 96-pythag win with one Hall of Merit guy, another one in a part-time roll and one reasonable candidate (Jones, reasonable is stretch, but he has received some votes - including mine a few times).

The 110-win team beats the 92 win team by 10 in OPS+ and 7 in ERA+. Looking for things that might not be covered in OPS+/ERA+ . . . Both teams led their league in FPct, but the White Sox did it by a wider margin, and had a better Defensive Efficiency record, for what that is worth. However the White Sox were in a pitcher's park and the Pirates an extreme hitter's park, so that probably skews the DER enough to call it a wash. The Bucs were 3rd in the league in DP turned, despite their great staff (few runners), the White Sox were dead last. The Pirates stole 185 bases, the Sox 194 (we don't have CS data).

I don't mean to use this example as representative of the whole group, but it's all I have time for right now . . . I'll keep picking through them as time permits . . .

I tried to find a modern comparison for each team, based on the OPS+/ERA+ numbers, just from eyeballing it, to throw some perspective on it.

1905 White Sox look a lot like the 2005 Cardinals. The Cards had an OPS+ of 103, and an ERA+ of 123. Sox were 103/124, for those of you too lazy to look back at the last post.

The last team to post an ERA+ of 131 was the 2002 Braves. They won 101 games and lost in the NLDS to the Giants that year. But they only had an OPS+ of 100. The Red Sox offense this year had a 114 OPS+. So I guess if you took this year's Red Sox offense, and threw it together with the 2002 Braves pitching staff, you'd have a team comparable to the 1909 Pirates, by OPS+/ERA+.

BTW, the Yankees offense had a 111 OPS+ this year, so you could use that instead, if you think 114/131 makes a 113/131 team look overrated or something.

If the 2001 Yankees did what the Mariners did that year, they'd be hailed as one of the several greatest teams ever, just one that scored three runs fewer than its opponent in a five-game span. A 116-win Yankees squad, leading the league in batting, pitching, and fielding, not considered among the all-time greats? It wouldn't happen, regardless of postseason success or failure.

BS. If the 2001 Yankees had done what the Mariners did, every talk show in New York would have instantly slipped the Choke Collar around their necks and never let them forget it. The Yankees have compiled the best regular season record in baseball over the last five years, but you never hear them described as anything special by their fans, for the simple (and only) reason that they haven't picked up any more rings along the way. All those regular season, DS and LCS titles are taken for granted, and only the 2003 LCS against the Red Sox is even more than dimly remembered.

Yankee fans, and the New York media, are not like Seattle fans, and they are not like the Executive Committee of SABR. They want to know but one thing: At the end of October, did you get there? All the rest is just a glorified gold watch.

Great topic; love the debates. I see that almost every list has the 1975 Reds on it, and understandably so. I also see that no one has the 1975 Red Sox team that pushed them to Game Seven, and lost on a jam-job to center field. I think the Sox would hold their own in this field. Consideration for an also-ran?

I also see that no one has the 1975 Red Sox team that pushed them to Game Seven, and lost on a jam-job to center field.

By my imperfect scoring, they got two votes so far.

I think yours is biased towards the post 1950 era too much.

Well, there were more teams in the leagues starting in the 60's. 16 teams in MLB pre-1961, and 30 teams now. Seems logical to me to expect more great teams from the leagues with a greater number of teams.

Andy,

True enough regarding the New York view. But my contention is that here, and in most other circles, a 2001 Yankees team that set the league record for wins and led the league in batting, pitching, and fielding would be on most every list of the greatest teams of all time.

Except that you have the draft from the mid-60s forward, which directly affects a franchise's ability to stockpile talent.

Now if the goal is to see which GM was able to put a team the furthest above his contemporaries, based on the conditions of the time, I could see more modern teams strictly because the population is higher. That's why the Hall of Merit is going to (and the Hall of Fame should but doesn't) have more modern players, simply because there are more of them in modern times (and the population of the world has tripled over the last 100 years, and the US population has quadrupled).

But if the goal is to find the greatest concentrations of talent in one franchise - a.k.a. the greatest teams, I would think more would come pre-draft than post.

Also, I would think more great teams would come from the era where the index of competitive balance is lower.

My list isn't really biased towards one era or the other, it's pretty well dispersed. I've got 14 before 1950 and 14 after it. I've got 7 teams since 1980, and 10 from since the draft was implemented (though you may not want to count the 1969 O's, since the draft didn't impact that squad much).

For the people bashing the 2001 Mariners, what if baseball had four team divisions in 1939 and the AL West champ Cleveland Indians, 87-67 with Bob Feller and Mel Harder pitching 5 of 7 games, took out the Yankees in a 6-game series? Would they not be great anymore?

