THE ENDLESS SINGLE ELIMINATION TOURNAMENT, SUPPLEMENTAL SUPER-REGIONAL I
Because the 2,056 teams Strat printed before 2024 formed a nice (and quite expansive) tournament bracket, I cut off new entries after the 2023 season and miraculously completed that bracket. However, since then I have acquired the 1952, 2024, and 2025 seasons, along with a couple of new deadball-era Diamond Gems teams, and in keeping with the “endless” nature of the project, these teams will get their chance in a new “Supplemental Super-Regional”, from which the winner will get a chance to climb through the path of an existing super-regional (e.g., beginning with round seven) to see if they can earn a shot at the champs. Although a super-regional consists of a field of 64, these additional teams number somewhat more than that, necessitating play-in games involving the teams with the worst ELO ratings in the batch. So sit back, because the project returns to its roots–playing games with lots of bad teams!
Play-In Games
The 1952 Red Sox were a mediocre 76-78 team without Ted Williams, who was flying missions in Korea at the time, so they were hoping that a good outing from Sid Hudson (7-9, 3.62) might allow them to advance past the play-in round of the tournament. They faced the 77-85 2025 Rays, whose Junior Caminero had 45 homers that was almost 50% more than the 1952 AL home run leader, while Drew Rasmussen (10-5, 2.76) got some Cy Young votes. It was Boston’s Dick Gernert who hits a solo homer in the bottom of the 2nd putting the Red Sox up, but Caminero’s 2-run shot in the 6th pushes Tampa ahead. The Red Sox respond in the bottom of the inning, with Clyde Vollmer’s RBI double being followed with a homer from Jimmy Piersall and Boston leads 4-2 after six. Josh Lowe singles in a run in the 7th to make it a one run game and chase Hudson, but the era-typical Boston bullpen isn’t much to speak of, and in the top of the 9th the Rays erupt for five runs aided by a terrible outing from Red Sox reliever Ralph Brickner. Piersall tries to get Boston back into it in the bottom of the 9th with a 2-run double, but Edwin Uceta comes in to earn the save as the Rays hold on with an 8-6 win and advance to the tournament proper.
For a change, this play-in game involved two teams that weren’t terrible. The 1952 Reds had gone 69-85 but had somewhat underperformed their projection, and Ken Raffensberger (17-13, 2.81) was a solid top of the rotation pitcher. The 2024 Rangers went 78-84, but had won the Series in the previous year, and had Cory Seager getting MVP votes while Nathan Eovaldi (12-8, 3.80) was a decent option on the mound. I would manage the Reds against brother Chuck and the Rangers, and a sac fly by Hank Edwards in the 3rd and an RBI single from Bobby Adams in the 5th spots the Reds to an early lead. After five innings, Chuck heads to a deep Rangers bullpen to avoid Eovaldi’s gopher ball, but in the 8th Willard Marshall greets Cody Bradford with a leadoff homer to make it 3-0 Reds, and Raffensberger has been in control. However, Leody Taveras breaks the shutout with a 2-run homer in the bottom of the inning, and then Marcus Semian doubles in a run in the bottom of the 9th, but Reds reliever Joe Nuxhall strands him and the game heads to extra innings. From there a dominating Kirby Yates shackles the Reds, while Nuxhall and then Johnny Schmitz hang on with little else available in the Cincinnati bullpen. The extra innings pass by with no action, but in the top of the 16th the 5th Ranger pitcher, David Robertson, shows signs of weakness in his 4th inning of relief. Adams gets a hit, and defensive replacement Wally Westlake follows with a solid single and 1-14 Adams takes off for third. However, the split is a 20, and the Reds now have two out with big Ted Kluszewski at the plate. It’s a HR 1-7 split for Big Klu; I miss the split but the resulting triple scores Westlake. Schmitz then holds serve in the bottom of the 16th and the Reds survive a couple games worth of innings to advance with a 4-3 win, but with the pen shot they’d better hope for complete games for their starting pitchers for the foreseeable future.
