While waiting for the new season (and partially mentioned as an idea before), I had an idea, partly inspired by Jonah Keri's "BestCoolest" series where he highlights some of his favourite teams, batters, and pitchers. I started following baseball in 1992, becoming a Blue Jays fan at a young age. My favourite teams have changed over the years, and I've always like individual players for their stories, their playing styles, or their outrageous statistics (and sometimes all of the above). Given that, I'm planning to do the following posts over the next little while.
I've followed Jonah Keri's primary rules in his teams post: namely, the team has to have been good, and I have to remember watching them. So, as above, that's 1992 on. But rather than just making it a list of the 10 best teams of the last 24 seasons, I want to focus on teams that I enjoyed watching for some reason or another. 10. 2004 Boston Red Sox This was a team that I really followed for one playoff series, and for most baseball fans, it will be obvious which one. This may give you a hint that I have not been a Yankees fan during most of my time following baseball. I admit that I did cheer for the Yankees in the 1996 World Series, mostly because two of their primary starting pitchers were ex-Toronto Blue Jays (David Cone and Jimmy Key), and at the time I still saw the Atlanta Braves as "opponents" from the 1992 World Series. In retrospect (and not long after), I got to really enjoying the Braves pitchers, a couple of who will make appearances in the next post. But back to 2004. Boston sports were a lot different back then, and a little easier to root for if you weren't from the Boston area. The Patriots had won 2 of the last 3 Super Bowls, but the Red Sox hadn't won a championship in 86 years, the Bruins hadn't won a Stanley Cup in 32 years, and the Celtics hadn't won in 18 years. Of course, since then, the Patriots went to 4 more Super Bowls, winning 2 of them, the Red Sox won 3 World Series, and the Bruins and Celtics each added one. The last 15 years have been a heck of a time for Boston, in retrospect. At the time, though, the Yankees had won 4 of the last 8 World Series, and played in 2 others. They were the big-money villain of the MLB, and had been the hammer to Boston's nail several times, including the infamous Grady Little game in 2003. When the Yankees beat an injured Curt Schilling in game 1, slipped by Pedro Martinez in game 2, and then thrashed the Red Sox 19-8 in game 3 of the ALCS, things looked exceptionally dire. It looked worse when the Yankees took a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the 9th in game 4 with their seemingly unbeatable closer, Mariano Rivera, on the mound. Boston entered that inning with a 23% chance of winning, which probably seemed very high given the circumstances. What happened next is legend. After Kevin Millar drew a walk against Rivera, pinch-runner Dave Roberts immediately stole second base and scored on a single by Bill Mueller. The held on until the 12th inning, when David Ortiz started building his playoff legend with a 2-run walkoff home run at 1:22am. Later that evening, the teams met again for game 5. The Yankees took a 2 run lead into the bottom of the 8th, but a leadoff home run from Ortiz, followed by a walk and a single chased Tom Gordon and brought in Rivera again. This time the tying run scored immediately on a sacrifice fly, and the teams battled into the 14th inning. Cue Ortiz again, with 2 men on and 2 out, he delivered, ending a game that took just under 6 hours to complete. Game 6 saw Curt Schilling come back to the mound, with a sewn together ankle. And Schilling was dominant. He went 7 innings, allowing 1 run, and helped the Red Sox win a close game to get to game 7. For those hoping for another close game, this game was a bit of a disappointment. However, for Red Sox fans, it probably felt good to slay the dragon quickly. And a 6-0 lead after 2 innings, which increased to 8-1 after 4 innings, did just that. The World Series was a bit of a letdown afterwards, as the Red Sox quickly swept the St. Louis Cardinals, but for their fans, it was huge. For me, the drama of the ALCS and the satisfaction of the outcome was enough to get this team to number 10 on this list. 9. 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks The reasons for this entry are pretty similar to number 10, but without the tortured franchise history. Because, frankly, the Diamondbacks had no history. They were in just their 4th season of existence, and their purple-pinstriped vests were an... interesting sartorial choice. In fact, the franchise liked the look so much that they ditched it completely just 6 years later, changing the colours, logos, and even the general wording of the team name (which, please fix that). My reasons for cheering for the Diamondbacks were two-fold. First of all, the Yankees had won 4 of the last 5 World Series, and second of all, they had ruined the 116-win season of the number 7 team on this list, the Seattle Mariners, in the ALCS. But a bit more on that later. Unlike the Red Sox, the Diamondbacks came into this series with a very real chance of