Ranking the Champs
Part 2

10. 1992 Toronto, 24: Little distinguishes the two versions of the Blue Jays’ back to back titles other than the seven All-Stars on the ’93 team when Cito Gaston chose the reserves. You can’t go wrong with either one, although adding Rickey Henderson is a nice touch. John Olerud was the real star here, as Joe Carter’s value was tied up in having tons of RBI opportunities with Olerud, White and Alomar hitting in front of him.

9. 1988 Los Angeles, 27: The Kirk Gibson Series. After the gimpy MVP came off the bench to win Game 2, the series was basically over, ending Sparky Anderson’s last best hope at another championship. Orel Hersheiser also factored prominently in the outcome.

8. 2005 Chicago (A), 28: I’ll take it that this team is pretty fresh in the minds of most readers, but it was surprising that they ranked so highly. They did win 99 games in the regular season, even if it’s hard to find exactly where those wins came from. They also only lost one game in the entire postseason.

7. 1993 Toronto, 28.5: They probably could have been better than their 95 wins, but they kept trotting out a completely finished Jack Morris (6.19 ERA in 157 IP) and a nearly done Dave Stewart instead of a prime Al Leiter who spot started 12 times with much more effectiveness. The offense was built on highs and lows; they had 3 OBPs over .400 in Olerud (.473), Alomar (.408) and Molitor (.402) weighed down by Pat Borders (.285), Turner Ward (.287) and Ed Sprague (.310).

6. 2002 Anaheim, 29.5: Just as I expected the ’95 Braves to rank much higher than they did, I expected 2002 Anaheim to rank much lower. To be fair, they won 99 games, even though it came in second best behind the A’s in the AL West. They also exemplified the idea of a balanced roster without a star. Even the statistically weakest starters (Molina, Erstad and Eckstein) were able to contribute from time to time, and even their bad starting pitchers had decent seasons (ie- Ramon Ortiz’s 3.77 ERA despite 68 BBs and 40 HRs). Is it really just luck if it lasted all season long?

5. 1989 Oakland, 30.5: I would arbitrarily draw a line between positions 5 and 6 here as the difference between great teams and very good ones. This Oakland team was in the midst of three straight pennants and at least 99 wins per season. As much as they are known for being the Bash Brothers, both McGwire (.231 BA) and Canseco (only 65 games due to injury) had very weak seasons. The offense wasn’t very good overall, but this team prevented runs extremely well, featuring 4 17+ game winners and a trademark Tony LaRussa deep bullpen led by Dennis Eckersley.

4. 2004 Boston, 35: The ESPN readers’ pick for the best team on this list is certainly a great one, but doesn’t quite measure up to a couple of teams that caused Boston fans tremendous torment. Everything came together on offense with stars like Ramirez, Ortiz, Damon and Varitek getting more help than expected from role players like Millar, Mueller and Cabrera. As much as this was an offensively dominated team, people will have to look back on a Schilling/Martinez-led rotation as one of the all-time greats. It’s too bad Pedro was down in the one year they were together.

3. 1999 New York (A), 42.5: And thus we begin our tour of the boroughs. The difference between this team and the one from the year before was little more than everyone coming back to earth. Everyone, that is, except Derek Jeter, who gained his reputation as an elite hitter by hitting .349/.438/.552 with 134 runs scored. If you count the Chad Curtis/Ricky Ledee platoon as one everyday left-fielder, everyone in the lineup slugged over .400 with at least 12 HRs.

2. 1986 New York (N), 56.5: Even though Bill Bucker ushered the World Series through his legs, the Mets were not a fluke champion. They were strong in every facet of the game and came very close to building a dynasty of their own in Queens. They won at least 87 games and finished in the top two in the division for 7 straight years, but got to the playoffs only twice. With the current divisional alignment, they would have won the NL East every year from 1984 to 1990, and Ron Darling, Doc Gooden and Sid Fernandez are nice pieces to have in a short series. I’d be remiss not to mention all of the stars on offense, so here goes: Hall of Famer Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Mookie Wilson, Lenny Dykstra, Darryl Strawberry, Kevin Mitchell. Davey Johnson also had the reputation of a luminary manager, and Lee Mazzilli, Ray Knight, John Gibbons and Wally Backman have all had Major League managerial jobs from this team alone.

1. 1998 New York (A), 80.5: If you couldn’t tell from the score, it’s not even close between this Yankee team and anyone else. They won 114 regular season games, so the difference between them and this year’s White Sox is almost the same as the difference between the Sox and Twins in the AL Central. Seven starters slugged over .472, David Cone won 20 games, David Wells won 18, and Mariano Rivera was emblematic of a strong bullpen. The only chink in the armor was going to six games in the ALCS against a very strong Cleveland team. Overachieving San Diego had a deer in the headlights look through the entire World Series. Suffice to say that Chris Gomez and Quilvio Veras don’t measure up to Derek Jeter and Chuck Knoblauch. Not only are they the best team of the last 20 years, they are on a short list of teams that can be considered the greatest of all time.

So there you have it. In terms of comparison to the espn poll I mentioned yesterday, the Yankees are surprisingly underrated, recent teams are overrated, and we should maybe talk a whole lot more about the Oakland and Toronto dynasties.