Replay League - 94 years of alternate history - Page 2

Jeffield · 11-08-2019, 10:52 AM

I think you may be on to something with your trading theory of only trading what the computer offers because i started with the 2019 orioles and with trading set to very hard i still managed to improve my minor leagues from 28th ranked to 10th by the july trade deadline. Im going to use your idea going forward but, i guess leaving the trade difficulty and amount of trading set to normal would be okay for this.

3fbrown · 11-16-2019, 02:35 AM

My experience is that I get lots of trade offers, especially if I put in what I want into the team needs screen. Now, most of the trade offers are terrible, but the high volume means that a few are worthwhile every year. And they are interesting offers - I rarely get an offer where I am ripping off the computer. I would estimate that I "win" the trade 2/3 of the time, but I "lose" 1/3 of the time.

Sometimes I get tempted to shop around. For example, the Pirates right now in my league keep drafting CF, so they have Jim Edmonds, Kenny Lofton, Brady Anderson, Johnny Damon, and Ellis Burks. Since Edmonds and Lofton can only play CF, one always sits, even though those are probably the top 2 CF in baseball. I'd love to have one, but I am wary of poking around and getting a superstar for a bargain price. That's not in the spirit of the game for me.

tomnov · 11-16-2019, 04:21 AM

I think maybe your trade settings and/or AI settings are flawed, as you've already recorded 2 instances of teams uselessly stockpiling players that they could have traded to other teams to help their own team get better.
But the project sounds interesting.

3fbrown · 11-18-2019, 02:38 AM

?? What settings do you suggest are flawed? The AI always drafts the best available player, regardless of position, which is the right strategy for real life, but works more awkwardly in a league where players go right to the majors. How do you have your settings to avoid this problem?

Typically teams that do this trade the extraneous player after a bit, but in this case it just hasn't happened yet.

3fbrown · 12-04-2019, 01:59 AM

Paul Molitor: 792
Technically active, Molitor hasn’t been in the majors since 1992. His bat still plays, but his only position is DH, which doesn’t exist in RL. Molitor has had a productive but strange career. He has split his time fairly evenly between 2B, 3B, and SS - he actually has more time at SS than any other position. Drafted by the Tigers, he started out at 3B, where he was an average fielder. At age 28 they moved him to SS to make room for Steve Buechele’s golden glove. At shortstop Molitor was well below average. In 1989, at age 32, he moved primarily to 2B to make room for Ozzie Guillen at shortstop. Here he also struggled, as his defensive skills had eroded significantly. He now plays for the Pirates, or at least Pittsburgh’s AAA affiliate.

Molitor has had a good bat his entire career. He is a career .295 hitter, with good doubles power, and obviously good speed. He won the 1982 MVP award when he hit .341 with 49 doubles, 85 SB. But most years he has been a good hitter with great speed and mediocre or worse defense. He’s toast at this point, but he will be heading to the HOF as a mostly borderline candidate soon.

Tommy Harper: 781
A poor man’s Paul Molitor, Harper also got put at positions he was not ideally suited to play. He spent the 1960’s in Cleveland, playing some 3B but mostly CF, where he was a terrible defender. The bat was solid, but the defense kept him from being very productive.

Traded to San Diego in time for the 1970 season, he spent the rest of his career as a Padre, mostly playing 3B, with a bit of corner OF. His 3B defense started out average but deteriorated as he got older, forcing the move to LF/RF. His hitting stayed solid in his 30s, maybe even improved a bit. His best seasons with the bat were probably in his mid-30s. Unlike Molitor, he didn’t do anything especially well with the bat, but didn’t have any glaring weaknesses either. He was very durable, and consistently stole bases, so even though he never surpassed 64 SB, he accumulated a lot over his career, holding the record from 1981-1992. He does, however, still hold the record for times caught stealing at 429, 71 more than the next most. Harper was a good player, but not close to being a HOFer.

Sherry Magee: 773
A deadball slugger in real life, this Sherry Magee was a slightly lesser version of the real one. He spent his career in Washington playing RF. Although his hitting stats don’t look impressive, considering the era they are solid. But for the most part, he was Tommy Harper, accumulating stats over a long career, including a lot of SB. He held the record for 60 years, which isn’t too shabby. He was better than Harper on both offense and defense, so he is a low level HOF candidate, but just not impressive enough to me to get inducted. This paragraph is not super exciting, and neither was Magee.

Ty Cobb: 733
He played a long time and got a lot of hits.

mayday10 · 01-13-2020, 08:13 PM

Enjoyed reading

3fbrown · 01-17-2020, 02:31 AM

It's been a while...life has been busy. Probably will stay that way for a few months. I should at least finish that last post...

George Burns: 731
This is the OF George Burns that played mostly for the Giants in real life. This RL George Burns played for Cleveland, and made the HOF, thanks to some serious hitting. He hit .323 lifetime, including a couple of seasons in the .390s. He was also patient, walking 110 times in his best season. Add the 2500 hits and 1300 walks together, and you get a guy that was on base a lot, giving him ample opportunities to run.

Burns also had some power, so overall he was a well-above-average hitter. He didn’t get caught often either, so his baserunning added quite a bit of value. He won the MVP in 1922, hitting .391/.495/.583 on the season. He stole 56 bases that year, which is pretty average for him for a full season.