Seems like a double standard to penalize a team that had to go through extra rounds of playoffs where the historical teams didn't have to prove themselves there. What if the Mariners had picked up a couple of byes and went right to playing the 93-win Astros instead of facing a Yankee team that was built specifically to win a short series with 3 big-time starting pitchers?

I just think it's tough to bring post-season into the picture in a historical test when the teams from the first (starting with 1893) 77 years only had 1 or no post-season series. Teams from the next 25 years only had 2 series. Teams from the last 11 years have had 3. I don't see how you can compare based on post-season accomplishments across time.

1902 Pirates
1906 Cubs
1912 Giants
1921 Yankees
1927 Yankees
1929 Athletics
1936 Yankees
1942 Dodgers
1942 Cardinals
1946 Red Sox
1953 Yankees
1954 Indians
1955 Dodgers
1961 Yankees
1970 Orioles
1984 Tigers
1986 Mets
1998 Yankees
2001 Mariners

1902 Pirates
1906 Cubs
1912 Giants
1921 Yankees
1927 Yankees
1929 Athletics
1936 Yankees
1942 Dodgers
1942 Cardinals
1946 Red Sox
1953 Yankees
1954 Indians
1955 Dodgers
1961 Yankees
1970 Orioles
1984 Tigers
1986 Mets
1998 Yankees
2001 Mariners

Andy,

True enough regarding the New York view. But my contention is that here, and in most other circles, a 2001 Yankees team that set the league record for wins and led the league in batting, pitching, and fielding would be on most every list of the greatest teams of all time.

Well, no Gotham team is ever a hero in its own boroughs, not widdout da ring.

But as to your real point, "here" we do honor the 2001 Mariners. They will almost certainly make our top 10 cut (even without trevise's vote), and the 2001 Yankees or Diamondbacks definitely won't. Hard to say how they'd fare "in most other circles," but I doubt if just adding an "NY" to their 116 wins would do much for their reputation among those who only look at the rings. Maybe it might for Rudy Giuliani, though.

Sawney Snows,

Let's not.....

You have your criteria (as does Andy) of what constitutes a "great team" and I have mine. Having done a partial 'deconstruction' of the Mariners 2001 season I've found that even in playing series against the 'better' teams in the American League, they were catching them during periods when they weren't playing their best.

Again, I never said they didn't have a great season nor did I ever say they weren't dominant. I DID say that the "2001 Seattle Mariners were not a great team." And I stand by that. A "neighborhood bully" can dominate his peer group, that doesn't make him great.

Okay so what make a "great team?" Great teams achieve goals. What are the goals for a "great team" to achieve? To win championships! They may be bloodied in the process and they ultimately be beaten, but they don't wither and fold the first time someone is able to stand 'toe to toe' with them.

There are two examples so close in time with the 2001 Seattle Mariners that this shouldn't even be an issue:
• 1995 Cleveland Indians
• 1998 New York Yankees

The comparison that can be made between these three teams is in all likelyhood that although they each had some great and excellent players, they probably will be remembered for the 'whole being greater than the sum of their parts.' However, when it comes to achievement over an individual season or a sustained period, the contrast could not be any more stark.

It's just a fling if you don't have a ring... Like I said, I have my criteria and you have yours. And the twain shall never meet.

--------
trevise

trevise,

As a fan I'd agree with you completely.

As a player I'd agree with you, too.

And my own list is heavily weighted towards championship teams, BUT...

116 games is just too big a figure to ignore in the very good AL of 2001. This wasn't the cheezy AL of 1954. Not to mention that the M's did so well in all categories, AND did beat every other team during the course of the season.

And beyond that, as Mark pointed out to me a long way back in the other thread, the whole premise of the Sim exercise was based on the regular season, and not the postseason. Many of us objected to that, and a lot of the lists so far seem to reflect these objections.

But just as figuring "greatest teams" by Pythags, OPS+, ERA+, etc., seems like a pretty barren and soulless enterprise, by the same token it also seems a little harsh to ignore the occasional extraordinary season without the ring, like (for me) the 06 Cubs, 01 Mariners and 95 Indians. Those three in particular stick in my throat when I try to keep them out of the upper echelon of 10 or so.

One last comment: I like the way you went into the 2001 season and noted the Mariners' "luck" in running into many teams during their down period. This is the sort of season-in-depth analysis I was talking about when I was going back and forth with Steve about the large sample size of the regular season not necessarily being the solitary trump card of analysis. I guess my gut instinct here is that I trust the judgment of open-minded historians more than I trust a set of raw numbers.

I think yours is biased towards the post 1950 era too much

In addition to Greg's note regarding more teams, the quality of play is ALOT less in until WWII.

Post-integration, I would expect more great teams (whetehr or not they are more dominant).

