2019 MLB Tournament of Champions: Group Play Round 8

This weekend, we will hit the quarter pole of group play in the MLB Tournament of Champions! It seems a little crazy that we're already that far into it, but here we are.

If you took a look at this project from the start, and said to me, "Hey, the old '27 Yankees and Murderers' Row are going to destroy everyone," ...you'd have been right. After starting the tournament 2-4, they've since won 15 straight and have the best record in the tournament to date, with a four game lead in their group. All they need to do is make the top eight in Group E to make the postseason, but to run roughshod over the rest of the group is good too.

You can view the remainder of the standings, as well as the schedule of games, here. Without any further ado... let's play some baseball!

2019 MLB Tournament of Champions: Group Play Round 7

We're three weeks in, and the MLB Tournament of Champions is going strong!

I kind of feel bad to some degree about how I'm doing this. Because each round requires me to simulate 192 games, I'm not really looking into any of the details of what's going on in most games; it would just be too much. But I'll glance at line scores, and over the weekend there were a couple insane games, including an extra inning game that saw the road team put up a 13 run inning, as well as a 10 run ninth to lead to a walkoff win elsewhere.

I should also make it official here: after coming into the tournament saying that only the top four from each group will make the postseason, I've decided to expand that to the top eight from each group. It keeps the numbers even while also not keeping out any undeserving teams. I figure it's better to make this decision 20 percent of the way into the tournament than to do it closer to the end when appearances of bias could come into play.

So with all that out of the way... let's play some baseball!

2019 MLB Tournament of Champions: Group Play Round 6

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend! Amidst the celebrations, the MLB Tournament of Champions continued into its sixth round!

Coming into this past Friday, every team had played 15 out of its 90 games. Things seem to be progressing mostly like you'd expect a normal baseball season to this far in, with every team having won at least three games, and three teams sit at 12-3 at this stage. If it's anything like the 2017 tournament, they'll come back down to earth a little bit and my top teams to advance will probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 wins.

But that's a long ways away. Everyone still has 75 more games to go, and we need to make our way through that. You can click here to see the schedule and standings. Without further ado, let's get to the games!

2019 MLB Tournament of Champions: Group Play Round 5

Two weeks into the tournament, we are still chugging along!

First, a confession. When I originally came up with this, I was dead set that only the top four in each group would advance. Part of me is tempted to expand that to the top six, or maybe even top eight. I haven't decided for sure yet, and yeah, it's weird mid-tournament to make that change, but part of me feels like it will be necessary. And hopefully you'll have enough faith in me to feel like it won't be predicated on the 2016 Chicago Cubs not making it under a top four system. Also hopefully, they won't be in a position where it comes to that.

Potential bias aside, I like where we're at two weeks in. There's a lot of balance in this tournament, everyone has won at least two games out of their 12 so far, and we'll have some interesting races as the tournament rolls on with or without postseason expansion.

If you want to see the full schedule, scores, and standings, you can do so here. Let's get started!

2019 MLB Tournament of Champions: Group Play Round 4

The MLB Tournament rolls on to our fourth round of action!

Over the weekend teams got to their 12th game out of 90 over the stretch of group play. Through three rounds though, there was a lot of balance, as the last of our undefeated teams fell. It was to be expected; no one's going to go 90-0. Heck, even 60 wins might be pushing it if the 2017 Tournament of Champions was any indication. On the opposite end of the spectrum though, the 1999 Yankees, San Francisco District Security officer Vin's pick for the best team in history, has yet to win a game. We'll see if that changed this weekend.

You can see the schedule of games as well as standings for every group here. So without further ado... let's get this round of games started!

2019 MLB Tournament of Champions: Group Play Round 3

We're onto the third round of games in the MLB Tournament of Champions!

Things are progressing fairly well so far. Going in, I'd had limited experience with Challonge, which I'm using to keep track of all the Tournament of Champions results. You can view the schedule and standings here. But when I ran the NFL Tournament of Champions last year, I'm pretty sure they had just alternated home and away for everyone over the entirety of group play. Here, the schedule looks to be a little more balanced, with longer home stands and road trips, but nothing too massive. It also seems to have a good balance in terms of when teams are scheduled. I'm happy with how it looks.

As for the tournament field itself to date, we went from 16 undefeated teams after one round to just two six games in. There are a number of teams still with five wins and a ton with four. And from a parity perspective, only one team is winless at this point. That will certainly change at some point, it's just a question of whether it will happen before Chris Davis finally gets a hit.

Let's get to the games!

2019 MLB Tournament of Champions: Group Play Round 2

Three games down... 87 to go, as I try to play a little catchup following a chaotic weekend.

Our first series of the tournament is in the books, and after an off day Thursday, the teams were back in action on Friday with their second series of the tournament.

As a refresher, I took every World Series champion, the best finish for every franchise that hasn't won a World Series, and a few other teams to build a 128 team field. Each team is playing 90 games to narrow that field down to 32 in an effort to once again find our Champion of Champions.

So far things are relatively balanced, with 16 teams opening the tournament with sweeps. That means 96 others picked up at least one win in their first three contests, so there's going to be a ton of parity, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this tournament go deep into tiebreakers.

So without further ado, let's get to the second round of games. Click here to see the tournament schedule and standings.

2019 MLB Tournament of Champions: Group Play Round 1

We're a few days in, and so it's time to get our first look at the 2019 MLB Tournament of Champions!

On Monday I revealed the 128 team field, as well as the results of the wild card preliminaries that got the 2016 Nationals and 2010 Rangers into the party. And now begins the chaotic time.

For group play, each of the eight groups of 16 will play a double round robin of three game series. That's a 90 game schedule for each team, but with 64 series each round, that's 192 games for each post that I'll be going through.

It's an ambitious step up from the 2017 Tournament of Champions, but it's one that I'm prepared to do, hopefully without any delays. To help speed up the process, I'm really not digging too deep into stats this year, or bullpen usage or anything like that. Most teams are going to have a guy or two pitch in roughly 80 of their team's 90 games, if not more, and I'm just going to roll with it. But with everyone playing the same number of games, it'll be easier to keep track of starting pitchers for everybody since I'm just going down the dropdown list. When we get to postseason play, that's where I'll start keeping closer track of stats and things like that.

Because of the sheer number of games, for ease of reading I'm going to format all the results in a table. To see the schedule and group standings, click here. So without further ado... let the Tournament of Champions begin!

2019 MLB Tournament of Champions: Wild Card Preliminaries and Group Play Introduction

It's April Fool's Day, but if you've been following Confessions of a Sportscaster, you'll know this is no joke: the 2019 MLB Tournament of Champions is on!

Officially, the tournament begins today. I'll outline the groups below following one final preliminary to fill out the field.

This year's tournament will have eight groups of 16 teams, with the top four from each group advancing. But in order to get the 128 teams that I need to group together, I had to play out some preliminaries. The first of those concluded about a month ago, but I still had nine teams fighting for two spots. Order of the top two does not matter; just make it there and you're in.

After each team played 24 games, we found our wild cards: congratulations to the 2016 Washington Nationals and 2010 Texas Rangers, who have joined the field for the Tournament of Champions! Full scores from this preliminary will follow below, but first, I wanted to share the groups for this year's tournament.