RANKING THE TEAMS:  THE "ELO" APPROACH

I recently ran across I just ran across this interesting "ELO" ranking of every MLB team between 1903 and 2015, a total of 2,374 teams:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-best-mlb-teams-of-all-time-according-to-elo/

This seems like a useful means of trying to determine who might be favored in the tournament matchups, although my informal appraisal of teams doesn't always match up that well with the "ELO" evaluation.  Out of curiosity, I checked their rankings against the results of my recently completed single-elimination regional #78. Of the seven regional games, they predicted the winner four times; however, the top two ranked teams of the eight involved (the 2010 Phils at number 182 and the 1959 Braves at #424) both lost in the first round!  At any rate, I will probably be making references to these ELO rankings in later posts, so if anyone wants to check out the source, just follow the above link.

Sorry, not eligible!

By the way, they consider the 1939 Yankees the top-ranked team of all time.  There is no carded version of that team in Stratomatic (at least not yet), so it doesn't look like they will win this tournament!   The rankings had the 1906 Cubs ranked second; they lost in the first round, getting shut out by the 1940 Reds 6-0.  Not too impressed here.