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 – Orlando Cepeda 1B (4.4 fWAR, 3.8 bWAR, 1.80 WPA, .511 waaWL%)

1971 – Earl Williams C (3.0 fWAR, 3.3 bWAR, 1.20 WPA, .509 waaWL%)

1972 – Dusty Baker OF (4.8 fWAR, 5.1 bWAR, 4.40 WPA, .527 waaWL%)

1973 – Davey Johnson 2B (5.3 fWAR, 4.4 bWAR, 3.70 WPA, .516 waaWL%)

1974 – Darrell Evans 3B (6.8 fWAR, 7.2 bWAR, 4.32 WPA, .532 waaWL%)

1975 – Carl Morton SP (3.5 fWAR, 6.1 bWAR, 0.29 WPA, .598 waaWL%)

1976 – Andy Messersmith SP (3.8* fWAR, 5.8* bWAR, 1.22 WPA, .629 waaWL%) *including batting

1977 – Dave Campbell RP (0.5 fWAR, 3.7 bWAR, 1.72 WPA, .539 waaWL%)

1978 – Phil Niekro SP (9.1* fWAR, 10.4* bWAR, 2.36 WPA, .663 waaWL%) *including batting

1979 – Gary Matthews Sr OF (4.0 fWAR, 4.4 bWAR, 3.97 WPA, .514 waaWL%)

1980 – Chris Chambliss 1B (2.7 fWAR, 2.8 bWAR, 3.19 WPA, .505 waaWL%)

1981 – Bruce Benedict C (2.3 fWAR, 2.6 bWAR, 0.29 WPA, .515 waaWL%)

1982 – Rafael Ramirez SS (2.0 fWAR, 3.5 bWAR, 0.60 WPA, .507 waaWL%)

1983 – Dale Murphy OF (7.0 fWAR, 7.1 bWAR, 6.31 WPA, .531 waaWL%)

1984 – Steve Bedrosian RP (1.8 fWAR, 2.8 bWAR, 1.07 WPA, .542 waaWL%)

1985 – Glenn Hubbard 2B (2.3 fWAR, 3.3 bWAR, -0.51 WPA, .511 waaWL%)

1986 – Gene Garber RP (2.0 fWAR, 3.0 bWAR, 2.09 WPA, .527 waaWL%)

1987 – Dion James OF (2.5 fWAR, 3.0 bWAR, 2.43 WPA, .508 waaWL%)

1988 – Jose Alvarez RP (0.2* fWAR, 2.7* bWAR, 1.72 WPA, .526 waaWL%) *including batting

1989 – Lonnie Smith OF (8.1 fWAR, 8.8 bWAR, 5.80 WPA, .553 waaWL%)

1990 – Ron Gant OF (5.1 fWAR, 5.6 bWAR, 2.08 WPA, .523 waaWL%)

1991 – Tom Glavine SP (6.1* fWAR, 9.2* bWAR, 4.21 WPA, .692 waaWL%) *including batting

1992 – Terry Pendleton 3B (5.1 fWAR, 5.0 bWAR, 4.81 WPA, .519 waaWL%)

1993 – Jeff Blauser SS (5.4 fWAR, 5.7 bWAR, 3.58 WPA, .523 waaWL%)

1994 – Greg Maddux SP (7.7* fWAR, 8.7* bWAR, 6.13 WPA, .779 waaWL%) *including batting

C – Earl Williams (71), Bruce Benedict (81)

1B – Orlando Cepeda (70), Chris Chambliss (80)

2B – Davey Johnson (73), Glenn Hubbard (85)

3B – Darrell Evans (74), Terry Pendleton (92)

SS – Rafael Ramirez (82), Jeff Blauser (93)

OF – Dusty Baker (72), Gary Matthews Sr (79), Dale Murphy (83), Dion James (87), Lonnie Smith (89), Ron Gant (90)

SP – Carl Morton (75), Andy Messersmith (76), Joe Niekro (78), Tom Glavine (91), Greg Maddux (94)

RP – Dave Campbell (77), Steve Bedrosian (84), Gene Garber (86), Jose Alvarez (88)

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