It’s George Bret vs. the 2014-15 teams for the honor of best in Kansas City Royals history
The Kansas City Royals franchise is a half century old having been founded in 1969. But the franchise’s history is dominated by one name: George Brett.
A Hall of Famer who spent his entire career with the Royals, Brett is a major player on seven of the franchise’s nine post-season teams, all but the 2014 and 2015 World Series clubs. Of the eight teams selected to fill out the Royals all-time bracket, Brett was a star on six.
The bracket begins with the franchise’s two World Series champions, the 1985 and 2015 teams. It also includes the 1980 and 2014 teams, which reached the World Series before losing.
The remaining four Royals representatives are logically selected from among the last five post-season teams, those of 1976, 1977 1978, 1981 and 1984. The selection process is deceptively easy. The strike-shortened and cleaved 1981 season produced several anomalies, not least was the presence of the Royals in post-season play
That team won only 50 of the 103 games it played, but finished ahead of Oakland in the second half to meet the A’s, who swept them in the division series. The 1981 Royals, then, are stricken from consideration and the 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1984 teams fill out the bracket.
The format is identical to previous bracket challenges. Each matchup in the tournament is decided based on seven criteria. You can think of each as a ‘game,’ the winner of four games advancing. The seven criteria are:
Game 1: Regular season winning percentage.
Game 2: Post-season winning percentage
Game 3: Team OPS+
Game 4: Team ERA+
Game 5 (if necessary): Team WAR
Game 6 (if necessary: Fielding percentage above the league average for the season in question.
Game 7 (if necessary): Hall of Famers or likely future Hall of Famers