Real vs. Unreal: Murderer's Row

[Specs]

I came across this while browsing through some old HTML exports and trying to see how Murderer's Row did, I got a great surprise, as you may as well. It's 1927, and the Boston Braves are coming off of a 91 win season, while the Spankees won 30 fewer. The Braves have made a ton of great trades, and the Yankees a ton of bad ones. Here's a comparison of the real-life lineups and the fake ones:

       Yankees

 C Pat Collins .275, 7, 36

1B Lou Gehrig .373, 47, 175

2B Tony Lazzeri .309, 18, 102

3B Joe Dugan .269, 2, 43

SS Mark Koenig .285, 3, 62

OF Babe Ruth .356, 60, 164

OF Bob Meusel .337, 8, 103

OF Earle Combs .356, 6, 64



 C Luke Sewell .285, 4, 80

1B Curt Walker .281, 14, 112

2B Chick Fewster .324, 9, 64

3B Heinie Odom .298, 2, 56

SS Bill Webb .314, 8, 78

OF Bob Meusel .325, 16, 103

OF Earle Combs .304, 7, 70

OF Bill Lamar .277, 3, 38

You can obviously see the difference, as their home run leader had a robust sixteen, and they had a grand total of three .300 hitters. Is this a bad lineup? No. But combined with a team ERA above five, it's not so great, is it? Remember, this is a league where players are all assigned to original teams, so the Yanks either traded away or never got half their talent. Now let's check out those free swinging

       Braves

 C Shanty Hogan .288, 3, 32

1B Jack Fournier .283, 10, 53

2B Doc Gautreau .246, 0, 20

3B Andy High .302, 4, 46

SS Dave Bancroft .243, 1, 31

OF Eddie Brown .306, 2, 75

OF Jimmy Welsh .288, 9, 54

OF Lance Richbourg .309, 2, 34

PH Les Mann 17-66, .258, 0 HR



 C Mickey O'Neil .268, 8, 64

1B Joe Harris .325, 21, 112

2B Rogers Hornsby .359, 16, 101

3B Russ Wrightstone .335, 16, 117

SS Charlie Hollocher .324, 2, 103

OF Elmer Smith .341, 16, 110

OF Jimmy Welsh .316, 13, 116

OF Joe Shannon .335, 17, 128

PH Joe Schultz 24-66, .364, 4 HR

Is that nuts or what? An improvement at EVERY position, only one of the real-life players there. Since there is NO FREE AGENCY and NO DRAFT, Billy Beane must be running this team... let's go thru the lineup: O'Neil, Schultz, Shannon, and Welsh are products of the farm system. The other five were acquired in trades.

Hornsby was acquired for 3B Tom Miller and P Foster Edwards. Wrightstone was traded along with RF Howie Jones to Boston for CF Dixie Carroll the same day they acquired Elmer Smith, 3B Fred Eunick, and LF Arthur Hauger for C Mike Konnick. They got once-Yankee Harris for SS Tex Mcdonald, RF Howie Jones, and CF Bob Emmerich, and Hollocher, likely the best shortstop in history, came from the Cubs for 1B Bill Calhoun and C Bob Berman.

• Tom Miller has 73 at bats in the bigs since the trade, but he IS a career .329 hitter...
• Foster Edwards has yet to make the majors...
• Dixie Carroll has done decently for himself, hitting .261 for the Phillies in five seasons...
• Howie Jones has since retired without making the bigs, much like Bob Berman and Bob Emmerich...
• Mike Konnick has made good, hitting .340 twice and making two all-star teams in the three years, but he was a mercenary as the Braves only kept him for two years...
• Tex McDonald moved to the Giants and made an all-star game, then retired in 1930...
• Bill Calhoun has been the Rob Deer of his day, but is pretty old and shouldn't do too much more in baseball...

... and there you have it. The greatest lineup in history, scoring 1006 runs as a team and driving in 851 as just the starting eight! The real-life 1927 Boston Braves had a monumental 651 runs and hit .279, compared to the .309 posted by the fake Braves.