The 1952 Pirates had been nominated as one of the worst teams of all time, with a 42-112 record and an ELO rating in the bottom 50 in history, but they had Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner getting MVP votes, and Murray Dickson (14-21, 3.57) supported the old adage that you have to be a pretty good pitcher to lose 20 games, so ColavitoFan opted to manage the Bucs for Friday Night Strat. That left the Tall Tactician at the helm of the far more modern 78-84 2025 Cardinals, who were about 500 teams better in the ELO ranks than the Bucs although Sonny Gray (14-8, 4.28) did not inspire confidence at the top of a shaky rotation. Whether it was bad offenses or good performances from staff aces, neither team could do anything through five innings, with two intentional walks to Kiner defusing any threat the Pirates could muster. That leaves the door open for Lars Nootbaar to put the Cards up in the bottom of the 6th when he converts Dickson’s HR split for a solo shot, and Brendan Donovan adds an RBI single in the 7th to make it 2-0 St. Louis. When the bottom of the 8th begins with an error and a squib single, Dickson is pulled for Ted Wilks, and that proves disastrous as Nolan Arenado promptly clears the bases with a double, and a walk sets up another 2-run double, this one from defensive replacement Nathan Church. That provides plenty of padding for the Cards, as three pitchers share in the 6-0 shutout to advance into the main rounds.
After an abortive attempt to use their cross-town brethren as ringers, the 1952 Browns had to take the field; with their 64-90 record, it seemed that their best chance to advance was if Satchel Paige (12-10, 3.07) didn’t look back during the game. The 1952 Braves got a reprieve by avoiding the better Cardinals, and they had a Hall of Famer of their own on the mound in the form of Warren Spahn (14-19, 2.98), so befitting these legendary starters the game begins scoreless for the first pass through each batting order. However, in the bottom of the 4th Walker Cooper’s solo shot puts the Braves on the board, only to be matched when Bobby Young raps an RBI double to tie it. Paige then falls apart in the 6th by allowing four straight hits, one an Eddie Mathews homer, and by the time he recovers his form the Braves lead 4-1. That proves to be the final score as Spahn closes out a 3-hitter and the Braves postpone their exit from Boston for a little while longer to move on in the tournament.
Although the 2025 Pirates thought about preserving their Cy Young winner Paul Skenes (10-10, 1.97) for later rounds, their 71-91 record was not an accident as an anemic offense made Skenes their best hope to advance. The 2024 A’s celebrated their last season in Oakland with an even worse 69-93 record, and although there was some pop in the lineup, their inability to get on base suggested that those would be mainly solo homers, probably not enough to offset terrible starting pitching “led” by JP Sears (11-13, 4.38). But Skenes looks mortal early, yielding back to back run-scoring doubles off his card to Zack Gelof and Abraham Toro, and Oakland leads 3-0 after two. Lawrence Butler adds to the lead in the 3rd with a long solo homer, and the Pirates don’t get on the board until Joey Bart leads off the 7th with a homer, only the second hit off Sears. However, Oneil Cruz adds another solo shot later in the inning and the A’s don’t like the way this is heading, so they summon Osvaldo Bido from a deep bullpen and he whiffs Andrew McCutcheon for the third out. In the 8th, Oakland PH Tyler Soderstrom leads off with a longball for some additional insurance, and then after a single and a walk Shea Langeliers crushes a 3-run homer and the Pirates decide to let their ace suffer and leave him in. Meanwhile, armed with a 5-run lead the A’s bring in Kyle Muller to mop up, but he seemingly forgot the mop, because he loads up the bases, walks in one run and allows another on a single to McCutcheon, and he’s yanked after recording just one out. Tyler Ferguson comes in, tosses one pitch to Nick Gonzales who rolls his LOMAX and it’s game over, with the A’s moving on courtesy of the 8-4 victory over the disappointing Skenes.
The 2024 Marlins lost 100 games and looking at a pitching staff that had only one starter eligible for duty under tournament guidelines, that being Trevor Rogers (2-9, 4.53), it wasn’t surprising. Their draw in this play-in game was another not-so-great team from the same league, the 2024 Pirates, but with a 76-86 record the Bucs were sufficiently confident that they decided to save their outstanding Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes, instead sending out a pretty strong Luis Ortiz (7-6, 3.32) for the start–a strategy that had backfired on me plenty of times during the tournament. It is the Marlins getting on the board first in the bottom of the 1st when LF-3 Bryan Reynolds misplays a Jesus Sanchez single that allows Xavier Edwards to score, and the same tandem accounts for another run on a Sanchez sac fly in the 3rd to make it 2-0 Miami. However, Rogers is let down by his defense as two singles past the Marlins’ middle infielders are followed by a bases-clearing double from Isiah Kiner-Falefa that gets past LF-3 Nick Gordon; two batters later Gordon gives up another double to .193 hitting Michael Taylor and the Bucs take the lead, one that extends to 4-2 after a passed ball gets by C-2 Nick Fortes. Miami strikes back with a squeeze play accomplished by Emmanuel Rivera in the bottom of the inning that narrows the lead to one, The Marlins move to their best reliever to begin the 6th, Jesus Tinoco, but in the 7th Reynolds atones for his earlier error with a solo homer. The Marlins get the run back as Edwards singles, steals his second base of the game, and scores on a Jonah Bride two-out single, so with the lead back down to a run the Pirates summon Dennis Santana from the pen and he records the final out of the inning. But Sanchez greets Santana as the first batter of the 8th with a solo homer and the game is tied heading into the 9th. The Marlins bring in Anthony Bender to begin the 9th, but he’s greeted by a two-base error from his CF-3 Jazz Chisholm to start the inning; Bender responds with three straight outs and it’s now up to Santana to try to send the game to extra innings. He does so, and the Pirates rap two straight singles to begin the 10th, so Miami summons Calvin Faucher to try to keep the game tied. He gets one out and then veteran Andrew McCutcheon is summoned to try to score the go-ahead run. Faucher fans him, but then a Kiner-Falefa grounder gets under the glove of 3B-2 Rivera and the Pirates move into the lead. In the bottom of the 10th, the Marlins hero Sanchez grounds into a DP and Santana earns the win as the Pirates survive a 6-5 play-in win and will live to see their star rookie pitcher get his shot.
