Era Combination Problems

[cyberspace-power]

So, I want to run a sim of a 30 team league consisting of every current franchise's all time best winning percentage since 1900. For example, the league has such teams as the 2011 Phillies, 1906 Cubs, 1927 Yankees, and 1954 Indians. However, there is a problem: pitching staffs.

The 1906 Cubs used a grand total of 9 pitchers during the entire season while the Phillies used 9 in a single game. (May 25, 2011 in a 19 inning win over the Reds)

I creating the game using 1979 settings because it has relatively average home run and strikeout averages from the last 120 years, and it is reasonably split in the middle of the current era and dead ball era such that teams in either era should not have too significant of an advantage. However, I'm not sure if OOTP has the capability to assign different roster sizes and pitching capabilities to different teams. For example, I'm under the impression that, while the 1906 Cubs had 6 pitchers throw about 95% of their innings, OOTP will say that that would never happen in a 1979 setting.

So here's the rub, it's looking like teams from before around 1960 are going to have a severe disadvantage in this league due to the differences in pitcher use among the different eras. I consider the 1906 Cubs to be one of the very best teams of all time, if not the best on paper, but as it stands now I think they would be one of the worst in the league due to pitcher fatigue and having to throw pitchers that were in their minor league system in real life and normally would never have sniffed the majors.

Any thoughts on how I can accommodate for the older teams?

[joefromchicago]

That's unfortunately inevitable in a set-up like yours. Pitching is one of the aspects of the post-1900 game that has changed the most over the years. A 1906 team will have fewer pitchers (and fewer players overall) than a team in 1979 and will use its pitchers in a completely different way. I don't know of any "neutral" setting that would even things out between teams from different eras.

[CBL-Commish]

Whenever you're crossing eras you have to make some large assumptions, or you end up with one era or another dominating.

You could just have each team do what it did in real life. Three Finger Brown could go out and pitch 300+ innings and use very few relievers. But that ignores the fact that he was pacing himself to do that, and if he tried that approach in 1979 he'd likely get hammered.

You also have to deal with the slope of history. The game gets better every single year. 1906 teams thrown into a pool with 2019 teams would likely get slaughtered. Even the Cubs. Almost every facet of the game and the environment was dramatically more primitive. In 1906 there were no affiliated minors, scouting was limited and ad hoc, information and data was paltry, nutrition and strength and conditioning barely existed, salaries were far lower and players would quit, infrastructure in the Majors was akin to your county fairgrounds, equipment was simpler, segregation was the rule, there were almost no foreign players, an average MLBer was probably 5' 9", 170 pounds. Put Mike Trout in a time machine and he'd probably hit .500 or .600 in turn-of-the-20th century baseball. I really believe that the 1927 Yankees, plucked out of their era and dropped into today, would have a hard time competing in the Japanese Leagues.

But because the distance between best and worst has shrunk over time it was much easier to dominate in the past. So at face value, with no accounting for that, you'd conclude that most of the best players in history played a century or more ago. In the pre-1920 era people would hit .420 with some regularity, and pitchers would throw 340 innings and win 35 games.

You best bet is to set some ground rules that end up with results kind of like what you want and roll with it. If you want to be completely realistic you'll probably end up with the best teams of all time playing in the last 30-50 years.