Sandy Alomar, Sr.: 728
In case you don’t know, the real Sandy Alomar was a *very* light hitting 2B for a number of teams in the 60’s and 70’s. This Sandy Alomar improved his talents enough to be a roughly league average hitter. That, combined with his speed and defense, made him a valuable player. Nothing great, but certainly a starter.

Alomar did not seem destined for a productive career. He was drafted in the 3rd round of the 1965 draft, which is never a good sign - very few drafts have quality players that late. He spent his first two seasons mostly playing in AAA and being released and signed by various teams. In 1967 he was signed by Detroit, and improved his hitting abilities. In 1968 he led the AL in runs, SB, and plate appearances. Which leads to Alomar’s defining characteristic: his durability. His nickname is the Iron Pony for a reason - he rarely got injured until late in his career, much like Andre Dawson. He would continue to be a solid hitter, good baserunner, and excellent defender at both 2B and SS for many years. He played until age 42 in 1986, nearly overlapping with his sons. In addition to the steals, he had 2500 hits and 1300 runs scored in his long career. He ended up with 53 WAR, nearly a Hall of Fame level performance. At this point, he looks to be the best Alomar instead of the worst, though his sons aren’t done playing yet.

Heinie Groh: 728
You know Groh as the HOF SS and leadoff hitter for the Philadelphia A’s of the teens and twenties. He was good, even for the fifth best position player on his own team.

The guys in the 600s are all deadball era players, more or less. Jimmy Sheckard, Topsy Hartsel, and Larry Schafly are all from that time, and Braggo Roth played just after that time period. The next modern guy is Larry Lintz, who was discussed earlier. Every other player above him on the list had at least twice as many plate appearances, and was also a much better hitter.

The next active player on the list is Juan Samuel, with 511 SB. He won’t make 700, not because he is slowing down, but because the rest of his game has become so weak that he won’t play enough. Gerald Young, on the other hand, is only 29 years old, has 507 SB, and is good enough to play for a while longer. He is an excellent CF defender, has a high OBP so he has plenty of opportunities, and is at his peak now. He stole 93 bases in 1993 for the Dodgers, his second season of over 90.

[Note: I wrote this early in the 1994 season. That season is now complete. Samuel has 517 SB, rising slowly. Young on the other hand is now at 574, #14 all-time. He just stole 97, so he should be able to pad that total quite a bit. Another solid year gets him in the top 10, and if he hits enough to get playing time, he might challenge the leaders.]

3fbrown · 01-19-2020, 02:18 PM

Only twice has a hitter hit above .400 for a season. But this turns out to be a slightly more interesting topic than it might seem, at least to me. The big twist here is that both of these seasons were well over .400 - in fact both were over .420! Nobody ever hit between .400-.420, but two guys hit over that.

Max Carey: .429 (1922)
Max Carey’s 1922 season still holds the record for batting average, hits, and singles in a season. He had 247 hits that year, out of which 195 were singles. That still left room for 31 doubles, 18 triples, and 3 HR, and he added 59 walks. He slashed .429/.482/.561. In his Hall of Fame career, Carey had more than 3000 hits, over 550 SB, scored more than 1400 runs and drove in more than 1100. He played for the Phillies for two years, then was traded to the White Sox, but sadly I don’t know who the Phillies got. Surely it wasn’t enough.

Paul Waner: .421 (1934)
Paul Waner was a better hitter than Carey, though without the steals, and playing RF instead of CF. And unlike Carey’s year in 1922, Waner’s 1934 season was deemed worthy of the MVP, the first of three straight MVPs for Waner. Interestingly, both players were in their thirties when they hit .400 - Carey was 32, Waner was 31. Waner had 34 doubles and 21 home runs that year. He added 96 walks, and had an overall OPS of 1.142, which probably relates to the MVP.

Waner was later inducted into the HOF. Like Carey he started his career with the Phillies, but was traded to the Yankees before his MVP seasons. Maybe Philadelphia's GM wasn’t making such great decisions?

tomnov · 01-20-2020, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3fbrown

?? What settings do you suggest are flawed? The AI always drafts the best available player, regardless of position, which is the right strategy for real life, but works more awkwardly in a league where players go right to the majors. How do you have your settings to avoid this problem?

Typically teams that do this trade the extraneous player after a bit, but in this case it just hasn't happened yet.

I haven't found any one particular thing to change in the settings, and I've only made it thru 1 flawed random debut season myself. The cause may simply be the AIs drafting the most talented player on the board based on whatever scouting values you are using. I know when I am drafting, I follow a similar strategy -- best available athlete -- but I then look to trade my largess to fill a position I need.
Maybe you can consider loosening up your AI trading frequency a bit.
Although in the one instance you mentioned, most of the time a CF is transportable to a corner OF slot; but if they are simply rotting on the bench, maybe it's a flaw in the game's AI engine.

diesel230 · 01-20-2020, 08:34 PM

I really enjoyed reading this. You have a knack for writing. Hope the busy life is all good "busy". I look forward to future updates.

ldambrosa · 01-24-2020, 08:31 AM

Thanks, 3fbrown! (PS - a fan of Three Finger Brown myself, from playing APBA way back when I was a kid and my older brothers had bought some old-time great teams, the 1906 Cubs and the 1922 St Louis Browns). Anyway, I saw this:

I usually let teams keep their historical nicknames. But there is one exception - in the first decade of the 20th century, Cleveland named themselves the Naps after their best player, Napoleon Lajoie. But in Replay League, he spent his entire career with the Cardinals. Cleveland can’t name themselves after someone on another team! It turns out that their star player at that point in time was future Hall of Fame pitcher Noodles Hahn. So, they became the Cleveland Noodles for a time.

