Here are the teams:

92-93 Blue Jays featured Robbie Alomar in his prime and World Series hero Joe Carter who helped lead the team to back-to-back championships. Jack Morris and Juan Guzman lead their pitching staff for a combined 37-11 record and 3.34 ERA.

1994 Expos were a team that every team in the rebuilding stage wishes they looked like. Their team included rising stars like Larry Walker, Moises Alou, Cliff Floyd, and Pedro Martinez. Unfortunately their season was cut short by the strike but we can still speculate on how good they might have been.

1995 Braves' pitching lead them to the World Series. Greg Maddux emerged as a superstar this season pitching one of the best years of any pitcher ever. Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz and even 22 year old Jason Schmidt helped this team steal the title from the Yanks.

1997 Marlins had plenty of players that turned out to be superstars. The 21 year old middle infield with Luis Castillo and Edgar Renteria as well as Moises Alou and Gary Sheffield in the outfield gave them one of the most feared lineups in the league. Their team also included Al Leiter and Kevin Brown in their prime as well as a young Livan Hernandez who turned out to be the difference maker in their world series against the Indians.

1997 Indians had probably the best lineup in the past 15 years. Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Sandy Alomar, Omar Vizquel and Richie Sexson (off the bench) all were big time hitters. Why did they lose in the World Series? Their pitching. Not a single one of their pitchers had a sub-four ERA.

1996-2000 Yankees are possibly the most well known team ever. Although their lineup isn't nearly as good as it is now, it still had three great bats in Jeter, Posada and Williams and a solid pitching staff including the Rocket and Andy Pettite.

2004 Boston Red Sox performed one of the greatest comebacks in history by coming back from a 3-0 defecit to beat the Yankees and went on to win the world series. Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz became two of the most productive hitters in baseball while Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez both had excellent years on the mound to lead them to their championship.

2005 Chicago White Sox' excellent pitching (they had six aces) and timely hitting lead them to their World Series Victory. Out of Buerhle, Contreras, Garland, Hernandez, Garcia, McCarthy, four of them had sub-four ERA's and the other two came close.

2001 Mariners easily - but they aren't even a choice...

They won 116 games in the regular season to take their place with the 1906 Cubs as the winningest team in baseball history

The Mariners played in a very, very weak division, though. And not only did they not win the World Series, they morphed into a below average team shortly before the playoffs even started.

I want to go with the homer pick and say the '95 Braves. That pitching staff is arguably the best since teams began going with 5 man rotations, and the offense was there. Chipper was a young stud, McGriff and Justice were in their primes, and Andruw Jones made a big splash in his World Series debut at 18. However...

It wouldn't be right to make a pick based solely on pitching, because the '95-'97 Indians offense was by far the best since the Big Red Machine in the late '70's.

The Yankees teams are well-balanced in both areas, but...

I think I actually have to go Indians. Though the pitching struggled pretty heavily, that offense was absolutely incredible.

The names mentioned in the original post don't even put a dent in it, especially when their offensive dominance peaked in '97. Take a look at their regulars...

c Sandy Alomar
1b Jim Thome
2b Tony Fernandez
ss Omar Visquel
3b Matt Williams
lf Brian Giles
cf Marquis Grissom
rf Manny Ramirez
dh David Justice

and their bench is what really closes the deal. The following are some highlights from their playoff roster...

Julio Franco
Bip Roberts
Kevin Mitchell
Chad Curtis
Richie Sexson
Sean Casey
Einar Diaz

During the mid-90's, you couldn't compile a better offense than that. It was the perfect team.

Their pitching was their shortfall in the postseason, because they seemed to suddenly collapse, but the reason I went ahead and chose these guys is because they were all quality pitchers (though Herschiser was on the last leg of his brilliant career)...

Charles Nagy
Orel Herschiser
Jaret Wright
Bartolo Colon
Chad Ogea

Mesa, Assenmacher, Shuey and Plunk out of the bullpen...

Great team. Horrible postseason showing.

its either the CHI sox of 2005

or

97 indians


or maybe one of the yanks

I would definately have too say the 96-2000 Yankees.

Actuallty, the 1927 Yankees were the best.

^^Past 15 years

But if you look at the M's, they had pretty good hitting... Boone hit 40ish HRs, Ichiro hit at least .350, Edgar Martinez, Mike Cameron, etc.... don't think anyone hit under .250 besides Al Martin.... But they had F. Garcia who had a 3ish ERA with 18 wins... Moyer had over 20 wins... And in the bullpen Sasaki had over 40 saves... Rhodes had a sub 2 ERA... Nelson had a good year... they had like 7 or 8 all stars....

And the A's had 102 wins in their division....

