Battle of the Yankees Decades: Rules, Bracket, and Team Rosters!
Earlier this month, we introduced the next month-long series that I’ll be running, called Battle of the Yankee Decades! To see the introductory and explanation post for this series, check it out here.
Yesterday I set up the tournament on Out of the Park Baseball: 21.
Today I’m bringing you the rules, the bracket, and each of the team line-ups in the tournament.
Rules and Bracket of the Tournament:
In the setting up of a tournament on Out of the Park Baseball: 21, there aren’t many options available to change in the set-up, which makes it quite easy to run.
As you’ll see below, the following decisions were made for this 16-team tournament:
The Designated Hitter has been enabled:
Without this rule, the 7 teams coming after 1973 (when the DH was implemented in the AL) would be at a massive disadvantage as pitchers became more specialized. I also figured this would provide a boost to older teams as well as they could add another good bat to the line-up.
Game Strategy has been set to Modern Day:
This honestly doesn’t change much, but will make the use of the relief pitcher more common than if it was set much earlier. But, older teams shouldn’t suffer here, as their starting pitchers will go longer in games anyway.
Rosters were set to reflect the end of each season:
Let’s be honest, the trade deadline acquisitions always spark a ton of joy in the fans of teams as they reach the playoffs. Imagine the 2019 Yankees without Edwin Encarnacion!
25 Man Rosters were enabled:
Except for 1904, all teams have 25 men on the team. I don’t think this needs much more of an explaination.
Injuries are disabled:
Part of the fun of this exercise was to see how great players play against one another. Think, if Babe Ruth got injured before being able to play against Mickey Mantle. What’s the fun in that?
Seeding was determined by winning percentage of each team:
This gave the 1927 Yankees the #1 seeding, 1998 Yankees the #2 seeding, 1939 Yankees #3, etc. This is reflective of each “region” of the yearly March Madness NCAA Basketball Tournaments.
Each Series gets progressively longer:
Starting in the Sweet Sixteen, the first series between teams is a Best-of-Three (2 home, 1 away). This moves to a Best-of-Five (2 home, 2 away, 1 home) in the Elite Eight, then back-to-back Best-of-Seven (2 home, 3 away, 2 home) in the Final Four and Championship Round.
I am aware the Elite Eight lists (3 home, 2 away), this will be changed before running the simulation to echo the current ALDS structure.
The Team-by-Team Rosters and Line-Ups:
Below is every team with it’s 25-Man playoff roster, a sample line-up against a Right-Handed Pitcher, the rotation, bullpen, and depth chart. I do reserve the right to change how each team manages their line-ups, if they do not match up historically. (For example, Hideki Matsui should be the DH for the 2009 team.)
Series #1 Starts Tomorrow!
The 2000 Yankees (#16) take on the 1927 Yankees (#1) in the first simulation of the tournament. We will provide game-by-game box-scores and statistics of the overall series from each player.
