It’s one of the sports world’s favorite questions.
Who is the best ever?
What would happen if players and teams from different eras could compete on the same field? What if Mike Trout faced Nolan Ryan? Or if the Yankees Murderer’s Row took on the Big Red Machine?
Now, thanks to Major League Baseball and DraftKings, we’ll all get a chance to find out. The MLB Dream Bracket, a 32-team simulation tournament featuring all-time teams for every franchise, as well as a Negro League team and Under-25 team, begins Monday.
The competition will feature simulations from Out of the Park Baseball. Tournament games will take place four days a week (Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday). Then, a champion will be crowned during the second week in May.
DraftKings is offering a free pool involving questions about the outcome of the tournament.
MLB Dream Bracket Games begin on Monday
Game simulations will be a best of seven series and the Round of 32 will begin on Monday, April 20 and continue on Tuesday. Each team in the tournament has a 26-man all-time roster (15 hitters, 11 pitchers) compiled by MLB.com beat reporters.
For the simulation, players are rated using the average of their three best seasons. Rosters were constructed with balanced depth to compete in a regulation simulated game. In total, the tournament will feature 185 Hall of Famers, 115 Most Valuable Players, 61 Cy Young winners and 67 Rookie of the Year winners.
Some of the Philadelphia Phillies stars include Mike Schmidt, Curt Schilling and Darren Daulton. The Pittsburgh Pirates franchise will feature Roberto Clemente, Barry Bonds, and Andrew McCutchen among others.
DraftKings has a tournament contest available now
DraftKings also has a free pool for MLB’s Dream Bracket to get you even deeper into the action. The bracket contest, which begins at 10 a.m. Monday, has a $2,000 prize pool.
Entrants will aim to correctly answer a variety of questions, including who will win the tournament, which league the champion will come from, and others very similar to what you might see in a prop bet.
Tournament games will be streamed, with commentary
Select Game 6 and Game 7 matchups will be broadcast on a number of streaming platforms, starting at 3 p.m. Monday and Tuesday. Platforms include MLB.com, MLB’s Twitch channel, and DraftKings.
MLB Network announcers Scott Braun and Jon Morosi will even provide play-by-play and commentary on the contests, bringing the dream games to life.
“Baseball fans have passionately debated about the best players and teams across the 150-plus years of the sport,” Ezra Kucharz, chief business officer of DraftKings said. “Now DraftKings and Major League Baseball are partnering up to bring the discussions to life …We are proud to offer fans everywhere yet another way to engage with our products and the great game of baseball.”
It all begins on Monday. Baseball’s greats from bygone eras and superstars from today will share the same field. A simulation by Out of the Park Baseball will determine their fates.
And at the end, baseball fans will have an answer to the age-old question.
Who is the best ever?