winning. And the reason was primarily two men: Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson. The numbers were a little terrifying. Regular Season Schilling - 22-6, 2.98 ERA, 256.2 IP, 293 K, 1.075 WHIP, 7.51 K/BB, 8.8 rWAR Johnson - 21-6, 2.49 ERA, 249.2 IP, 372 K, 1.009 WHIP, 5.24 K/BB, 10.0 rWAR Playoffs (first two rounds) Schilling - 3-0, 0.67 ERA, 27.0 IP, 3 CG, 30 K, 13 H, 4 BB Johnson - 2-1, 1.88 ERA, 24.0 IP, 1 CG, 28 K, 16 H, 5 BB The Diamondbacks decided to set up their rotation to have Schilling start up to 3 times in the World Series, giving him games 1, 4, and 7, and Johnson in games 2 and 6. Games 1 and 2 went exactly to plan for Arizona. Schilling went 7 innings in a 9-1 victory in game 1, and Johnson threw a shutout in a 4-0 victory in game 2. Game 3 featured a tight pitching performance between Brian Anderson and Roger Clemens, but the Yankees took the game 2-1 at home. Games 4 and 5 featured tough extra inning losses for Arizona behind blown saves from closer Byung-Hyun Kim despite 7 more innings of 1-run ball from Schilling in game 4. The series moved back to Arizona for game 6, and Randy Johnson provided 7 innings of strong 2-run pitching, but it was barely needed as Arizona scored 15 times in the first 4 innings and cruised to a victory. Game 7 brought Schilling back for his third start of the series, and 6th start of the playoffs overall. He would set a single-playoff innings record that would stand until 2014, and held the Yankees to 1 run through the first 7 innings opposite Roger Clemens. He came back out for the top of the 8th, but allowed a leadoff home run to Alfonso Soriano to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead. After he got an out, and Miguel Batista got a second out, Randy Johnson was brought in and ended up giving his team 4 outs to get them to the bottom of the 9th as Mariano Rivera came back out for a second inning. And then Rivera had a rare unraveling. After a leadoff single by Mark Grace, Damian Miller put down a bunt and Rivera couldn't make the force at 2nd, putting two men on. A second bunt was unsuccessful as the lead runner was thrown out at third, but then Tony Womack doubled to bring in the tying run, and Craig Counsell was hit by a pitch. This brought up Luis Gonzalez, and he got just enough. It was an exciting end to a tense World Series, but as with the previous entry, it was really the only time that I closely followed this franchise. By the way, the final playoff numbers for Johnson + Schilling: 11 GS + 1 relief game, 9-1, 89.2 IP, 13 ER, 1.30 ERA, 50 H, 14 BB, 103 K, 0.714 WHIP, 10.3 K/9 8. 2015 Toronto Blue Jays Spoiler alert: The next three entries did not win the World Series. In fact, none of them made it to the final round of the playoffs. But they were tremendously fun to follow. I started this blog just before the Blue Jays started their first playoff appearance in 22 years, and though the ending felt disappointing, it was an exciting season and a fun playoff run to the end. The Jays were a trendy pick to make the playoffs after some big additions before the 2013 season, and fell very flat, finishing with just 74 wins. People were slightly hopeful going into 2014, and the Jays improved by 9 games, but still finished well out of the playoffs. On July 28 of 2015, the Jays lost 3-2 to the Philadelphia Phillies to fall to 50-51 on the season. That day, they traded Jose Reyes, Miguel Castro, and two minor leaguers and added Troy Tulowitzki and LaTroy Hawkins, signaling that they were going to raise the stakes on their season. Two days later, they raised the stakes and traded for David Price, and then added Mark Lowe and Ben Revere in separate transactions on July 31, plus Cliff Pennington on August 8. They won their last 3 games in July, entering August at 53-51, then went 21-6 in August, plus 18-9 in September before a slight stumble in the last week of the season took them to a 93-69 finish, and an American League East title. I covered their team in some detail in October, but they went into their first round matchup with the Texas Rangers as heavy favourites, but stumbled out of the gate, losing the first two games at home before winning two straight games in Texas, and then famously winning game 5 in explosive fashion after a wild 7th inning. This set them up for an ALCS matchup with the Kansas City Royals, who had finished 2 games ahead of the Jays after their stumble at the end of the season, giving them home field advantage. I can't say for sure that the series would have turned out differently if the roles had been reversed, but it is a slight question for Jays fans who felt that the season ended prematurely. I covered this in some agonizing detail last October, but the Jays (and everybody, ultimately) fell to the Royals when they either failed to put them away, or failed to come through on offense. This team was a lot of Canada's reintroduction to playoff baseball, and hopefully it will help build a new generation of fans, as I really got hooked on baseball at a young age when the Jays won their back-to-back World Series in the early 90s. It was a fun team, full of characters and character. Fans of other teams didn't always like the emotion that Jays players displayed, but I like a team that looks like they're having fun playing and cares about the outcome. This group might have jumped a couple of levels if they had managed to win a championship, but I will remember them as one of my favourite single season teams in a while. 