I am doing a similar replay to yours in that I am starting in 1901. When Lajoie came into my league, he ended up on the Phillies, so I changed their name to the Philadelphia Naps. During the 1907 season, the Phillies traded him to (!) the Cleveland Bronchos, so the Phillies went back to being the Phillies, and the Bronchos became the Naps :-)

3fbrown · 01-26-2020, 02:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomnov

I haven't found any one particular thing to change in the settings, and I've only made it thru 1 flawed random debut season myself. The cause may simply be the AIs drafting the most talented player on the board based on whatever scouting values you are using. I know when I am drafting, I follow a similar strategy -- best available athlete -- but I then look to trade my largess to fill a position I need.
Maybe you can consider loosening up your AI trading frequency a bit.
Although in the one instance you mentioned, most of the time a CF is transportable to a corner OF slot; but if they are simply rotting on the bench, maybe it's a flaw in the game's AI engine.

They did move some of those guys to corner OF - Burks and Anderson are there now. But Edmonds and Lofton were CF only. I will say that the AI is far too reluctant to teach guys new positions. Often there will be a player (I am thinking of another long-time Pirate here, Howard Johnson) that can hit, but plays their position so poorly that they aren't worth much. Teaching an infielder like that to play 1st base would solve the problem, but they don't do it.

By the way, Kenny Lofton finally was traded in 1995, sadly not to me.

3fbrown · 01-26-2020, 02:08 AM

So we have two men hitting over .420, and nobody hitting between .400-.420, but we have six seasons in the .390s, by four players.

Honorable mention:

Harry Heilmann hit .398 in 1930, falling just two hits short of being over .400. He was 35 years old, but it was 1930, which always helps the offense.

In 1924, Shoeless Joe Jackson hit .396. He was 34 years old at the time. Like Heilmann, he played for those big-hitting A’s teams of the era.

In 1924 and 1925, Jack Fournier hit .394 and .392 respectively. He was a Yankee, though he retired a few years before they got Waner. These were Fournier’s age 34 and 35 seasons, which seems to be a bit of a trend here. In fact, he only had two more seasons after this before he retired, though he still hit over .300 during his final season.

George Burns (the OF) hit .391 in 1922 and .392 in 1925. A lifetime Cleveland Indian…if you closely read the above entries, you will notice that all of these players were in the AL, so he would not have won the batting title either year. He was the guy that beat out Max Carey for the 1922 MVP though, maybe because he also walked 110 times, or because he added 18 HR, or because he stole 56 bases. Like all the other guys I have mentioned so far, Burns is in the HOF.

3fbrown · 02-01-2020, 02:53 AM

Fred “Shoemaker” Nicholson was a 25-year-old rookie outfielder on the 1920 Red Sox. He played part-time, getting only 291 PA, but hit .401! As far as I know, nobody in RL history had hit .400 in a short season like this before. He clearly did not qualify for the batting title, but it was noteworthy nonetheless.

Six years later, now age 31 and playing for the New York Giants, Nicholson did it again. He was still playing part-time, as his defense was pretty bad, but his hitting had never been anything but excellent. In 429 PA, Nicholson hit .408, now the second time he had hit over .400 in a season too brief to qualify for the batting title. Still, hitting over .400 in over 400 PA is nothing to sneeze at.

Nicholson played through the 1934 season, when he was 39, but mostly as a part-timer. He only played enough to qualify for the batting title twice, in 1928 and 1929. He hit .359 in 1928, and for his career hit .341 in about 4700 plate appearances. I am not sure why he never played more. It was partly because of the defense of course, but when you hit .341 for your career, weak defense can be forgiven. He may have also been platooned (he hit right-handed), and he definitely pinch hit frequently, as he always had over 100 games played, even when he had under 200 PA.

3fbrown · 03-30-2020, 02:10 AM

Like everyone else these days, life is not the normal routine. Nonetheless, I have finished the 1995 season of Replay League, so here is a summary of some of the more notable things.

The most wins in baseball belonged to the Padres, with only 91. It was a very balanced year. The Padres were led by MLB's leading RBI man, Rico Brogna, who hit .302 with 39 HR and 140 RBI. The #2 RBI man was also a Padre, Cliff Floyd, who hit a bit better than Brogna and also stole 33 bases.

The actual best team in baseball was the Mets, who finished second to the Marlins in the east. They won the wild card though, and ended up taking the world series over the Mariners. The Mets have The Outfield: Albert Belle, Ray Lankford, and Larry Walker. Walker and Belle might be the two best hitters in the NL. They also have Barry Larkin. Larry Walker won his third consecutive MVP award this year.

The AL champion Mariners bear some resemblance to the actual 1995 Mariners, in that they have an OK pitching staff but big time offense. The biggest piece of the offense is Jeff Bagwell, best hitter in the AL. He won his 2nd MVP, hitting .322/.435/.614, and leading the AL in WAR with 8.4 The Mariners' lineup also boasts Barry Bonds (not as good as the real one, but still plenty good), Vinny Castilla, Tim Salmon, Wil Cordero, and Phil Nevin. On the pitching staff, the main notable is rookie Paul Byrd, who led the AL in wins, WHIP, and ERA.

Unlike in 1994, nobody even hit 50 HR this time. Ryan Klesko led the AL with 48, and Todd Hundley paced the NL with 47. In the NL, you might be surprised to hear that the batting title went to Jeff Frye (.341). You might also be surprised that the leader in OPS was Olmedo Saenz (1.007). You might be less surprised to know that both played for the Rockies.

The big story, I think, was rookie Jason Giambi of the Yankees. The bad: the Yankees already had Carlos Delgado (the Yankees are famous for drafting top 1B), so Giambi spent the year in LF. He also missed a month with a strained hamstring. He still had 8.3 WAR, 0.1 behind league leader Bagwell. He did this by hitting .352/.500/.686, leading the majors in all three slash stats. Despite only 560 PA, he hit 32 2B, 36 HR, walked 126 times, and scored 120 runs. He was a beast! Only two previous times in history has a player reached base half the time in a season. Babe Ruth once had a .526 OBP thanks to 174 walks, and then Paul Waner did it the year he hit .421.

Pitching was the same as always these days. In the NL, Pedro Astacio and Greg Maddux were the best. In the AL, teammates Mike Mussina and Ben McDonald were both excellent, with Paul Byrd also very good. The actual best pitcher is Pedro Martinez, no surprise there, but his arm is made of glass. He only pitched 118 innings, but still had 4.4 WAR! He went 10-4, 2.28, with 150 strikeouts. For reference, Paul Byrd had the lowest qualifying ERA in baseball at 2.76. Only 3 guys in baseball had an ERA under 3.00 - Byrd, Maddux, and Paul Wagner.

3fbrown · 03-30-2020, 02:13 AM

1995 Awards

Rookie of the Year
AL: Jason Giambi
NL: Brian Giles

Cy Young Award
AL: Mike Mussina
NL: Greg Maddux

MVP
AL: Jeff Bagwell
NL: Larry Walker

Top players at each position (according to me, but usually it is the guy leading in WAR)

AL
C: Rick Wilkins
1B: Jeff Bagwell
2B: Quilvio Veras
3B: Vinny Castilla
SS: John Valentin
LF: Jason Giambi
CF: Junior Felix
RF: Matt Stairs
P: Mike Mussina
P: Paul Byrd

NL
C: Todd Hundley
1B: Mo Vaughn
2B: Bret Boone
3B: Edgar Martinez
SS: Aaron Ledesma
LF: Cliff Floyd
CF: Jim Edmonds
RF: Larry Walker
P: Greg Maddux
P: Pedro Astacio

Vezna31 · 06-29-2020, 04:52 AM

I know this thread is over a year old, but I haven't been here in a while. Cool thread. I am doing something similar. I have 2 separate old historical leagues. The first started in 1871. And yes, it takes an incredible amount of maintenance before you can play a season. I do custom schedules (because you only have 1 or 2 pitchers in the first few years) and interleague because I have two four team divisions.

The 2nd league is like yours. Starts in 1901. My goal is to win a championship with every team by going worst in the league to world champion with each team. As soon as I win, I take a job with the worst team from that year. I have won 9 championships and I'm currently in my first year managing the Yankees in 1943. This Yankees team is terrible. I am 13-47 so far

Babe Ruth was an absolute GOD in my game. He did play for me on 3 teams. I drafted him as manager of the White Sox. As a pitcher, he went 20-15 2.84 ERA in 1914 and was mediocre in 1915 and then I converted him to hitter in 1916. He went 0-4 7.56 ERA in 1916. He went on to hit 749 HRs. His best year was 1925 playing for my Athletics, putting up basically untouchable numbers, .400/.474/.820/1.294, 72 HR, 204 RBI, 14.1 WAR. In 5 out 6 straight years, 1926 - 1930, he hit over 50 and hit 60 in 1930. In 1929, his numbers were .406/.505/.797/1.302, 55 HR 184 RBI. In 1930, his numbers were .411/.496/.798/1.294, 60 HR 170 RBI. He is 2nd lifetime in hits with 3,731.

Ty Cobb was another god. He finished with 4,558 hits and a .351 career AVG. There are 2 current players with a higher career AVG young in their careers, Williams and DiMaggio. Ruth and Cobb hold career records in 14 of 19 categories. Shoeless Joe holds the record for Triples and Ted Williams has records in 4 categores.

Speaking of Shoeless Joe, he is 3rd in hits with 3,697 and a career .335 AVG.

On the pitching side, Cy Young ended at 516. Walter Johnson won 425. Some surprises were Christy Mathewson and Pete Alexander being much less dominant at 259 and 241 wins respectively. Top season for wins is Jack Pfiester with 35 in 1907 with Rube Waddell in 2nd with 34 in 1902. There have been only 9 season with a 30 game winner.

