Friday, July 15, 2016

Intro to the JITH All-Time Jays Tournament



A couple months ago, I pitched the idea of a "Favourite All-Time Jays" type tournament to MK. She was receptive and seemed to like the idea, and we were ready to go. Then... I did nothing. I ignored it for a while, thought about it here and there, researched now and then, and continued to not write anything down.



Then the All-Star Break hit and baseball talk got quiet and we were forced to endure the inhumane conditions brought on by four consecutive days without any real baseball. So I finally started writing to keep from losing my mind.

Here's how this is going to work:

- Each post will have a handful of matchups for readers to vote on. I'll post some stats and general information about each player, but the criteria you use to pick your winners are completely up to you. We're not necessarily trying to pick the best Blue Jays here.

- There will be two separate tournaments, one for position players and one for pitchers. I've been flipping back and forth on whether they should eventually combine (either having the winners go head-to-head or combining them once they're each at a Top-8 or something) or we should just stick with two individual winners. Thoughts?

The general idea here, of course, isn't so much about the results but rather the discussion and reminiscing the process should generate.

Here's where I want some feedback: just how big do we want this to be? I plan on making these a series of posts that MK can use as morning posts at her leisure rather than working on any kind of set schedule, so there's really no limit. I originally considered doing a Top-32 for players and a Top-32 for pitchers, then I figured... why go so low? A Top-64 would be easy, and we could even do something bigger like a Top-100 with the earlier rounds going fairly quickly and getting into more detail as we go further. I like the idea of talking about some of the more obscure players, so the bigger the better, as long as the people reading it are enjoying it.

Let me know what you think!