The MLB all-time bracket challenge: Part 1

Seven MLB teams, each the best in the history of its franchise, compete for the honor of being proclaimed best in baseball history.

Over the past month, this site has featured 30 bracket challenges, each designed to determine the best MLB team in the history of every current franchise.

Now it’s time to determine the best of the best…to put those 30 franchise champions through a test of champions.

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Today begins that playoff of all-time greats. In five installments over the next week, those 30 franchise winners will be bracketed against one another in a single-elimination challenge to determine the best team of all time.

Each installment will pare seven or eight of those 30 teams down to a final four, who will be thrown together in an ultimate World Series.

If you missed any of the original installments or want to re-visit the process of selecting the best from your favorite franchise, don’t worry. Each team’s introductory material will include a link to their franchise qualifier.

We begin today with seven champions from the American League. For each league, the brackets are paired to reflect the all-time winning percentage for each franchise. That means the American League franchise with the best career percentage (the New York Yankees) gets a bye to the second round, where it will meet the survivor of a series between the representatives of the franchises with the eighth and ninth-best all-time records.

The eight teams competing in the top half of the AL bracket, and their seeds, are:

• 1. 1927  New York Yankees vs bye
• 8. 1993 Toronto Blue  Jays vs. 9. 1910 Philadelphia Athletics
• 4. 1984 Detroit Tigers vs. 13. 1969 Baltimore Orioles
• 5. 1917 Chicago White Sox vs. 12 2011 Texas Rangers.

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:

1. Game 1: Regular season winning percentage.
2. Game 2: Post-season winning percentage
3. Game 3: Team OPS+
4. Game 4: Team ERA+
5. Game 5 (if necessary): Team WAR
6. Game 6 (if necessary: Fielding percentage above the league average for the season in question.
7. Game 7 (if necessary): The standard for Game 7 is Hall of Famers or, in the case of contemporary teams, likely future Hall of Famers.

Since the 1927 Yankees draw an opening round bye, we begin with a matchup pitting the oldest team in the American League bracket, the 1910 Philadelphia Athletics, against a relatively recent foe, the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays