A new ranking for Best MLB teams of all-time

News is here: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the ... 538twitter

The 1939 Yankees top the list. Of course, here in SOM, we already knew that. The 1939 Yankees won the ultimate yearly all-time franchise league theme:

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/scores/428826

The 1906 Cubs are listed second in the ranking, but in our season, they only managed to play .500., although it should be said that Johnny Evers only joined the team in mid-season!!

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/428826

I can't help but notice that the 1994 Montreal Expos are not even in the top 200 of best teams. Of course, we know better in STRAT, they made the playoffs with a 85-77 record!!

Nice links. Thanks. I had written in to Strat a while back suggesting they release computer versions of the best teams, which would be really expensive to otherwise purchase manually season by season. The amount of sets available would be staggering - winners, runner ups, also rans, by decade, best offenses, best defenses, buyer's choice, etc. I think it would be a popular product. And there is absolutely nothing close to it available for football.

Fun list, thanks for posting!
I have one issue with the list, well maybe more than one but this one I'm certain of. The 77-78 Dodgers were better than the 74 Dodgers.

Gee another list that is a complete joke. Any list of top teams that is not listing the 27 Yanks as number 1 has no validity what so ever. Add to that the 61 Yanks at number 41....all you can do is laugh. The nerds who figured it out....well why make a comment on that. This is not just sour grapes from A 60 year Yankee fan....but really.....the 2009 Yanks ahead of the 61 Yanks....yeah right. This has to be the same group of guys who try to rate a players defense with statistics. Do you think the defensive range factors are just laughable...but I guess they don't realize the great ones do position themselves almost pitch by pitch. Besides the fact that guys that played a good part of their careers on astro turf should be not even be considered as far as errors go. I played enough games on astro turf to realize it is pretty much impossible to make an error (other than throws.) But the current state of baseball is a bit sad. I mean todays players ae considered great even if they routinely strike out 150 times a year. Whatever happened to hitting to the opposite field to beat the shifts.....probably the same thing that players can pick and choose when they want to hustle and stop running doubles into singles because they spent too much time admiring what they thought was a home run. Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio...gosh we miss you terribly..... or ask Mickey if you can play hurt once in awhile....probably not if you have a hang nail.

.probably the same thing that players can pick and choose when they want to hustle and stop running doubles into singles because they spent too much time admiring what they thought was a home run.

There was an interview with Willie Mays a little while back and he was asked why he had fewer doubles than we might think he should have. He said that with McCovey hitting behind him, if Mays had been at second with first base open, McCovey would have been intentionally walked almost every time. I doubt there are many players today who are thinking of how such little things can help a team (the first name I might think of is Ichiro -- but then again I have a feeling that Ichiro could have played in any era of the game).

Here's that short interview:

http://www.sfgate.com/giants/article/Willie-Mays-the-interview-3251988.php

Bill

And so continues the 538 love affair with the Elo ratings as the be-all and end-all of comparing / ranking things in sports. I think the simple approach might give a better result here. The objective of baseball (or any other team sport) is to score more runs (points) than your opponent. So the best baseball teams of all-time would be the ones that were the most successful in achieving that objective: scoring the most runs in their league while at the same time allowing the fewest runs scored. Further, you could calculate how much the team was above the league average in runs scored and runs allowed to identify the truly great teams.

For example 2001 Seattle Mariners 116-46 (.716), 927 runs scored (1st in AL) 627 runs allowed (1st in AL). The league average was 787, so that's +17.8% above LA for runs scored and +20.3% above LA for runs allowed. Now let's look at the 1939 Yankees 106-45 (.702), 967 runs scored (1st in AL) 556 runs allowed (1st in AL). The league average was 801, so that's +20.7% above LA for runs scored and +30.6% above LA for runs allowed. The 1927 Yankees? 110-44 (.714) 975 runs scored (1st in AL) 599 runs allowed (1st in AL). League average was 762. +28.0% above LA for runs scored and +21.4% above LA for runs allowed. The 1906 Cubs - 116-36 (.763), 704 runs scored (1st in NL) 381 runs allowed (1st in NL). League average was 549. +28.2% above LA for runs scored and +30.5% above LA for runs allowed.

By this quick and dirty measure the 1906 Cubbies come out on top among the teams I looked at, followed by the 1939 Yanks, but the 1927 Yankees are right behind that. My point is the best all-time teams should lead their respective leagues (or at least come very close) in both runs scored and runs allowed. How many times that's happened I don't know... but I think the 1909 Cubs might even have been better than the 1909 Pirates, #4 on the 538 Elo list.