6a. 1999 New York Mets While I'll go into this in some more detail further down this list and in a future entry, my first favourite player in baseball was John Olerud, who was a key member of the back-to-back World Champion Blue Jays. When he was traded away to the New York Mets after the Jays suffered through 2 poor seasons in 1995 and 1996, I shifted my focus to New York for the 1997 to 1999 seasons. The Jays mistakenly thought that Olerud's best days were behind him, and he rewarded the Mets with three excellent seasons before moving on to Seattle. I chose the 1999 version of the Mets to represent that group of teams mostly to fulfill the "Good" portion of the criteria listed above. While the Mets played pretty well in 1997 and 1998, winning 88 games both years, they also missed the playoffs both years. In 1999, when they added third baseman Robin Ventura to solidify the infield, things really came together. Led by what some were calling "The Best Infield Ever?", the Mets infielders were worth 81 runs defensively, and by Baseball-Reference, totaled just over 21 WAR combined. That combined with another excellent season from slugging catcher Mike Piazza and ageless wonder Rickey Henderson, who put together a .315/.423/.466 slash line at age 40, and the Mets finished the season at 96-66 to tie the Cincinnati Reds for the wild card after winning the last game of the season on a wild pitch. This set up a one-game playoff with Cincinnati, and Al Leiter was brilliant, throwing a 2-hit shutout to help the Mets advance. In the Division Series, they faced the Arizona Diamondbacks, who had won 100 games in just their second season, and featured ace Randy Johnson. Johnson struggled a bit in game 1, however, giving up a 1st inning home run to Edgardo Alfonzo, and a rare home run to a left-handed hitter when Olerud took him deep in the 3rd inning. The Mets would end up winning game 1 by a score of 8-4. The Diamondbacks came back and took game 2 by a 7-1 score, but when the series moved to New York, the Mets cruised to a 9-2 victory in game 3, setting up a dramatic game 4. The Mets took a 2-1 lead into the top of the 8th before the Diamondbacks scored twice in the top of the inning. They tied the game on a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 8th, and both teams were held scoreless in the 9th inning. In the bottom of the 10th inning, Todd Pratt came up with 1 out and nobody on, and took Matt Mantei deep to center field, letting the Mets win the series in a walkoff. In the NLCS, the Mets faced their nemesis, the Atlanta Braves. The Mets had gone 3-9 against the Braves in each of the last two seasons, and the Braves were in the middle of a run of 14 consecutive division titles. Game 1 saw Greg Maddux handle the Mets in a 4-2 victory for the Braves, and game 2 went no better as Kevin Millwood took care of the Mets on the way to a 4-3 Braves victory. In game 3, things went from bad to worse for the Mets as Tom Glavine shut them down completely, leading to a 1-0 Braves victory, and putting them on the brink of elimination. In game 4, the Mets had to face 1998 Cy Young award winner and annual playoff star John Smoltz. Rick Reed was able to match zeros with Smoltz through the top of the 6th before Olerud gave the Mets their first lead since game 2 and only the second of the series with a solo home run off of Smoltz. In the top of the 8th, with Reed having allowed just one single all game, Brian Jordan and Ryan Klesko broke the tie and took the lead on back-to-back home runs to start the inning. Things looked dire for the Mets going into the bottom of the 8th with Smoltz still pitching before a leadoff single and a failed bunt chased Smoltz. Mike Remlinger came in and got a strikeout but then gave up a walk. Lefty John Rocker was brought in to face Olerud, a seeming advantage for the Braves as Rocker had chewed up lefties all year long. After a double steal by Roger Cedeno and Melvin Mora, Olerud came through again with a 2-run single to center field, which would hold up for a 3-2 win after Armando Benitez shut down the Braves in the top of the 9th. Game 5 brought Greg Maddux back. This time, the Mets wasted no time in taking the lead, when Olerud took Maddux deep for a 2-run home run in the bottom of the 1st inning. The Braves would get the runs back in the top of the 4th before the teams settled into a scoreless groove that took them all the way to the 15th inning. In the top of the 15th, the Braves scored a go-ahead run on a triple by Keith Lockhart. In the bottom of the inning the Mets put the first two hitters on with a single and a walk before sacrificing them over to 2nd and 3rd. An intentional walk to Olerud loaded the bases with one out, and an unintentional walk to Todd Pratt tied the game at 3, bringing up Robin Ventura. Ventura would finish his career with