But that's just me.

14 teams before 1950 is too many, IMO.

Another knock against the '01 Mariners is the great teams have great players argument. The Mariners did have some genuine great players in Ichiro and Martinez as well as some other pretty good players. However, they had a career year from almost every player, both offensively and pitching wise. Does anybody think that the performences of Sele, Garcia, Abbott, Cameron, Boone, McLemore, or Javier was really their talent level. Compare this with the '98 Yankees. They got career years from Brosius, Spencer, Irabu, and Bush. That is it. And Spencer and Bush did not even play very much.

Gagne_55,

You Heretic... There you go injecting objective reasoning when subjective judgemnt is ruling the day(s).

--------
trevise

the '01 Mariners...had a career year from almost every player

I'm puzzled how a team that had a "career year from almost every player" wouldn't be an all-time great team. The simulation seems intended to include single-season teams, not ongoing dynasties. Not everyone defines a great team as one with oodles of HOFers. It's unlikely that the 2001 Mariners' roster will wind up with the career value of the 1998 Yankees, but there are multiple paths to all-time greatness. If there weren't, we wouldn't be voting. Or debating.

trevise, your comments helped me decide to set up a spreadsheet and start to gather some numbers regarding your supposition that the Mariners were unusually "lucky" with timing. If I'm similarly lucky with regards to time, I hope to post something of interest here. I don't doubt you, but I'd like to quantify it if it's true.

I disagree on intergration. The majors stayed with 16 teams from 1901 until a decade and a half after integration. I think that more than offsets any gains that would have been made in the competition level through integration, were more than offset by the lack of expansion. It can't go both ways - if you are going to add players for integration, then you also have to add teams (which they eventually did).

I would say there is an integration based argument for maybe an extra team or two from the 1950s due to integration and a lack of expansion - and I do have all 3 of the great 1950s teams (Indians, Yankees, Dodgers) represented.

Hey RB you are going to kill me, but I need to tweak my list again - I screwed up again - forgot the 1953 Dodgers were the great team and the 1955 team just happened to win. Sorry man. Here's the list if it helps:

My new list:

1896 Orioles
1902 Pirates
1906 Cubs
1909 Pirates
1911 A’s
1912 Red Sox
1917 White Sox
1923 Giants
1927 Yanks
1931 A’s
1931 Cardinals
1939 Yanks
1942 Cards
1946 Red Sox
1953 Yanks
1953 Dodgers
1954 Indians
1961 Yanks
1969 Orioles
1974 Dodgers
1975 Reds
1984 Tigers
1986 Mets
1988 A’s
1995 Indians
1998 Braves
1998 Yanks
2001 Mariners

"I think that more than offsets any gains that would have been made in the competition level through integration, were more than offset by the lack of expansion."

Whoops, forgot to fix that sentence . . .

I think that any gains that would have been made in the competition level through integration were more than offset by the lack of expansion.

trevise, your comments helped me decide to set up a spreadsheet and start to gather some numbers regarding your supposition that the Mariners were unusually "lucky" with timing.

Sawney Snows,

At this point I really need to head home to Tucson so I can be back here in the AM. Here's an example of what I did:



The team RECORDS are coming into the series.
The DATES are the opening day of the series.
The Mariners RECord is after the first game of the series
L16 are Last 16 games leading up to the series

NOTE: I may not have an opportunity to look in until later in the week. I am bookmarking and will check back. It's also possible I may not get back until the following Monday as I do have to work next w/e and will not be online.

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trevise

All these are rough figures, but nevertheless:

There were 400 whites playing in Major League Baseball in 1901, out of a total U.S. white population of about 65 million. That was one of about 162,500 whites.

There were about 390 whites playing MLB in 1950, out of a total U.S. white population of about 130 million. One of about 333,000.

There are approximately 450-475 whites of all nationalities playing MLB today, out of a U.S. white population of about 225 million. One of about 485,000. And that's including white Latinos in the numerator and not the denominator, so the real talent pool for whites is really a fair amount larger than the mere U.S. white figures would imply. This was not the case in 1950, when all of Latin America was virtually unscouted territory, and there were no significant white Latino players in the Majors.

Throw in the best 275-300 non-white players from all over the world. Make whatever adjustments you want to for competition from other sports, changes in male-female ratio, greater life expectancy, etc., there is absolutely no way anyone can maintain that the competition for Major League jobs isn't vastly greater today than in past generations.

And since the minors are now nearly 50% made up of Latin American players, one can only see the talent pool as becoming ever bigger as the years go by. The only signifcant counter-trend is the relative decline in the percentage of African Americans, but in retrospect the high point of that percentage (27%) had to have been somewhat flukish, unless one is wedded to the idea of some sort of African American genetic advantage in inherent baseball skills.