Right now, I am following Ted Williams whose career numbers so far are .372/.487/.648/1.135, all career leading numbers. In 1941, he hit 44 HR with 129 RBI and batted .403. Oddly, in current year 1943, (he missed due to war), he is only hitting .264. Same with DiMaggio. He is only hitting .251. through 59 games. I don't know why both are slumping so badly.

Anyway...just thought I would share some stats. Cheers!

3fbrown · 07-05-2020, 08:02 PM

Thanks Vezna. I am actually planning to start a new thread for this on the OOTP21 forum, since I upgraded to that version. I might also add the integrated league in a separate forum. It's nice to share, and a few folks like reading about either the results or the methods - I know I read those from other folks. Plus, I just finished 1997!

12-04-2019, 01:59 AM	#25
3fbrown Major Leagues Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 414	Players with 700 SB: Part 1 Paul Molitor: 792 Technically active, Molitor hasn’t been in the majors since 1992. His bat still plays, but his only position is DH, which doesn’t exist in RL. Molitor has had a productive but strange career. He has split his time fairly evenly between 2B, 3B, and SS - he actually has more time at SS than any other position. Drafted by the Tigers, he started out at 3B, where he was an average fielder. At age 28 they moved him to SS to make room for Steve Buechele’s golden glove. At shortstop Molitor was well below average. In 1989, at age 32, he moved primarily to 2B to make room for Ozzie Guillen at shortstop. Here he also struggled, as his defensive skills had eroded significantly. He now plays for the Pirates, or at least Pittsburgh’s AAA affiliate. Molitor has had a good bat his entire career. He is a career .295 hitter, with good doubles power, and obviously good speed. He won the 1982 MVP award when he hit .341 with 49 doubles, 85 SB. But most years he has been a good hitter with great speed and mediocre or worse defense. He’s toast at this point, but he will be heading to the HOF as a mostly borderline candidate soon. Tommy Harper: 781 A poor man’s Paul Molitor, Harper also got put at positions he was not ideally suited to play. He spent the 1960’s in Cleveland, playing some 3B but mostly CF, where he was a terrible defender. The bat was solid, but the defense kept him from being very productive. Traded to San Diego in time for the 1970 season, he spent the rest of his career as a Padre, mostly playing 3B, with a bit of corner OF. His 3B defense started out average but deteriorated as he got older, forcing the move to LF/RF. His hitting stayed solid in his 30s, maybe even improved a bit. His best seasons with the bat were probably in his mid-30s. Unlike Molitor, he didn’t do anything especially well with the bat, but didn’t have any glaring weaknesses either. He was very durable, and consistently stole bases, so even though he never surpassed 64 SB, he accumulated a lot over his career, holding the record from 1981-1992. He does, however, still hold the record for times caught stealing at 429, 71 more than the next most. Harper was a good player, but not close to being a HOFer. Sherry Magee: 773 A deadball slugger in real life, this Sherry Magee was a slightly lesser version of the real one. He spent his career in Washington playing RF. Although his hitting stats don’t look impressive, considering the era they are solid. But for the most part, he was Tommy Harper, accumulating stats over a long career, including a lot of SB. He held the record for 60 years, which isn’t too shabby. He was better than Harper on both offense and defense, so he is a low level HOF candidate, but just not impressive enough to me to get inducted. This paragraph is not super exciting, and neither was Magee. Ty Cobb: 733 He played a long time and got a lot of hits.

01-17-2020, 02:31 AM	#27
3fbrown Major Leagues Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 414	The 700 SB Club, Part II It's been a while...life has been busy. Probably will stay that way for a few months. I should at least finish that last post... George Burns: 731 This is the OF George Burns that played mostly for the Giants in real life. This RL George Burns played for Cleveland, and made the HOF, thanks to some serious hitting. He hit .323 lifetime, including a couple of seasons in the .390s. He was also patient, walking 110 times in his best season. Add the 2500 hits and 1300 walks together, and you get a guy that was on base a lot, giving him ample opportunities to run. Burns also had some power, so overall he was a well-above-average hitter. He didn’t get caught often either, so his baserunning added quite a bit of value. He won the MVP in 1922, hitting .391/.495/.583 on the season. He stole 56 bases that year, which is pretty average for him for a full season. Sandy Alomar, Sr.: 728 In case you don’t know, the real Sandy Alomar was a very light hitting 2B for a number of teams in the 60’s and 70’s. This Sandy Alomar improved his talents enough to be a roughly league average hitter. That, combined with his speed and defense, made him a valuable player. Nothing great, but certainly a starter. Alomar did not seem destined for a productive career. He was drafted in the 3rd round of the 1965 draft, which is never a good sign - very few drafts have quality players that late. He spent his first two seasons mostly playing in AAA and being released and signed by various teams. In 1967 he was signed by Detroit, and improved his hitting abilities. In 1968 he led the AL in runs, SB, and plate appearances. Which leads to Alomar’s defining characteristic: his durability. His nickname is the Iron Pony for a reason - he rarely got injured until late in his career, much like Andre Dawson. He would continue to be a solid hitter, good baserunner, and excellent defender at both 2B and SS for many years. He played until age 42 in 1986, nearly overlapping with his sons. In addition to the steals, he had 2500 hits and 1300 runs scored in his long career. He ended up with 53 WAR, nearly a Hall of Fame level performance. At this point, he looks to be the best Alomar instead of the worst, though his sons aren’t done playing yet. Heinie Groh: 728 You know Groh as the HOF SS and leadoff hitter for the Philadelphia A’s of the teens and twenties. He was good, even for the fifth best position player on his own team. The guys in the 600s are all deadball era players, more or less. Jimmy Sheckard, Topsy Hartsel, and Larry Schafly are all from that time, and Braggo Roth played just after that time period. The next modern guy is Larry Lintz, who was discussed earlier. Every other player above him on the list had at least twice as many plate appearances, and was also a much better hitter. The next active player on the list is Juan Samuel, with 511 SB. He won’t make 700, not because he is slowing down, but because the rest of his game has become so weak that he won’t play enough. Gerald Young, on the other hand, is only 29 years old, has 507 SB, and is good enough to play for a while longer. He is an excellent CF defender, has a high OBP so he has plenty of opportunities, and is at his peak now. He stole 93 bases in 1993 for the Dodgers, his second season of over 90. [Note: I wrote this early in the 1994 season. That season is now complete. Samuel has 517 SB, rising slowly. Young on the other hand is now at 574, #14 all-time. He just stole 97, so he should be able to pad that total quite a bit. Another solid year gets him in the top 10, and if he hits enough to get playing time, he might challenge the leaders.]

01-19-2020, 02:18 PM	#28
3fbrown Major Leagues Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 414	.400 Seasons Only twice has a hitter hit above .400 for a season. But this turns out to be a slightly more interesting topic than it might seem, at least to me. The big twist here is that both of these seasons were well over .400 - in fact both were over .420! Nobody ever hit between .400-.420, but two guys hit over that. Max Carey: .429 (1922) Max Carey’s 1922 season still holds the record for batting average, hits, and singles in a season. He had 247 hits that year, out of which 195 were singles. That still left room for 31 doubles, 18 triples, and 3 HR, and he added 59 walks. He slashed .429/.482/.561. In his Hall of Fame career, Carey had more than 3000 hits, over 550 SB, scored more than 1400 runs and drove in more than 1100. He played for the Phillies for two years, then was traded to the White Sox, but sadly I don’t know who the Phillies got. Surely it wasn’t enough. Paul Waner: .421 (1934) Paul Waner was a better hitter than Carey, though without the steals, and playing RF instead of CF. And unlike Carey’s year in 1922, Waner’s 1934 season was deemed worthy of the MVP, the first of three straight MVPs for Waner. Interestingly, both players were in their thirties when they hit .400 - Carey was 32, Waner was 31. Waner had 34 doubles and 21 home runs that year. He added 96 walks, and had an overall OPS of 1.142, which probably relates to the MVP. Waner was later inducted into the HOF. Like Carey he started his career with the Phillies, but was traded to the Yankees before his MVP seasons. Maybe Philadelphia's GM wasn’t making such great decisions?

01-26-2020, 02:08 AM	#33
3fbrown Major Leagues Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 414	.400: Honorable mentions So we have two men hitting over .420, and nobody hitting between .400-.420, but we have six seasons in the .390s, by four players. Honorable mention: Harry Heilmann hit .398 in 1930, falling just two hits short of being over .400. He was 35 years old, but it was 1930, which always helps the offense. In 1924, Shoeless Joe Jackson hit .396. He was 34 years old at the time. Like Heilmann, he played for those big-hitting A’s teams of the era. In 1924 and 1925, Jack Fournier hit .394 and .392 respectively. He was a Yankee, though he retired a few years before they got Waner. These were Fournier’s age 34 and 35 seasons, which seems to be a bit of a trend here. In fact, he only had two more seasons after this before he retired, though he still hit over .300 during his final season. George Burns (the OF) hit .391 in 1922 and .392 in 1925. A lifetime Cleveland Indian…if you closely read the above entries, you will notice that all of these players were in the AL, so he would not have won the batting title either year. He was the guy that beat out Max Carey for the 1922 MVP though, maybe because he also walked 110 times, or because he added 18 HR, or because he stole 56 bases. Like all the other guys I have mentioned so far, Burns is in the HOF.

02-01-2020, 02:53 AM	#34
3fbrown Major Leagues Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 414	A different kind of honorable mention Fred “Shoemaker” Nicholson was a 25-year-old rookie outfielder on the 1920 Red Sox. He played part-time, getting only 291 PA, but hit .401! As far as I know, nobody in RL history had hit .400 in a short season like this before. He clearly did not qualify for the batting title, but it was noteworthy nonetheless. Six years later, now age 31 and playing for the New York Giants, Nicholson did it again. He was still playing part-time, as his defense was pretty bad, but his hitting had never been anything but excellent. In 429 PA, Nicholson hit .408, now the second time he had hit over .400 in a season too brief to qualify for the batting title. Still, hitting over .400 in over 400 PA is nothing to sneeze at. Nicholson played through the 1934 season, when he was 39, but mostly as a part-timer. He only played enough to qualify for the batting title twice, in 1928 and 1929. He hit .359 in 1928, and for his career hit .341 in about 4700 plate appearances. I am not sure why he never played more. It was partly because of the defense of course, but when you hit .341 for your career, weak defense can be forgiven. He may have also been platooned (he hit right-handed), and he definitely pinch hit frequently, as he always had over 100 games played, even when he had under 200 PA.

11-08-2019, 10:52 AM	#21
Jeffield Bat Boy Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 9	I think you may be on to something with your trading theory of only trading what the computer offers because i started with the 2019 orioles and with trading set to very hard i still managed to improve my minor leagues from 28th ranked to 10th by the july trade deadline. Im going to use your idea going forward but, i guess leaving the trade difficulty and amount of trading set to normal would be okay for this.

11-16-2019, 02:35 AM	#22
3fbrown Major Leagues Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 414	My experience is that I get lots of trade offers, especially if I put in what I want into the team needs screen. Now, most of the trade offers are terrible, but the high volume means that a few are worthwhile every year. And they are interesting offers - I rarely get an offer where I am ripping off the computer. I would estimate that I "win" the trade 2/3 of the time, but I "lose" 1/3 of the time. Sometimes I get tempted to shop around. For example, the Pirates right now in my league keep drafting CF, so they have Jim Edmonds, Kenny Lofton, Brady Anderson, Johnny Damon, and Ellis Burks. Since Edmonds and Lofton can only play CF, one always sits, even though those are probably the top 2 CF in baseball. I'd love to have one, but I am wary of poking around and getting a superstar for a bargain price. That's not in the spirit of the game for me.

11-16-2019, 04:21 AM	#23
tomnov Minors (Double A) Join Date: Nov 2017 Posts: 118	I think maybe your trade settings and/or AI settings are flawed, as you've already recorded 2 instances of teams uselessly stockpiling players that they could have traded to other teams to help their own team get better. But the project sounds interesting.

11-18-2019, 02:38 AM	#24
3fbrown Major Leagues Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 414	?? What settings do you suggest are flawed? The AI always drafts the best available player, regardless of position, which is the right strategy for real life, but works more awkwardly in a league where players go right to the majors. How do you have your settings to avoid this problem? Typically teams that do this trade the extraneous player after a bit, but in this case it just hasn't happened yet.

01-13-2020, 08:13 PM	#26
mayday10 Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jan 2020 Posts: 175	Enjoyed reading

01-20-2020, 08:34 PM	#30
diesel230 All Star Reserve Join Date: May 2004 Location: Long Island NY Posts: 693	I really enjoyed reading this. You have a knack for writing. Hope the busy life is all good "busy". I look forward to future updates.

01-24-2020, 08:31 AM	#31
ldambrosa Minors (Single A) Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: Lincroft, NJ Posts: 60	Thanks, 3fbrown! (PS - a fan of Three Finger Brown myself, from playing APBA way back when I was a kid and my older brothers had bought some old-time great teams, the 1906 Cubs and the 1922 St Louis Browns). Anyway, I saw this: I usually let teams keep their historical nicknames. But there is one exception - in the first decade of the 20th century, Cleveland named themselves the Naps after their best player, Napoleon Lajoie. But in Replay League, he spent his entire career with the Cardinals. Cleveland can’t name themselves after someone on another team! It turns out that their star player at that point in time was future Hall of Fame pitcher Noodles Hahn. So, they became the Cleveland Noodles for a time. I am doing a similar replay to yours in that I am starting in 1901. When Lajoie came into my league, he ended up on the Phillies, so I changed their name to the Philadelphia Naps. During the 1907 season, the Phillies traded him to (!) the Cleveland Bronchos, so the Phillies went back to being the Phillies, and the Bronchos became the Naps :-)

03-30-2020, 02:10 AM	#35
3fbrown Major Leagues Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 414	1995 Recap Like everyone else these days, life is not the normal routine. Nonetheless, I have finished the 1995 season of Replay League, so here is a summary of some of the more notable things. The most wins in baseball belonged to the Padres, with only 91. It was a very balanced year. The Padres were led by MLB's leading RBI man, Rico Brogna, who hit .302 with 39 HR and 140 RBI. The #2 RBI man was also a Padre, Cliff Floyd, who hit a bit better than Brogna and also stole 33 bases. The actual best team in baseball was the Mets, who finished second to the Marlins in the east. They won the wild card though, and ended up taking the world series over the Mariners. The Mets have The Outfield: Albert Belle, Ray Lankford, and Larry Walker. Walker and Belle might be the two best hitters in the NL. They also have Barry Larkin. Larry Walker won his third consecutive MVP award this year. The AL champion Mariners bear some resemblance to the actual 1995 Mariners, in that they have an OK pitching staff but big time offense. The biggest piece of the offense is Jeff Bagwell, best hitter in the AL. He won his 2nd MVP, hitting .322/.435/.614, and leading the AL in WAR with 8.4 The Mariners' lineup also boasts Barry Bonds (not as good as the real one, but still plenty good), Vinny Castilla, Tim Salmon, Wil Cordero, and Phil Nevin. On the pitching staff, the main notable is rookie Paul Byrd, who led the AL in wins, WHIP, and ERA. Unlike in 1994, nobody even hit 50 HR this time. Ryan Klesko led the AL with 48, and Todd Hundley paced the NL with 47. In the NL, you might be surprised to hear that the batting title went to Jeff Frye (.341). You might also be surprised that the leader in OPS was Olmedo Saenz (1.007). You might be less surprised to know that both played for the Rockies. The big story, I think, was rookie Jason Giambi of the Yankees. The bad: the Yankees already had Carlos Delgado (the Yankees are famous for drafting top 1B), so Giambi spent the year in LF. He also missed a month with a strained hamstring. He still had 8.3 WAR, 0.1 behind league leader Bagwell. He did this by hitting .352/.500/.686, leading the majors in all three slash stats. Despite only 560 PA, he hit 32 2B, 36 HR, walked 126 times, and scored 120 runs. He was a beast! Only two previous times in history has a player reached base half the time in a season. Babe Ruth once had a .526 OBP thanks to 174 walks, and then Paul Waner did it the year he hit .421. Pitching was the same as always these days. In the NL, Pedro Astacio and Greg Maddux were the best. In the AL, teammates Mike Mussina and Ben McDonald were both excellent, with Paul Byrd also very good. The actual best pitcher is Pedro Martinez, no surprise there, but his arm is made of glass. He only pitched 118 innings, but still had 4.4 WAR! He went 10-4, 2.28, with 150 strikeouts. For reference, Paul Byrd had the lowest qualifying ERA in baseball at 2.76. Only 3 guys in baseball had an ERA under 3.00 - Byrd, Maddux, and Paul Wagner. Last edited by 3fbrown; 03-30-2020 at 02:13 AM.

