FanPost

25 For 25: Reds 1970-1994

After the 2009 season, I went through every franchise in the majors and created a 25 For 25 Team for each one for the seasons 1985-2009. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a 25 For 25 Team takes a 25 year stretch, picking a single player from each season, and putting together a 25-man roster. To keep it simple, I pick two players each at C/1B/2B/3B/SS, six outfielders, five starting pitchers (at least half of games pitched as starts), and four relievers; for AL teams, I substituted in the DH for a 1B or OF. Player position is determined by whatever position they had the most games played (combined OF games for outfielders). No player can be picked for multiple seasons or multiple eras (this will come into play momentarily). For this new set, I used the following statistics for comparison: Fangraphs' WAR & WPA and Baseball Reference's WAR & waaWL% (a measure of how well a particular player would impact the win percentage of an otherwise .500 team; kind of like bWAR divided by games played). I tried to restrict low PA/IP players, but in very rare instances I may have needed to expand out based on lack of options.

If you're interested, here are links to all 30 teams for the years 1985-2009: ARI ATL BAL BOS CHC CHW CIN CLE COL DET HOU KCR LAA LAD MIA MIL MIN NYM NYY OAK PHI PIT STL SDP SFG SEA TBR TEX TOR WSN

I also did up fully-researched version (with write-ups & pictures) of the Cardinals for 1910-1934 & 1935-1959, as well as a 30 for 30 All-Star Edition for 1981-2010.

Anywho, I have planned out a 10-year update for these teams for the end of this season, from 1995-2019. I have these basically completed, just waiting for the season to get done so I can add in this year's picks and make any necessary adjustments. I have also completed a full set of teams for the years 1970-1994 (sorry, no COL or MIA) to help make sure I have players in the correct era. That is what I am presenting today. I had to make a slight adjustment to my selection criteria: Fangraphs WPA only goes back to 1974, but B-R has a similar stat for those missing seasons (this is due to play-by-play data being incomplete prior to 1974, but the gaps are very minor for most seasons going back to at least the 1940's).

These teams are a thought exercise - which player-seasons do you keep & which do you leave off? Occasionally you have the Cy Young Award winner & the Most Valuable Player in the same year. Sometimes you have a more deserving player, but you need to pick that catcher because your good options are really limited. Sometimes you have a really bad year, but you have to pick somebody. By pushing these out to 1970-1994, I'm also giving you a look at an era of your team's history that you may not be familiar with.

Take a look at this team, let me know what you think. I look forward to your comments.


1970 – Tony Perez 3B (8.2 fWAR, 7.2 bWAR, 3.60 WPA, .530 waaWL%)

1971 – Lee May 1B (5.1 fWAR, 5.4 bWAR, 3.80 WPA, .522 waaWL%)

1972 – Johnny Bench C (9.2 fWAR, 8.6 bWAR, 3.70 WPA, .544 waaWL%)

1973 – Pete Rose OF (7.3 fWAR, 8.3 bWAR, 4.20 WPA, .540 waaWL%)

1974 – Dave Concepcion SS (5.8 fWAR, 5.5 bWAR, 0.89 WPA, .522 waaWL%)

1975 – Joe Morgan 2B (11.0 fWAR, 11.0 bWAR, 7.27 WPA, .562 waaWL%)

1976 – Ken Griffey Sr OF (4.1 fWAR, 4.6 bWAR, 5.42 WPA, .518 waaWL%)

1977 – George Foster OF (8.9 fWAR, 8.4 bWAR, 5.50 WPA, .541 waaWL%)

1978 – Tom Seaver SP (4.4 fWAR, 4.7 bWAR, 2.00 WPA, .570 waaWL%)

1979 – Tom Hume RP (2.6 fWAR, 3.9 bWAR, 2.33 WPA, .540 waaWL%)

1980 – Dan Driessen 1B (3.0 fWAR, 2.7 bWAR, 3.29 WPA, .504 waaWL%)

1981 – Ron Oester 2B (3.0 fWAR, 3.2 bWAR, 1.98 WPA, .517 waaWL%)

1982 – Mario Soto SP (7.6* fWAR, 7.6* bWAR, 2.95 WPA, .651 waaWL%) *including batting

1983 – Eddie Milner OF (3.7 fWAR, 4.1 bWAR, 0.81 WPA, .515 waaWL%)

1984 – Ted Power RP (1.4 fWAR, 3.1* bWAR, 1.88* WPA, .521 waaWL%) *including batting

1985 – Tom Browning SP (3.4* fWAR, 4.1* bWAR, 0.92 WPA, .536 waaWL%) *including batting

1986 – Bo Diaz C (2.6 fWAR, 2.3 bWAR, 0.64 WPA, .504 waaWL%)

1987 – Eric Davis OF (7.1 fWAR, 7.9 bWAR, 5.21 WPA, .547 waaWL%)

1988 – Barry Larkin (6.3 fWAR, 7.0 bWAR, 3.31 WPA, .533 waaWL%)

1989 – Rob Dibble RP (3.7 fWAR, 3.9 bWAR, 2.57 WPA, .533 waaWL%)

1990 – Norm Charlton RP (2.5* fWAR, 3.8 bWAR, 1.64 WPA, .543 waaWL%) *including batting

1991 – Chris Sabo 3B (5.4 fWAR, 5.0 bWAR, -0.61 WPA, .520 waaWL%)

1992 – Greg Swindell SP (4.6 fWAR, 5.4 bWAR, 1.81 WPA, .622 waaWL%)

1993 – Jose Rijo SP (8.1* fWAR, 10.1* bWAR, 5.19 WPA, .700 waaWL%) *including batting

1994 – Kevin Mitchell OF (4.2 fWAR, 3.7 bWAR, 2.83 WPA, .527 waaWL%)


C – Johnny Bench (72), Bo Diaz (86)

1B – Lee May (71), Dan Driessen (80)

2B – Joe Morgan (75), Ron Oester (81)

3B – Tony Perez (70), Chris Sabo (91)

SS – Dave Concepcion (74), Barry Larkin (88)

OF – Pete Rose (73), Ken Griffey Sr (76), George Foster (77), Eddie Milner (83), Eric Davis (87), Kevin Mitchell (94)

SP – Tom Seaver (78), Mario Soto (82), Tom Browning (85), Greg Swindell (92), Jose Rijo (93)

RP – Tom Hume (79), Ted Power (84), Rob Dibble (89), Norm Charlton (90)


Here are (or will be) the links to each of the 1970-1994 teams: NL East STL CHC MON NYM PHI PIT; NL West ATL CIN HOU LAD SDP SFG; AL East BAL BOS CLE DET MIL NYY TOR; AL West CAL CHW KCR MIN OAK SEA TEX