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25 For 25: Orioles 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 – Boog Powell 1B (5.7 fWAR, 5.1 bWAR, 5.30 WPA, .519 waaWL%)

1971 – Merv Rettenmund OF (5.8 fWAR, 5.9 bWAR, 5.70 WPA, .528 waaWL%)

1972 – Pat Dobson SP (5.6 fWAR, 3.1 bWAR, 2.20 WPA, .517 waaWL%)

1973 – Bobby Grich 2B (7.8 fWAR, 8.3 bWAR, 0.80 WPA, .536 waaWL%)

1974 – Paul Blair OF (4.6 fWAR, 5.3 bWAR, 1.98 WPA, .520 waaWL%)

1975 – Jim Palmer SP (6.9 fWAR, 8.5 bWAR, 5.37 WPA, .641 waaWL%)

1976 – Mark Belanger SS (5.6 fWAR, 6.5 bWAR, 0.19 WPA, .529 waaWL%)

1977 – Ken Singleton OF (5.6 fWAR, 5.7 bWAR, 6.00 WPA, .522 waaWL%)

1978 – Doug DeCinces 3B (6.6 fWAR, 6.8 bWAR, 3.23 WPA, .534 waaWL%)

1979 – Mike Flanagan SP (6.0 fWAR, 3.9 bWAR, 3.57 WPA, .536 waaWL%)

1980 – Al Bumbry OF (6.1 fWAR, 6.1 bWAR, 1.82 WPA, .524 waaWL%)

1981 – Sammy Stewart RP (-0.1 fWAR, 3.3 bWAR, 0.92 WPA, .561 waaWL%)

1982 – Gary Roenicke OF (5.9 fWAR, 5.1 bWAR, 0.81 WPA, .526 waaWL%)

1983 – Scott McGregor SP (3.7 fWAR, 5.3 bWAR, 2.75 WPA, .585 waaWL%)

1984 – Eddie Murray 1B (6.8 fWAR, 7.1 bWAR, 7.27 WPA, .530 waaWL%)

1985 – Rick Dempsey C (2.7 fWAR, 3.0 bWAR, 0.67 WPA, .512 waaWL%)

1986 – Don Aase RP (1.9 fWAR, 2.3 bWAR, 0.08 WPA, .516 waaWL%)

1987 – Jim Dwyer DH (1.3 fWAR, 1.5 bWAR, 1.08 WPA, .506 waaWL%)

1988 – Dave Schmidt RP (0.7 fWAR, 1.6 bWAR, 0.82 WPA, .511 waaWL%)

1989 – Gregg Olson RP (2.0 fWAR, 3.3 bWAR, 3.42 WPA, .532 waaWL%)

1990 – Billy Ripken 2B (2.9 fWAR, 4.1 bWAR, 1.36 WPA, .520 waaWL%)

1991 – Cal Ripken Jr SS (10.6 fWAR, 11.5 bWAR, 4.32 WPA, .556 waaWL%)

1992 – Mike Mussina SP (5.3 fWAR, 8.2 bWAR, 4.22 WPA, .686 waaWL%)

1993 – Chris Hoiles C (7.0 fWAR, 6.8 bWAR, 4.05 WPA, .540 waaWL%)

1994 – Leo Gomez 3B (2.8 fWAR, 2.2 bWAR, 1.26 WPA, .513 waaWL%)


C – Rick Dempsey (85), Chris Hoiles (93)

1B – Boog Powell (70), Eddie Murray (84)

2B – Bobby Grich (73), Billy Ripken (90)

3B – Doug DeCinces (78), Leo Gomez (94)

SS – Mark Belanger (76), Cal Ripken Jr (91)

OF – Merv Rettenmund (71), Paul Blair (74), Ken Singleton (77), Al Bumbry (80), Gary Roenicke (82)

DH – Jim Dwyer (87)

SP – Pat Dobson (72), Jim Palmer (75), Mike Flanagan (79), Scott McGregor (83), Mike Mussina (92)

RP – Sammy Stewart (81), Don Aase (86), Dave Schmidt (88), Gregg Olson (89)


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

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