The light at the end of the tunnel?  After a careful inventory of progress on the tournament, I've discovered that I own 76 teams that still have yet to make an appearance.  The good news is that I had apparently missed some interesting teams from the 20th century, and I'll be spared from slogging entirely through the remaining brackets with teams from 2023 that I don't find very compelling.  On the other hand, that number doesn't quite come out even; 76 teams constitutes 8 regionals, plus a remainder of four teams.  It turns out that these 8 regionals will be #248 through #256...and those mathematically inclined among you might notice that 256 is an exponent of 2, which would result in a perfectly balanced bracket, where these 256 regional winners simply need to win 8 more games (for a total of 11 consecutive wins) to be crowned as the ultimate champion of Strat single elimination.  

Obviously the karmic masters of probability are sending a signal that entry to the tournament should be cut off when every team I currently own (i.e., current at the time that a game in the project is being played) has made an appearance, which was always my original intent probably dating back 40 years.  At my typical rate of progress, this should happen sometime in November and will thus be before any additional teams from 2024 or other seasons can be added to my collection.  Waiting until new cards are released in February 2025 and adding 30 new 2024 teams would basically mean four new regionals--but I would need another 252 regionals to once again achieve a balanced bracket (adding a 12th straight win).  Neither I nor the game company are likely to last that long, so I guess the 2024 White Sox won't get their chance for glory.  However, even drawing the line at cards printed before this November, there is one remaining fly in the ointment:  there are still four teams left over after the 256 regionals have been filled.

How to handle this?  Well, this whole shebang was largely inspired by NCAA March Madness, and since this project began in 1980 the NCAA developed a cheat on their iconic 64-team bracket through the "play-in games", and if it's good enough for the March Madness, it should be good enough for the Endless Single Elimination Tournament.  So, here is my plan.  First, I will determine the ELO ratings for all 76 remaining teams, who range from 1955 to 2023, and then select the teams with the 8 worst ELO ratings in that group as "play-in" squads.  Those eight teams will be randomly paired, with the winner of each pairing advancing to a regional in the main tournament, where they will be randomly seeded in the bracket as has been tournament tradition.  Only one of the "play-in" winners will be assigned to any given bracket, and since these are the odd teams out I'll assign them to the odd remaining brackets:  #249, #251, #253, and #255.  Note that this will be the first time that any formal "seeding" will have been done in this tournament, and the play-in teams certainly will face a substantial challenge with the additional burden on their starting rotation, but hey--if they don't like it, they should have done better in their regular season.

So, meet the play-in patsies and their ELO rankings, the worst eight of the 76 remaining teams from which four teams will somehow have to win and earn a regional spot.  If playing these play-in games with these dismal squads doesn't drive me away from Strat forever, nothing will.

2023 A's (2362)

2018 Padres (2195)

1999 Rays (2138)

2021 Diamondbacks (2296)

2008 Pirates (2133)

2022 Rockies (2177)

2023 Rockies (2331)

2023 Royals (2283)