best baseball team

The Chicago Browns trace their lineage back to 1984 when the team was first formed as the Chicago Chargers. The Chargers played in the Chicago division of the Greater Illinois League which was, at the time, the largest and most competitive semi-pro baseball league in the state, and the home of several AABC Stan Musual National Championship teams. The Chargers were re-named the Angels for the 1985 season and continued to play on the weekends in the Greater Illinois League until 1988. That year, the Angels joined the Rogers Park Weeknight League, which played on Thursday nights. 1988 was also the Angels best season to date in the Greater Illinois League, despite falling short of the League championship.
1989 ushered in changes for the Angels. Dave Levin, previously of the arch-rival Northwest Knights of the Greater Illinois League joined the team as a player and off-field administrator. The Angels also moved to the Illinois Division of the Greater Illinois League. The Illinois Division was the higher of the two divisions in the league. The Angels remained competitive in the league, despite facing tougher competition, and took the championship of the Rogers Park League. That championship would be the league's last, as it folded following the refusal of the park to issue permits for men's baseball. For the 1990 season, the Angels joined the Winnemac Park Weeknight League, the oldest such league in the City and among the most competitive. The Angels struggled both on the field and off, and suffered through a season that most who remember it would just as soon forget.
The poor performance of the team during the 1990 season on the field, coupled with the inadequate performance of the team's manager off of the field, prompted changes that would have a profound effect on the future of the team. The existing manager was forced to share responsibilities with veteran player Ron Markowicz and Dave Levin. However, Ron and Dave assumed total control of the team shortly after the reorganization due to the continued inadequate performance of the manager. Ron assumed the role of Field Manager and Dave as the Assistant, and the two formed an equal partnership off of the field to manage the affairs of the team at the administrative level.
The Angels' fortunes quickly turned for the better under Ron and Dave. The team won the Winnemac League Championship in 1991 and became much more competitive in the tough Greater Illinois League. By 1992, the team was among the most competitive in the Greater Illinois League and earned its first post-season birth. Despite failing to win the championship in either league, the Angels posted their best combined record to date. Unfortunately, the good times would not last.
The 1993 Angels' season was marked by poor play on the field which was made worse by continued hostility with the old manager who technically was still part of the team's management. The old manager finally left the team for good midway through the season leaving Ron and Dave as the sole members of the Angels' management. Seeking to distance themselves from the past and forge a new identity, the decision was made to change the name of the team for the 1994 season. The Angels became the Athletics and a new era began. The greatly improved Athletics returned to competitive form and reestablished itself among the more competitive teams in the Greater Illinois League. The crowing achievement of the season was the winning of the Winnemac Park championship. The Athletics continued to be a competitive team in the Greater Illinois League for the 1995 and 1996 seasons, and won the Winnemac Park championship two more times. But more changes were around the corner for the 1997 season.
The first major change for 1997 concerned the leagues the team played in. The teams that played in the weeknight Winnemac League also played in the weekend Greater Illinois League. Sighting escalating costs of playing in two separate leagues, and frustration over the politics that took place in the Greater Illinois League, the decision was made to form one, seven day a week league. The Chicago Metropolitan Baseball Association (CMBA) was born under the Presidency of Ron Markowicz who had assumed the role of League President of the Winnemac League following the 1994 season. The newly christened CMBA was comprised of teams that were playing in both leagues previously, and new additions that wished to join a league that played games beyond the regular weekend schedules. Today, CMBA teams play 27 game schedules each year on fields in and immediately around the City, and is among the largest leagues in the state playing a weeknight schedule. The CMBA has also cemented its reputation as one of the Chicago area's most competitive leagues.
The second major change for 1997 was the name of the team. New uniforms were needed for a proposed new team to compete in an over-30 senior league, and it was reasoned that the Athletics could benefit from new uniforms as well if the team names were the same. Although the senior league team was never formed, the team name and uniforms did change and the Chicago Browns were born. One thing that did not change was the high standard of play by the team. The Browns have been the post season every year, including a league championship in 2001.
One thing that has remained a constant since the team first took the field in 1984 has been player turnover. The Browns look forward to trying out new, prospective players for the 2008 season, who share the same core values of the team, as part of the continuing effort to put the most competitive team possible on the field. With the Yankees flirting with a record-breaking pace this year, the idea is being bandied about that this team might be the best team in baseball history. People are comparing them with the 1927 and 1961 Yankees, or the 1906 Cubs (the usual suspects) in categories like winning percentage, run differential, et cetera. (How come we're not hearing more voices in defense of the 1880 Chicago White Stockings and their amazing .798 winning percentage? Or the St. Louis Maroons, the scourge of the Union Association with their .832 winning percentage in 1884? Ah. You say the 19th century doesn't count? Well, so's your old man.)
Some people (not many, thank goodness) enter this discussion with the unstated assumption that competitive balance has remained constant throughout baseball history, and that therefore it is just as difficult to post a .700 winning percentage in 1927 as it is in 1998. Most people (and certainly most statheads) regard this as hogwash. It is generally known that "competitive balance", no matter how you choose to measure it, has been constantly on the increase since the start of professional play, or at least was on the constant increase until about 1991. It has slacked off a little bit since; it is thought that by 1991, competetive balance had (with apologies to Oscar Hammerstein) gone about as fur as it could go. Nevertheless, it's still thought to be pretty high nowadays.
In practical terms, what this means is that it's tougher for a good team to win ballgames, because the opposition has gotten better. Baseball teams, as a whole, have only gotten better and better in the last 125 years.
Does this mean that all of the best teams in baseball history are teams of recent vintage? Not necessarily. While the good teams are, in a general sense, getting better, I believe that there is some sort of upper limit on how good a team can be, and that any era is just as likely as any other to produce such an extraordinary team. Keep in mind: while an extraordinary team of the 1880's might post a winning percentage of about .800, a similarly extraordinary team of the 1990's would have a record of, say, .670. The great teams are just as good, but these days the bad teams are catching up to them.
Of course, since the aggregate winning percentage of any league is always .500 (or at least was until interleague play started), it's tricker to measure the quality of a league. The usual method involves some sort of application of standard deviations; my article here uses these as well.
Okay. Down to brass tacks.
Determination of the Method
A) Defining Quality
The problem I set to myself was to determine the best team in baseball history, while taking competetive balance into account. The only data I woud allow would be the wins and losses of each team in a given league-season. This defines "quality" purely in terms of wins and losses, which makes a certain amount of sense. Runs scored, runs allowed, team batting average, and all of those other stats are secondary to, and supportive of, Wins and Losses.
The question then becomes: given only wins and losses as your raw data, how do you measure the quality of a team? I wanted to use a method which would produce a number which was an accurate rendering of the relative quality of a team. How can I find this?
For the answer to that question, I turned (of course) to Bill James. Specifically, I turned to his article "Pythagoras and the Logarithms", which occupies pp. 104-110 of the 1981 Baseball Abstract. (Yes, it's his last self-published one.) I'll quote extensively from it here