You can nitpick around the edges of all this, but the broad outline is nevertheless clear.

To paraphrase the title of an article which appeared in the very first issue of Sports Illustrated, The Golden Age of Sports Baseball Is Now.

Of course this is in spite of the owners' best efforts to ruin it---but that's another story.

Hey RB you are going to kill me

I most assuredly am, by the time the season rolls around you will have long forgotten this and my invitation for you to join me for a Nationals' game will seem quite innocent, in fact, it will all seem innocent right up until the moment when I give you a rather forceful shove off the 500 level at RFK

trevise,

I'd like to do more as time permits, but tonight I made a spreadsheet like the following for Seattle's 2001 season:



For each Seattle series, the opponent's regular-season winning percentage was compared with the overall winning percentage in the 15 opponent games prior to and the 15 opponent games following the Seattle series.

WPct is the opponent's regular-season winning percentage.
W15B is the number of opponent wins in the 15 games preceding the series; L15B is the number of such losses.
W15A is the number of opponent wins in the 15 games following the series; L15A is the number of such losses.
W30 is the total of W15B and W15A; L30 is the total of L15B and L15A.
Pct30 is the opponent winning percentage in the 30 games considered.
#G is the number of games in the series.
Weight is Pct30 times #G.

I chose games both before and after because both sides of time seem equally valid to determine how well a team was playing at the time of a certain series. You can't know when the injured player came back, or when the bullpen was tired from an extra-inning game, or any of hundreds of factors that can influence a team for days or weeks.

Seattle games in the 15 adjacent opponent games in either direction were not counted, to avoid this sort of thing: "Yeah, Seattle swept them three straight, but look how poorly they were playing the week before--they lost four straight to Seattle!" To keep the time window roughly the same before and after each series, I didn't go beyond 15 actual games to make up for Seattle games; I just counted 15 minus the series length.

I originally started with 7 games in each direction, but I noticed recurring phenomena such as teams playing 102-win Oakland right before or after playing Seattle, and interleague matchups that pitted the opponent against only better teams or only worse teams within a week or two but that evened out better with the expanded time period. So basically, what I did measures how the opponent played in about a month's time, with the Seattle series at the center (centre if the opponent was Toronto). But I really don't know what the ideal length of time would be for something like this.

I acknowledge this method has its imperfections, but ironing out some of them would increase the time of analysis exponentially. It would be fabulous, for example, to recursively compute schedule strength so as to even out fluctuations in the quality of teams faced in the time window chosen, but such a thing would be prohibitive to set up.

I added all the weights and divided by 162 to determine by what percentage Seattle's opponents exceeded or underperformed their winning percentage. Seattle's 2001 opponents, in their 15 games before and 15 games after their Seattle series, played .004 worse than their regular-season record. So there appears to be merit to the contention that Seattle's opponents were underperforming, on average, when their games with Seattle rolled around. I would like to compare the .004 difference to that of several other great teams; right now the only comparison I have is to a .000 difference.

One more thing: I computed the average record of a Seattle opponent by multiplying opponent records by the number of games against Seattle, then dividing by 162. Rounded, the average Seattle opponent was an 80-82 team. The .004 difference applied to the original computation makes each opponent virtually a 79-83 team instead. How much of a difference this made, I cannot say.

1905 Giants
1906 Cubs
1909 Pirates
1911 A’s
1912 Red Sox
1923 Giants
1925 Pirates
1927 Yanks
1931 A’s
1939 Yanks
1942 Cards
1948 Indians
1953 Yanks
1954 Indians
1955 Dodgers
1957 Braves
1967 Cards
1968 Tigers
1970 Orioles
1974 A’s
1975 Reds
1984 Tigers
1986 Mets
1988 A’s
1995 Indians
1998 Braves
1998 Yanks
2001 Mariners

The week is up so I'm now officially closing this thread and will start tallying the votes. Expect results in a day or two.

I've re-opened the thread to comments after realizing I may have accidentally cut off some good discussion, but the voting remains closed.

Sawney - one thing about your method, teams tend to play teams within the same geographical area over certain parts of the schedule. So whenever they were playing Seattle, they were also playing Oakland and California (sometimes the Yankees do Minnesota/Seattle trips too). Oakland won 102 games, California 75 and Minnesota 85 in 2001 (average 87.3). So I think you have to adjust for strength of opponent to make the findings more meaningful. I know you are going for a big sample size, but I think 30 days is too big a spread. I think you'd be fine just using the week before and the week after, if you adjusted for opponent strength (although you've still got the problem of the wide variance of starting pitcher strength faced too).

And as you said, you've got to do the same thing for a bunch of other great teams to get some perspective on the whole thing.