[tm1681]

JACOB MILBURN ENDS HIS LEGENDARY CAREER
THE “RUSHVILLE CRUSHER” WON 13 BotY AWARDS, 6 MVPs, & HIT .402 AS A PRO

As promised when he made a U-turn over his proposed contract with the New York Athletics before retiring from pro baseball and signing with the Great Lakes Baseball Conference’s Peoria Cardinals ahead of the 1899 season, Jacob Milburn played out the three-year contract he signed for the team closest to his Illinois hometown and ended his playing days.

And how did Jacob Milburn’s playing days come to an end? The same way they began in 1882: by hitting .400 and winning a championship. To be exact, he hit .404 while leading the league in on-base percentage (.503), slugging (.551), OPS (1.055), OPS+ (177), hits (165), walks (74), WPA (5.42), oWAR (7.2), and WAR (5.8). He accomplished all of that for a Peoria team that finished 64-44 and took their first GLBC title since 1894.

His post-retirement plan was the same as original “greatest ever” hitter Konrad Jensen: go straight into coaching as a Hitting Coach. Not surprisingly, he was able to skip working his way up the lower ranks of the sport and was hired by the St. Paul North Stars to work with their MWBA team, as well as their very best prospects in the reserves.

In all, Milburn played for twenty years. His record over seventeen seasons as a pro:

And Milburn’s record during his final three years in Peoria:

His career totals (MWBA, APBL, & GLBC – BOLD indicates all-time, all-levels leader):

2272 G, 10464 PA, .401/.473/.554, 1.026 OPS, 2,011 R, 3,636 H, 530 2B, 355 3B, 48 HR, 1,493 RBI, 1,158 BB, 620 SB, 5,020 TB
189 OPS+, 177 wRC+, 111.01 WPA, 112.2 WAR

Milburn is the all-time professional leader in the same categories except total bases. His 162-game averages (MWBA & APBL):

747 PA, .402/.468/.557, 1.025 OPS, 146 R, 262 H, 38 2B, 27 3B, 3 HR, 109 RBI, 77 BB, 31 K, 46 SB, 8.06 WPA, 8.2 WAR

His list of accomplishments is almost innumerable:

PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS (MWBA & APBL)

• 3x champion (1882, 84, 85)
• 13x Batsman of the Year (1882-88, 90, 91, 93-96)
• 6x Most Valuable Player (1883, 84, 86, 91-93)
• 15x Team of the Year (1882-96)
• 11x .400 hitter (1882-88, 91, 93, 94, 96)
• 29x Player of the Week
• 27x Batsman of the Month

• 11x Batting Champion (1882-88, 91, 93, 94, 96)
• 13x leader in On-base % (1882-88, 90, 91, 93-96)
• 13x leader in Slugging % (1882-88, 90-94, 96)
• 13x leader in OPS (1882-88, 90-94, 96)
• 12x leader in Hits (1882-87, 89, 91-94, 96)
• 8x leader in Extra-base Hits (1882-84, 87, 88, 91, 94, 96)
• 6x leader in Triples (1882, 83, 88, 91, 93, 94)
• 5x leader in Doubles (1883, 84, 87, 91, 96)
• 5x leader in Runs (1883, 84, 86, 91, 96)
• 3x leader in Runs Batted In (1882, 95, 96)
• 3x leader in position player WAR (1886, 91, 94)

• Career leader in AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS, H, BB, OPS+, wRC+, WPA
• 9 career five-hit games (ABA record)
• 1 career six-hit game (5/14/1886 vs. Cincinnati)
• 1883: .643 Slugging % (ABA record)
• 1891: .438 Average (highest at any level since pitching restrictions removed in 1884)
• 1891: 225 OPS+ (ABA record)
• 1893: .509 On-base % (ABA record)
• 1893: 1.140 OPS (ABA record)
• 1896: 36-game Hitting Streak (ABA record)
• 1896: 215 Hits (APBL record)

GREAT LAKES BASEBALL CONFERENCE ACHIEVEMENTS

• 1x Champion (1901)
• 3x Batsman of the Year (1899-1901)
• 3x Most Valuable Player (1899-1901)
• 3x Team of the Year (1899-1901)
• 3x leader in AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS, OPS+, H, WAR
• 2x .400 hitter (1899, 1901)

• 1899: .408 AVG, .507 OBP (GLBC records)
• 1900: 226 Total Bases (GLBC record)
• 1901: 165 H, 1.055 OPS (GLBC records)

How did a hitter like Jacob Milburn stay so good for so long? Here’s what Milburn looked like when he was at his peak:

GAME UNIVERSE CREATOR’S NOTES: Essentially what the OOTP23 player creation engine spit out at the time I started the MWBA, in Jacob Milburn, was a 22-year-old who hit like Ty Cobb in his prime but playing before the Dead Ball Era, while unable to run as fast. The game had him at 100% of potential in all categories at age 22, which is something that frequently happens with young players – as young as 18 – when random batches are created in-game outside of the amateur draft, whether as free agents or when starting a new league. Why the game does this? I don’t know, but in this instance it made for a hell of a player.

Milburn’s “prime” basically lasted about fifteen years. I had the “Batter Aging” speed set to .850 for most of his career since yearly league schedules were much shorter until the middle of the 1890s, but even then he was an outlier for how long it took before his attributes started to decline even slightly.

I didn’t have the AI engine set to automatically update league totals and auto-calculations for each season, because in mid-to-late 1800s leagues auto-calc can get pretty janky. Instead what I did was import totals in 1880, 85, 90, & 95 and fiddle with modifiers to keep the hitting as realistic to the time as possible, while letting the parks play a factor as well. There was one year where Milburn was the Midwestern Baseball Association batting champ by 75 points & OPS champ by 190 – mentioned that in another post in this thread. He was just that much better than everyone else.

By his last season in 1901, Milburn’s BABIP rating had fallen from 196 to 165-170, his “Avoid K’s” had fallen from 238 to about 225, and his “Gap” rating had shot down from 175 to 124. His “Running Speed” rating had also roughly halved by that time, making first base the only position he could feasibly play.

You'd think Milburn would have more career WAR, but in the 1880s and 1890s there were still so many fielding errors that elite fielding could have almost as much of an impact on WAR as elite batting. This is why Charley Rankin has led the APBL in WAR 10 of the previous 12 years.


And that’s the final word on Jacob Milburn’s playing career. Milburn was regarded as the best hitter in the sport while he played for St. Louis, but more snobbish baseball fans on the east coast were suspicious that the more hitter-friendly MWBA had helped him out. Once he hit .430 in the APBL that suspicion ended, and he was universally regarded as the best technical hitter ever to pick up a bat. That’s how Jacob Milburn retires: as one of two players who put the MWBA on the map – Hans Ehle being the other – and displaying prowess with the bat that was simply superior to anyone else who’s played the game of baseball. Milburn was known for his work ethic, intelligence, and friendly manner, leaving little doubt that he’ll be a successful Hitting Coach, and that means his actual baseball career is far from over.

This leaves one important thought for the future: Konrad Jensen was originally the “greatest ever” hitter because he combined unparalleled contact with a selective eye at the plate. Jacob Milburn then surpassed Jensen because he took what Jensen did and added significant gap power to that arsenal. Who will become the first hitter to build on what Jensen & Milburn have done, and add enormous home run power on top of it?