One of the biggest reasons to have a supplemental bracket for the endless single elimination tournament was the clamor from followers to allow the 2024 White Sox, the losingest team in baseball history, to have their shot at taking it all. So, here they are, in a round zero play in game against a random draw among other bad teams, and of course who should they draw but the 2025 White Sox, assuring that at least one White Sox team would win one more game in this tournament. In the interests of fairness, I recruited brother Chuck to play this one, and he kindly selected the truly terrible 2024 version, who lost 19 more games than even the 102-loss 2025 Sox. However, the equalizer was that while the ‘24 team had only one good player, that just so happened to be their #1 starter, Garrett Crochet (6-12, 3.58), who would be facing Shane Smith (7-8, 3.81) and some of the prospects that Crochet was traded for. The ‘25s got off to a promising start with a solo homer from Miguel Vargas in the top of the 2nd, but an RBI double from Nicki Lopez ties it up in the bottom of the 3rd. In the 4th, promising ‘25 rookie Colson Montgomery pokes a solo shot off Crochet’s HR split to push the later team back ahead, but the not-yet-terrible Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets find some hard singles on Smith’s card to drive in two and push 2024 back on top by a 3-2 margin. Lopez adds his second RBI of the game in the 7th to give Crochet some insurance, and although ‘25s Luis Robert hits the third solo homer of the game for the ‘25 team in the 9th, it’s not enough as the pathetic 121-loss ‘24 team actually wins a game, with Crochet finishing out a 6-hitter–three of which were solo homers.
For a play-in game, this one looked like a bit of a mismatch on cardstock. The 77-85 2024 Reds had Elly De La Cruz getting MVP support, a supersub in slugger Rece Hinds, and a rotation good enough that they felt that Nick Martinez (10-7, 3.10) could be used to preserve their ace for later rounds. Meanwhile, the 2025 Nationals lost 96 games, getting their manager and GM both fired in the process; the back half of their lineup couldn’t hit their weight and the rotation was unappetizing, with MacKenzie Gore (5-15, 4.17) the best of the lot. In the bottom of the 3rd, De La Cruz singles, steals second for the second time of the game, and scores on a Jonathan India base hit for an early Reds lead. However, in the 5th the Reds lose one of their best players, catcher Tyler Stephenson for the duration of the tournament with .178-hitting Luke Maile as his only replacement, but C-2 Maile makes his entrance by throwing out AA stealer CJ Abrams to begin the 6th. That limits the damage from the home run hit by the next batter, Oscar-winner James Woods, but the game is nonetheless now tied. In the bottom of the inning, Spencer Steer misses a HR 1-14 with a 15 split but the resulting double puts men on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out, so Gore is removed and Andrew Alvarez enters. He records a big strikeout but then yields a single to TJ Friedel; one run scores but the 1-15 Steer is cut down at the plate, proving the split dice aren’t fond of him. Even so, the one run proves to be enough as Martinez closes out a 5-hitter, fanning 13 in the 2-1 Reds win.
For a play-in game between the 92-loss 2025 Twins and the 50-104 1952 Tigers, the pitching matchup was a pretty good one, with Joe Ryan (13-10, 3.42) for the Twins and Hal Newhouser (9-9, 3.74) both plenty capable starters. Fittingly, the two teams collectively managed only one hit though the first four innings, but the one hit was a solo homer by Ryan Jeffers off Newhouser’s split in the top of the 4th to provide the Twins with the lead. They add two more in the 5th off a 2-out, 2-run single from Luke Keaschall, and then in the 8th Jeffers chases Newhouser by once again finding and converting that HR result for a 2-run shot. Willie Castro adds an RBI double in the 9th, but it’s all gravy as Ryan completes a 3-hit shutout, striking out 8 in the 6-0 win to move on.
