HeyBattaBatta Baseball

[Radsmats]

After a bunch of years of just playing solo, I decided to redo a project from many years ago ... building teams of clones and playing them against each other.

This is proving harder than I had thought. It's much easier to create clone teams than back in the day of modding databases, the historical comparison does a much better job of mixing eras, etc. But the engine has gotten much more complex, which makes play balance much harder.

I ran a test on my copy of OOTP19 (missed 20 somehow??) and it worked beautifully. The team of nine Babe Ruths (plus 6 Bambinos on the bench, just in case) pounded the team of nine Tony Gwynns, with a season record of 124-38. MVP Ruth (the CF one) had a slash line of .422/74/346. The team slugged 596 HR and scored 3,724 runs. Gwynn won the batting title (.475!) and the best Gwynn had something like 315 hits.

Those are all ludicrous numbers, of course, but there was a certain amount of pitching fatigue and running nine of one player, there was a wide range. The "bad" Ruth only had something like 43 HR.

But onto the pitching ...

Back in the day of poking around databases, it was relatively easy to build a starting rotation that could be vaguely competitive, even against Nine Babe Ruths. Cy Young, a couple of other 500-inning deadball types, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, and a bunch of relievers and you could control the offense. Now, however, it's hard to do that and relatively easy to cobble together the combined staffs of the source teams ... in this case, the 1923 Yankees and the 1987 Padres. I cloned the best of each staff and combined them so both teams were batting against the same pitchers.
In my OOTP19 test game, the Ruthian Dave Dravecky "won" the Cy Young award with an 8.53 ERA in a league where his team's ERA was over 10.50 and the Gwynnians were around 18.00 (plus another 5 or so unearned runs / game ... more on defense in a mo ...). Oh, and to rub salt in the wound, one of the Bench Babes got used as a spot closer and finished second (behind an aging Goose Gossage) with three saves.

Something changed in the engine in switching to OOTP21, however, and after 1.5 seasons, Ruth is scoring around 20,000 runs / year. The entire Gwynn pitching staff is exhausted. You can see the point they fell off the cliff, as it was five wins to three for Ruth before they ran off 62 consecutive wins. (Side note, you can hit some very, very lopsided Steam "achievements" playing this way.) Despite my insisting on a five-man rotation with strict order, it insists on starting Bullet Joe Bush and Waite Hoyt (64 starts between them), and pitchers seldom make a whole inning. The last game, the Ruths pounded out 222 runs while facing 912 pitches over 5.1 innings before the game was called on account of rain.

I'll tinker in the player editor a bit and see if by maxing out the endurance for the pitchers and maybe going with 20-man staffs I can get back to "reasonable" results like I had in '19.

And a final note on "defense." This is another area where the base game does much better than in old days, when I used to have to edit each player to even get them to play all nine positions. Two very different models ensued this time. On the Ruths, they had one Ruth catch and a second off the bench. A third caught a handful of games over the season. And it was similar around the diamond. One (really crappy defensive) Ruth played most of the games at SS, etc.

But over on the Gwynns, almost everybody played almost every position. You could practically see the computer manager scratching its head, trying to figure out if there was some way to cut down on the passed balls (596 between the two teams) or errors. Like switching from one Tony Gwynn to another at SS or C was going to stop the onslaught of Ruths.

Assuming I get this figured out, I'll post more on the hows, and then try to run a tournament. (Hint, Gwynn is the 64 seed).

[Radsmats]

So while I'm working on creating a viable pitching staff, I thought I would provide the lineups. It's a 64-team tournament, so the 64 best position players in baseball. The top half or two-thirds of the bracket are pretty simple, although some will disagree with my seedings or else where would the fun be? Feel free to pitch in.

The No. 1 seeds:
Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, & Ted Williams. I'm not sure anybody wouldn't have at least three of those four in some order. If you make a reasonable adjustment for the seasons Williams lost to military service, it's probable they would be 1-4 in WAR+, Win Shares, and most any other career metric, pre-steroids. Those are the two stats I consulted in building my list, btw.

Ruth is easily the best hitter of the four and was good enough defensively that he's the No. 1 of the four top seeds. The other three are bunched close enough offensively that I simply ranked them by their other skills. Mays was an all-time great defensive center fielder, Cobb a step down. They both ran like deer.

Williams -- sorry Ted, but the second-greatest hitter who ever lived -- is an indifferent left fielder at best, and never ran. So fourth all-time.

Barry Bonds is the interloper, but as I will be picking one season out for each player, I intend to use a pre-roids Bonds. While he was a very, very good player before chemical enhancements (I have him as the top No. 3 seed), he doesn't belong in the top 4 all-time.

The No. 2 seeds are Honus Wagner, Hank Aaron, Tris Speaker, and Cool Papa Bell. Wagner is the only non-outfielder in the top 10. It will be interesting to see how a SS fares defensively with the computer, moving down the defensive spectrum.

Aaron was a model of consistency and really needs no introduction. Speaker and Bell I see as essentially the same player ... lightning fast, great defenders, great contact hitters. As it's hard / impossible to really do a statistical comparison of the Negro League greats, I simply arbitrarily added Bell and Josh Gibson to the roster. There were a handful of others who undoubtedly would have made the grade (Oscar Charleston, Buck Leonard, Pop Lloyd, a few others) but good statistical modelling for them is mostly guesswork, so I've chosen Bell & Gibson as the standard-bearers for their league & their time.

I'll break out the four brackets individually in later posts.

[Radsmats]

I figured out how to use the import historical player function, which actually works pretty sweet (once I dug out my old Lahman database to figure out the player codes).

Now both teams have the same, all-star pitching staffs:
Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Steve Carlton, Roger Clemens, Clayton Kershaw, Tom Seaver, Goose Gossage, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Rube Waddell, & Mariano Rivera.

This worked for the month of April, after which the teams were tied with 14 wins each. But the last loss was a 45-8 drubbing on April 30, and the beginning of the end for the Gwynn pitching staff. May Day was a 12-9 loss, then a win -- their last of the season -- on May 2, 22-18 in 10 innings. A string of poundings followed, surrendering 27, 37, 18, 43, 55, and 71 runs. The entire staff -- even THAT entire staff were completely exhausted, having to face peak Babe Ruth, batter after batter, day after day. