espn: rank the last twenty world champions

[Greg Hibbard]

not so much interested in filling out on their website as getting your takes.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnatio...stranker?id=364

 

I think the White Sox are number 2 or 3 on this list.

[rventura23]

top 3, didnt dominate their games but no team found a way to win more than the sox

[AnthraxFan93]

I had them as 4, but they are a tie

 

1) 98 Yankees

2) 90 Reds

3) 05 Sox

3) 03 marlins

3) 02 Angels

[Greg Hibbard]

Yeah I had 99 Yankees, 90 Reds and then the Sox. I probably have the 98 Yanks fourth.

 

Worst is probably the 91 Twins

[KeithFranklin]

How does the thing work. Drag and drop isnt working.

[Johnny]

whatever, white sox #1 on my list. then the others come right behind.

 

everyone is just haters on how well we played this year.

[Greg Hibbard]

interesting that the Red Sox are running #1 in the results

 

The White Sox are fifth in the aggregate poll, behind last year's red sox, the 98 and 99 yankees teams and the 86 mets

[ZoomSlowik]

In my book it depends on how you rank the teams. If it's by season record and postseason dominance, the Sox have to be in the running along with the 98 and 99 Yankees. However, if it's on pure talent, some of the other teams come into the discussion (the 96 Braves and 97 Marlins come to mind). I don't think we can say that this is the most talented team ever, but they performed like one of the best.

 

By the way, no way the Red Sox are number one. They needed a miracle just to get to the World Series. Take anyone of Schilling, Pedro, Manny, and Ortiz off that team and they lose at least 5 games in the standings, or a postseason series. In terms of overall teams, I didn't even consider them. If it were 4 on 4 with those guys I mentioned, they'd win.

Edited October 27, 2005 by ZoomSlowik

[Balta1701]

I will say 2 things about that list.

 

Right now, I think in the 4-5 spot, is right where this team belongs.

 

But more importantly...if you put this team against any of the other ones in a 7 game series...I would like our chances against each and every one of them.

[Kalapse]

I hate how people can't just be honest when they take a poll, I had the '05 Sox 3rd because that's where I honestly think they belong. Bo Sox fans don't honestly think the '04 team is the best do they?

[ZoomSlowik]

I hate how people can't just be honest when they take a poll, I had the '05 Sox 3rd because that's where I honestly think they belong. Bo Sox fans don't honestly think the '04 team is the best do they?

 

It seems like these polls usually favor recent or current champs. I remember when they did this after the NCAA Tournament this year UNC finished as the #1 team (think they did 1985 on). There's no way they were a better team than 1996 Kentucky, and I picked the back to back Blue Devils, the 90 UNLV team, and the 2001 Duke team ahead of them, plus there could have been arguments for several other teams. People will often just go with whoever was the charismatic or recent champ, like Boston. Franky, I wasn't impressed with their team as a whole. They had two great sluggers and two great starters, but Damon, Varitek, and Foulke are the only other guys I'd really want. I think star power has something to do with it too.

[Greg Hibbard]

It seems like these polls usually favor recent or current champs. I remember when they did this after the NCAA Tournament this year UNC finished as the #1 team (think they did 1985 on). There's no way they were a better team than 1996 Kentucky, and I picked the back to back Blue Devils, the 90 UNLV team, and the 2001 Duke team ahead of them, plus there could have been arguments  for several other teams. People will often just go with whoever was the charismatic or recent champ, like Boston. Franky, I wasn't impressed with their team as a whole. They had two great sluggers and two great starters, but Damon, Varitek, and Foulke are the only other guys I'd really want. I think star power has something to do with it too.

 

 

it's interesting because I think years from now, this team will be underrated by history because of its lack of starpower UNLESS they can either win it all next year or at least make it back to the series.

[redsoxjamie]

By the way, no way the Red Sox are number one. They needed a miracle just to get to the World Series. Take anyone of Schilling, Pedro, Manny, and Ortiz off that team and they lose at least 5 games in the standings, or a postseason series. In terms of overall teams, I didn't even consider them. If it were 4 on 4 with those guys I mentioned, they'd win.

 

Just to defend my boys for a minute. . . yeah, they needed a miracle to get to the world series. They're also the only team in baseball history to pull off such a miracle. Sure, if you take Pedro, Manny, Schilling, Ortiz, Damon, Foulke, Bellhorn (3 postseason HRs in 3 consecutive games), Roberts, or ANY of those guys of the team, they might not win. Where would you guys have been this year without Jenks? Or Crede? Or Dye? Or Buehrle? You're missing the point. The point is that those guys WERE on that team, and the 2004 Red Sox pulled of a feat that no other team in baseball has ever been able to accomplish.

 

The 2004 Boston Red Sox won 98 games during the regular season--more than any other American League team but the Yankees. They swept the Angels. They came back from 0-3 against the Yankees. They swept the Cardinals. Their starting pitching was excellent. Their bullpen was very good. Their hitting was the best in baseball. Were they the best world series winning team of the past 20 years? Maybe not. But I wouldn't be so quick to sell them short.

[Gene Honda Civic]

The results on that thing are hilarious.

 

Most of the teams with poor records, or those who didn't win their division, are on the bottom, but Boston is #1. What a joke.

 

98 Yanks are #1 by a mile. The rest can be argued, but you better have won your division, and breezed through the playoffs to be considered.

