I really don't feel like getting into a whole line by line dynasty update here, because everyone else does it so much better than I can. I just wanted to stop by and ask if anyone's seen anything like this.
I started a fictional league alongside a historical league. My goal was to have some bleedover from the MLB, but for it to behave more or less like a competing and equal league.
It seems all the pitching has stayed in the MLB. Started it in 1910, and it's now 1926. Most of that time consisted of me choosing a date far in the future and then wandering away (I'd always intended on starting to manage a team in the '60s, but wanted my league to have a history behind it.) Free agency turned on to increase turnover between the leagues.
Since I started in 1910, the whole "Black Sox" thing never happened--as a matter of fact, Shoeless Joe started with the Cleveland Naps and then moved to the other side of the city in 1916--the first cross-town league defection.
There have been, over the past several years, three dominant players in this league: Jason Taylor, of the Kansas City Hippos; Jacob Ellis, also of the Hippos, and a certain Mr. Babe Ruth, of the Chicago Wind.
I was sitting, watching the season tick down, watching the home run race between Taylor and Ruth. The totals got more and more ridiculous, then Taylor's production died down in mid-September while Ruth's continued. The final tally was Taylor: 77 home runs, Ruth 87. And I thought, 'That's a record that's going to stand for a while.'
Then I went into some player history. Not only was that record not going to stand for awhile, Ruth had already broken it; hitting 94 home runs in 1925. Which was the second time Ruth had hit 90+, and had only hit fewer than 80 in one season since making the switch from the MLB to the ABL.
1924 was actually an anomalous season. That was the year in which Ruth hit a mere 57 home runs. Jason Taylor won the triple crown that year, with a .454 average, 72 homers, and 182 RBI. Offense was clearly way down. Taylor's output hasn't been as consistent as Ruth's, mostly due to injuries. However, in addition to the 72 he hit in '24 and the 77 in '26, he went yard eighty-three times in 1922. But that's nothing compared to the 101 he hit the year before. Yes, he hit 101 home runs. Knocked in 248. Had a batting average of .438. There was a triple crown winner that year, and he wasn't it.
In 1921, there was a race in the ABL to see who could have the most ridiculous stats. Ruth, of course, missed twenty games due to injury and still went deep 92 times. But the triple crown winner was Mr. Jacob Ellis. Ellis has been far more injury prone over his career than either Ruth or Taylor, but in 1921, he was healthy and at the top of his game. Ellis hit for a .476 average, 111 home runs, and 323 RBI. And I don't think any of those numbers will ever be touched.
Oddly, Babe Ruth holds the home run record in the MLB, with 44. It's a bit harder to track down pitching records in that league, since most of them were set before 1910. However, taking a look at the league batting average and ERA should show us something:
Code:
ERA
YEAR ABL-CL ABL-IL MLB-AL MLB-NL
1910 3.45 3.50 3.37 3.54
1911 3.44 3.44 3.36 3.44
1912 3.44 3.39 3.53 3.47
1913 3.55 3.44 3.15 2.97
1914 3.39 3.21 2.81 2.83
1915 3.33 3.41 2.76 2.56
1916 3.41 3.50 2.71 2.62
1917 3.20 3.45 2.95 2.78
1918 3.34 3.45 2.95 2.78
1919 3.45 3.45 3.33 3.15
1920 3.48 3.53 3.76 4.00
1921 4.11 4.55 4.23 4.42
1922 4.28 4.47 3.92 4.40
1923 4.04 4.49 4.08 4.14
1924 4.07 4.53 4.32 3.99
1925 4.30 4.41 4.33 4.34
1926 4.18 4.09 4.00 4.02
And the batting averages:
Code:
AVG:
YEAR ABL-CL ABL-IL MLB-AL MLB-NL
1910 .280 .278 .274 .275
1911 .277 .277 .269 .262
1912 .277 .276 .273 .275
1913 .282 .278 .264 .258
1914 .278 .270 .247 .251
1915 .275 .278 .240 .239
1916 .277 .277 .247 .242
1917 .276 .279 .258 .251
1918 .275 .278 .261 .253
1919 .277 .276 .267 .262
1920 .281 .278 .284 .288
1921 .284 .285 .293 .301
1922 .294 .293 .285 .295
1923 .287 .289 .285 .285
1924 .288 .295 .293 .282
1925 .291 .290 .295 .292
1926 .284 .277 .277 .278
So, given that there is no interleague play at all going on, I'm forced to come to the conclusion that the MLB is still the superior league, and that while Ruth, Taylor, and Ellis would still be spectacular players in the MLB (since we know all about the Bambino), the weaker opposition in the ABL has caused them to appear superhuman by comparison.
As an addendum to this, it's interesting to note that in 1922, Rogers Hornsby hit .427 and tied Ruth's MLB record with 44 home runs and knocked in 147. The following year he hit .405 with 30 HR and 111 RBI.