The 2025 Rockies were one of the worst teams in baseball history with a 43-119 record, but that didn’t stop brother Chuck from attempting to lead his hometown team to glory, or at least a play-in win against the 2025 A’s, the first Strat team labeled as Sacramento. Neither team was blessed with much of a rotation, with the Rockies’ Kyle Freeland (5-17, 4.98) and the A’s Jeffrey Springs (11-11, 4.11) nonetheless better options than the disasters lurking deeper in their rotation; the A’s were eager to send out Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz to try his luck in the tournament. But it’s Jordan Beck who gets lucky for the Rockies in the bottom of the 1st with a solo homer, but that is matched by Shea Langoliers in the top of the 2nd. An A’s error sets up a sac fly by Brandon Doyle that puts Colorado back on top in the bottom of the inning, but once again the A’s respond immediately with a Tyler Soderstrom homer to lead off the 3rd. In the 5th, the homeless A’s finally take a lead on an RBI single by Jacob Wilson, but this time it’s Colorado’s turn to respond and they do so with an RBI double from Tyler Freeman in the bottom of the frame. With a game reset after five, both squads turn things over to their bullpens to begin the 6th, and while Jimmy Herget looks sharp for the Rockies, the A’s find no hero in Hogan Harris, who yields a two-run homer to Mickey Moniak in the 6th and an RBI single to Hunter Goodman in the 7th. The A’s finally run out of responses, and Juan Meija closes it out for the Rockies who move along to the main bracket with the 6-3 win.
The 2024 Nationals lost 91 games with a rather punchless lineup and MacKenzie Gore (10-12, 3.90) at the front of a rotation that would get worse quickly. They faced a 79-83 2025 Marlins team that had a young lineup with two Rookie of the Year contenders and an All-Star in LF Kyle Stowers, although their rotation also dropped off rapidly after Edward Cabrera (8-7, 3.53). A two-out RBI single from Otto Lopez in the bottom of the 2nd puts Miami ahead, but the Nats immediately tie it with a run-scoring double from James Wood on the top of the 3rd, although Cabrera records two clutch strikeouts to avoid further damage. However, the Marlins respond as Xavier Edwards singles, steals second, and scores on a Jakob Marsee single, while Marsee himself crosses the plate on a hit by Agustin Ramirez and it’s 3-1 Miami. They escape a bases-loaded jam in the 4th courtesy of a DP turned by 2B-1 Edwards, but when Cabrera yields a couple of hits to begin the 7th he’s pulled in favor of Anthony Bender, and Bender says the Nats can kiss his shiny metal butt as he retires three straight to quell the threat. When Gore allows a single to Dane Myers to lead off the bottom of the inning, he’s yanked for Trevor Williams, but Williams is victimized by a 2-out error by SS-3 CJ Abrams and Jesus Sanchez and Javier Sanoja knock in a few unearned insurance runs. Myers adds a 2-run single in the 8th, clearing the way for Lake Bachar to mop up in the 9th as the Marlins cruise to a 7-1 victory.
The 2025 Orioles went a disappointing 75-87, but they had a strong top of the order and a dominating #1 starter in Trevor Rogers (9-3, 1.81) in his second start of this play-in round. Rogers alone made them ELO favorites over the 2024 Angels and Jose Soriano (6-7, 3.42), with Mike Trout hoping to stay healthy long enough in the game to make an impact. But it’s Willie Calhoun converting a lucky split in the bottom of the 1st for a solo shot that gives the Halos an early lead, which seems to unnerve Rogers who allows three straight singles for another LA run. That lead holds until the 4th, when Soriano allows two doubles off his card and falls apart, walking four straight to walk in two runs and then Ramon Laureano provides the final nail in the coffin with a two run single. Ben Joyce comes in and finally gets out number three, but it’s now 6-2 Baltimore. The O’s add to their lead in the 5th when RF-2 Jo Adell misplays an Adley Rutschman single to allow Ryan Mountcastle to score, but the Angels get that one back in the 6th when Trout leads off the inning with a long blast. Luis Rengifo sends an RBI single under the glove of defensive replacement 2B-3 Jorge Mateo in the 7th to make it 7-4 O’s, and then Jordan Westburg gets injured for 5 games making the last out of the 8th for Baltimore who by this point is just trying to hang on for dear life. They do so, as Rogers finishes a complete game in the 7-4 win, but they advance to the main bracket with their ace burnt and one of their main offensive weapons out for the foreseeable future.