1998 New York Yankees

i'd have to say the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals

Definitely the '98 Yankees:

114-48 (.704)
Won division by 22 games over the Boston Red Sox
ALDS: Swept the Texas Rangers in three games
ALCS: Beat the Cleveland Indians in six games
World Series: Swept the San Diego Padres in four games

'Nuff said.

lol...yea, I picked the 1994 Expos

They're interesting.

It would have been fun to see what they could have done had the season not been shortened.

2005 white sox

96-00' Yankees obviously.

It had to be the 96-'00 Yanks, they were unbelievable!

Never read that part lol. My apoligies. The 1996-00 Yankees easily.

*I left a lot of teams out like the 2001-2005 Yankees and 2001 Mariners because they didn't really come close to winning a championship. Indians and Expos I felt were exceptions.

For me there is two teams. The 2004 Red sox, they were so relentless, and that season was basically a storybook season, like it came from a movie. But the best team in the last 15 years was the 1996 New York Yankees, they were just flat out dominant.

Yep...THat was a true dynasty! :D
Back when they were a team and not a group of stars!!

The 96-00 Yanks without a doubt.

2004 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox

I would have voted the 1998 Yankees, but the White Sox' postseason last year was unbelievable. Their pitching staff was probably the best in recent history. I don't remember it exactly, but didn't they have 4 pitchers (Contreras, Garcia, Buehrle, Garland) in a row throw complete game victories for the series sweep? That's just amazing.

I say 2004 Red Sox because they had the heart to come back from 3-0 againest the Yankees with everyone doubting them and win.

Wow, the Mariners aren't even an option, although they are tied for the most wins in a season EVER...

:wacko:

Biased Mariner fan lol...

But the M's didn't make it anywhere after the regular season.

But the question is the best, not who was the best in playoffs...

Every team, good or bad, loses quite a few series... One of those series the M's lost was in October....

How would you judge a team, 162 games, or a month, where a team may be on a great winning streak or may be doing awful....

1996-200 Yankees you look at their line-up, roto, Bench and pen and it was the perfect team

I think it was either the 2000, 2001, or 2002 Athletics who should be on here. I may be wrong on some of these:

C Ramon Hernandez
1B Jason Giambi
2B... I forget
SS Miguel Tejada
3B Eric Chavez
OF Jermaine Dye, Johnny Damon, and I forget

Rotation: Mulder, Zito, Hudson, and then Lidle (all ERA under 3.60) and someone else, and the closer was Isringhausen

That team is SICK. I'm pretty sure they won 100 games that year.

edit: 2B was Frank Menechino, other OF was Terrence Long, other SP was Gil Heredia/Erik hiljus. Long and Menechino and Heredia weren't that great, but hiljus did compile a 3.41 ERA. They won 102 games, I would definitely put them in consideration for this.

You said it yourself, 1996, they weren't a group of stars.

You know them now, but thats just becuase of what they did.

Who the Hell was Derek Jeter in 1996, Joe Torries nickname was 'The Bumb' Everyone expected nothing of Torrie, and he gave us what we waited almost 20 years for.

Joe Girardi? Mariano Duncan? Gereld Williams? Jimmy Key? Ramiro Mendoza?

Oh yea, all superstars. Mariano wasn't even a Closer that year. That year, and all years up to earily 00's, the Yankees were a team made to win, and you can't ever compaire your modern day follies to what that team was and did, ever!

Look whose talking.

I don't have to be bias to be able to say that the 2001 Mariners were one of the best baseball teams in the last 15 years.

Takes too long to put every single team who did anything up there so I stuck with the teams that won championships mainly.

I was joking about the biased part btw ;)

Well, personally, the 2000 Yankees were nothing special, they even lost 27 more games than 2 years earlier, they were just lucky to be in a weak AL East that year and have the Mets not go all out

yanks obviously

Yankees are usually in 1st place. Yankees had so many great players.

definetly the 2004 red sox they were unstopable in the playoffs coming back from a 3-0 deficit to the yanks thanks to the big time performances of curt schilling and big papi. and then sweeping the cards to win the world series. one of the greatest performances of all time and the greatest team ever *BOS*

If by forever, you mean 2004..

You're definitely correct.

Even as a Mariners fan, too tie a major league record 116 wins, more wins than any other team within almost 90 years if Im correct, makes you the best baseball team of ur era, And in a tough devision, Oakland also won 100+ games that year. I dont care about the WS, one month of good hitting wins u a chapionship, thats why wildcard teams have won the ws in the past few years, they catch fire during september, take the wildcard, and keep there streak alive during the playoffs, and dont say thats how it goes, check the stats, Mariners were the best team in the past 10 years, not being biased, but check the stats people, dont just go on ur biased opinions for ur fav team.

Well, I'd have to agree with fanatasy for the reasons he said, but also the Yanks from '96-2000 were a dynasty, and that's not something common now. So I'd go with the Yanks simply because they dominated for years.

Def. The Yankees. Other teams were one and done. Yanks won multiple titles.