In one of the most ridiculous articles ever published on ESPN.com — and that’s saying a lot — writer and analyst Brandon Doolittle set out to examine whether the 2025 Los Angeles Dodgers might be the greatest team in Major League Baseball history, at least on paper.
Relying heavily on advanced metrics and an analytics-driven approach, Doolittle concluded that the 2019 Houston Astros — yes, the same team that lost the World Series to the Washington Nationals — were actually the best team in MLB history.
But it gets even worse. Not only did ESPN crown the 2019 Astros as the greatest, but they also completely left the Big Red Machine off their top-25 list. Neither the 1975 nor 1976 Cincinnati Reds teams earned a spot on this embarrassing excuse for an all-time ranking (subscription required).
ESPN laughably omits historic Reds from analytics-driven all-time ranking
Although the 2019 Astros boasted stars like Justin Verlander, José Altuve, Gerrit Cole, George Springer, and Alex Bregman, they ultimately fell short when it mattered most. Despite winning two World Series titles over the past decade and dominating the league in a way that rivals the Big Red Machine of the 1970s, true success is measured by championships—not by bWAR and all the other modern stats that analysts try to push today.
Leaving off a team stacked with Hall of Famers (Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez), MVPs (Pete Rose, George Foster), former All-Stars (Ken Griffey, Gary Nolan), Gold Glovers (César Gerónimo, Dave Concepción), and even the 1976 Rookie of the Year (Pat Zachry) only highlights why so many people have tuned out the so-called “World Wide Leader in Sports.”
To be fair to ESPN, the writer did acknowledge upfront that Wins Above Replacement (WAR) tends to favor modern teams because today’s rosters have more depth, with organizations using more players than ever before.
While Doolittle credits this to a deeper talent pool, others argue that analytics have shifted the game’s focus toward matchups and individual stats rather than overall team achievement. Also worth mentioning: if the rankings were based on average WAR instead of total WAR, many 1920s teams would have fared better.
Bottom line, this list is pure nonsense—and if you need more proof, just look at the fact that the 2019 Dodgers, who also flamed out in the playoffs, ranked No. 2. Honestly, the better question isn’t just why the ’75 and ’76 Reds were left out—but how ESPN could also ignore champions like the 2019 Nationals. Give me a break.
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