a line of .340/.376/.676 with the bases loaded, including 18 grand slam home runs, good for a tie for 5th all time. Ventura took pitcher Kevin McGlinchy deep for what would eventually be called a grand slam single as he was mobbed so thoroughly after passing first base that he never finished rounding the bases. In game 6, the series was back in Atlanta. Al Leiter was pulled in the first inning after allowing 5 runs without getting a single out. In the 6th, the Mets scored 3 times to pull closer at 5-3, but the Braves would score twice in the bottom of the inning to lead 7-3. In the top of the 7th, a double by Rickey Henderson scored one, then a single by Olerud scored another, before Mike Piazza tied the game at 7 with a home run. The Mets took an 8-7 lead in the top of the 8th, but the Braves tied it in the bottom of the 8th. That held to the 10th inning, where the Mets took a 9-8 lead against John Rocker. The Braves, however, tied the game back up in the bottom of the inning. In the bottom of the 11th, the Mets run finally ended when the Braves won 10-9 on a walkoff walk. This was John Olerud's last game in a Mets uniform, and his next franchise is the second part of the tie for 6th place 6b. 2001 Seattle Mariners After the 1999 season, Olerud went home to Seattle, where he would play until mid-2004. Fun fact (if you're not a Yankees fan): Olerud went to the Yankees in 2004, and was their starting first baseman in the playoffs. He was injured in game 3 of the ALCS, and the Yankees would not win another game (as previously documented). I chose the 2001 Mariners to represent this 3 and a half year run, as it was by far the most successful. The Mariners won over 90 games in 2000, 2002, and 2003, but just missed the playoffs in 2002 and 2003. In 2001, they had come off consecutive seasons of losing future Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson, future Hall of Fame center fielder Ken Griffey Jr, and future Hall of Famer (if not for all of the scandals) Alex Rodriguez. The Oakland Athletics had an incredible season, winning 102 games. The Mariners would win the American League West by 14 games. Behind Rookie of the Year and MVP Ichiro Suzuki, and standout performances from Bret Boone, Mike Cameron, John Olerud, and Edgar Martinez, the Mariners exploded to a 20-5 record in April, and would not win less than 2/3 of their games in any calendar month. They rolled into the All Star Break at 63-24, and in front of Seattle fans, 8 Mariners would represent the American League in a 4-1 victory, including DH Edgar Martinez, 1B John Olerud, 2B Bret Boone, CF Mike Cameron, RF Ichiro Suzuki, SP Freddy Garcia, RP Jeff Nelson, and RP Kazuhiro Sazaki. In the second half, they would "slump" all the way to 53-22 in the second half, finishing with 116 wins, tied for the most all time in a season. They clinched the division with their 106th win on September 9, and after a hiatus following the events of 9-11, they earned their 116th win on October 6th against $254MM former Mariner Alex Rodriguez. Unfortunately one of the most memorable baseball moments of their season was blowing a 12-run lead in an August game against Cleveland. And if you remember entry number 9 up above, their season ended earlier than hoped. The Mariners faced those same Indians in the Division Series, and immediately struggled against then-young Bartolo Colon, losing game 1 by a 5-0 score. They came back and won game 2 by a 5-1 score to take the series back to Cleveland. The potent Cleveland offense destroyed the Mariners pitching staff in game 3 as the Indians won by a 17-2 score. Game 4 went better as the Mariners won 6-2, scoring all 6 runs in the 7th to 9th innings. They finally closed out the Indians in game 5, as a solid performance from Jamie Moyer got them a 3-1 victory and sent them through to the ALCS against the Yankees. Against the Yankees, the Mariners lack of a dominant ace pitcher came back to bite them, as they lost game 1 by a 4-2 score at home, then game 2 by a 3-2 score. The Mariners offense would wake up in game 3, as home runs from Olerud, Jay Buhner, and Bret Boone would give them a 14-3 victory. Closer Kaz Sazaki would falter in game 4, as the Mariners lost 3-1 on a walkoff home run by Alfonso Soriano. The series would end in game 5 in New York, as Seattle was blown out by a 12-3 score. They have not been back to the playoffs since. The team played well the next two seasons, but in the one wild card model, they missed the playoffs both years, before things fell apart and they let Olerud go during the 2004 season. This definitely ended up as a "what might have been" season given their extraordinary success in the regular season, but it was a fun run to follow. I had planned to do all 10 teams in this entry, but at nearly 4000 words already, I decided it might be best to split it here. The top 5 teams will come next. I hope this series is as fun to read as it has been to write and reminisce about so far.
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Greg JacksonA baseball fan in general. Interested in statistics and analytics. Usually follow the Giants and Blue Jays, fan of all MLB in general. |