03-30-2020, 02:13 AM	#36
3fbrown Major Leagues Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 414	1995 Award Winners 1995 Awards Rookie of the Year AL: Jason Giambi NL: Brian Giles Cy Young Award AL: Mike Mussina NL: Greg Maddux MVP AL: Jeff Bagwell NL: Larry Walker Top players at each position (according to me, but usually it is the guy leading in WAR) AL C: Rick Wilkins 1B: Jeff Bagwell 2B: Quilvio Veras 3B: Vinny Castilla SS: John Valentin LF: Jason Giambi CF: Junior Felix RF: Matt Stairs P: Mike Mussina P: Paul Byrd NL C: Todd Hundley 1B: Mo Vaughn 2B: Bret Boone 3B: Edgar Martinez SS: Aaron Ledesma LF: Cliff Floyd CF: Jim Edmonds RF: Larry Walker P: Greg Maddux P: Pedro Astacio

06-29-2020, 04:52 AM	#37
Vezna31 All Star Starter Join Date: May 2004 Location: Wherever My VPN says Posts: 1,968	I know this thread is over a year old, but I haven't been here in a while. Cool thread. I am doing something similar. I have 2 separate old historical leagues. The first started in 1871. And yes, it takes an incredible amount of maintenance before you can play a season. I do custom schedules (because you only have 1 or 2 pitchers in the first few years) and interleague because I have two four team divisions. The 2nd league is like yours. Starts in 1901. My goal is to win a championship with every team by going worst in the league to world champion with each team. As soon as I win, I take a job with the worst team from that year. I have won 9 championships and I'm currently in my first year managing the Yankees in 1943. This Yankees team is terrible. I am 13-47 so far Babe Ruth was an absolute GOD in my game. He did play for me on 3 teams. I drafted him as manager of the White Sox. As a pitcher, he went 20-15 2.84 ERA in 1914 and was mediocre in 1915 and then I converted him to hitter in 1916. He went 0-4 7.56 ERA in 1916. He went on to hit 749 HRs. His best year was 1925 playing for my Athletics, putting up basically untouchable numbers, .400/.474/.820/1.294, 72 HR, 204 RBI, 14.1 WAR. In 5 out 6 straight years, 1926 - 1930, he hit over 50 and hit 60 in 1930. In 1929, his numbers were .406/.505/.797/1.302, 55 HR 184 RBI. In 1930, his numbers were .411/.496/.798/1.294, 60 HR 170 RBI. He is 2nd lifetime in hits with 3,731. Ty Cobb was another god. He finished with 4,558 hits and a .351 career AVG. There are 2 current players with a higher career AVG young in their careers, Williams and DiMaggio. Ruth and Cobb hold career records in 14 of 19 categories. Shoeless Joe holds the record for Triples and Ted Williams has records in 4 categores. Speaking of Shoeless Joe, he is 3rd in hits with 3,697 and a career .335 AVG. On the pitching side, Cy Young ended at 516. Walter Johnson won 425. Some surprises were Christy Mathewson and Pete Alexander being much less dominant at 259 and 241 wins respectively. Top season for wins is Jack Pfiester with 35 in 1907 with Rube Waddell in 2nd with 34 in 1902. There have been only 9 season with a 30 game winner. Right now, I am following Ted Williams whose career numbers so far are .372/.487/.648/1.135, all career leading numbers. In 1941, he hit 44 HR with 129 RBI and batted .403. Oddly, in current year 1943, (he missed due to war), he is only hitting .264. Same with DiMaggio. He is only hitting .251. through 59 games. I don't know why both are slumping so badly. Anyway...just thought I would share some stats. Cheers! __________________ Owner/Operator - Vezna Financial Services - Accounting and taxes.

07-05-2020, 08:02 PM	#38
3fbrown Major Leagues Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 414	Thanks Vezna. I am actually planning to start a new thread for this on the OOTP21 forum, since I upgraded to that version. I might also add the integrated league in a separate forum. It's nice to share, and a few folks like reading about either the results or the methods - I know I read those from other folks. Plus, I just finished 1997!