 

I voted like this

98 Yanks

05 Sox

89 A's

99 Yanks

90 Reds

[YASNY]

Just to defend my boys for a minute.  .  . yeah, they needed a miracle to get to the world series.  They're also the only team in baseball history to pull off such a miracle.  Sure, if you take Pedro, Manny, Schilling, Ortiz, Damon, Foulke, Bellhorn (3 postseason HRs in 3 consecutive games), Roberts, or ANY of those guys of the team, they might not win.  Where would you guys have been this year without Jenks?  Or Crede?  Or Dye?  Or Buehrle?  You're missing the point.  The point is that those guys WERE on that team, and the 2004 Red Sox pulled of a feat that no other team in baseball has ever been able to accomplish.

 

The 2004 Boston Red Sox won 98 games during the regular season--more than any other American League team but the Yankees.  They swept the Angels.  They came back from 0-3 against the Yankees.  They swept the Cardinals.  Their starting pitching was excellent.  Their bullpen was very good.  Their hitting was the best in baseball.  Were they the best world series winning team of the past 20 years?  Maybe not.  But I wouldn't be so quick to sell them short.

 

You make a good case. You enjoy your Red Sox, and we'll enjoy our White Sox. It's all good.

[heirdog]

These sportsnation rankings are like popularity contests or voting with the heart instead of the head. After reading some of the responses on the board, it appears that we White Sox fans are more objective and ranking with the head, so I decided to buck the trend and put them #1 and then make sure the ones ahead of us had lower rankings so to even out the bias that comes from the Yankee Empire and RedSox Nation.

 

Realistically, the '98 Yanks, the '89 A's and the '90 Reds may have been slightly better on paper and perhaps the '93 Jays and '04 Red Sox may have been close...but I would never count this years White Sox out against any of them as they seem to defy the odds and win...thus White Sox still #1 in my heart and head.

[ZoomSlowik]

Just to defend my boys for a minute.  .  . yeah, they needed a miracle to get to the world series.  They're also the only team in baseball history to pull off such a miracle.  Sure, if you take Pedro, Manny, Schilling, Ortiz, Damon, Foulke, Bellhorn (3 postseason HRs in 3 consecutive games), Roberts, or ANY of those guys of the team, they might not win.  Where would you guys have been this year without Jenks?  Or Crede?  Or Dye?  Or Buehrle?  You're missing the point.  The point is that those guys WERE on that team, and the 2004 Red Sox pulled of a feat that no other team in baseball has ever been able to accomplish.

 

The 2004 Boston Red Sox won 98 games during the regular season--more than any other American League team but the Yankees.  They swept the Angels.  They came back from 0-3 against the Yankees.  They swept the Cardinals.  Their starting pitching was excellent.  Their bullpen was very good.  Their hitting was the best in baseball.  Were they the best world series winning team of the past 20 years?  Maybe not.  But I wouldn't be so quick to sell them short.

 

My point was that they had several great players, but the rest of their team didn't play as big a role as some of these others. Those 4 guys played a huge role for their team, and they probably wouldn't have done it without anyone of them. As a whole, I'd say only their offense was excellent. Their pitching was pretty good with Schilling and Pedro, but was fairly weak after that. Lowe sucked the whole year and merely performed well at the right time. Their pen falls under the same category, as this year shows. Even before injuries became an issue, most of the guys from last year were not pitching all that well, and even when healthy I wouldn't call Foulke a shutdown closer. They may have performed a serious miracle, but they still lost 3 games in a row to a Yankee team with some serious pitching issues, and had to comeback twice against the normally dominant Mariano Rivera, meaning they came very close to losing two more.

 

The Sox had a lot of contributions from a lot of different players throughout the season. With the possible exception of Konerko, no one player made this team drastically better than it should have been. Did anyone else make such a massive contribution that we couldn't live without them? I don't think so. Granted our rotation carried our team, but I don't think losing any one guy would have killed us in a playoff series. B-Mac or Hernandez would have had to pitch one or two, but we had quite a bit of leeway for a medicore start considering how we won every series. We had enough options in our pen that losing any one of them wouldn't have hurt that much either. Our offense wasn't exactly stellar as it was, so I don't see how anyone had anywhere near the impact of Manny and Ortiz.

 

The Red Sox won, and made one hell of a comeback, and nothing can change that. But if the Yankees or Cardinals had any pitching, things might have been very different.

[Balta1701]

The Sox had a lot of contributions from a lot of different players throughout the season. With the possible exception of Konerko, no one player made this team drastically better than it should have been. Did anyone else make such a massive contribution that we couldn't live without them? I don't think so.

I think that you could pull just about any piece out of that team and it would fall apart completely. Where would we be without Uribe, Crede and Rowand's defense? AJ's pitch calling? Konerko and Dye's bats? Pods's legs? Iguchi's everything?

 

None of them did what suddenly inserting David Ortiz would have done. But I'll bet you that if you pull any 1 of those cogs out, suddenly we'd have only won about 90 games. Each and every person on that lineup found a way to save this team at least 10-20 times this season.

[SoxFan64]

First post here at SoxTalk.

 

I just completed the poll and I think you have to rank the '98 Yanks #1 (I hate to do it but they had the best regular season and went 11-2 in the postseason.

 

I put us #2 -- for obvious reasons.

 

'99 Yanks are #3 because they went 11-1 and had a great season too.

 

'90 Reds are #4. They were unbelievable that year.

 

Like someone else posted this type of poll favors the recent winners. It would be nice to see the age & location of respondents. My guess is it is a bunch college and HS age northeasterns that make up the largest crowd. And I think the '90 Reds will get the short end of the stick. But it is fun to see how others see the same things.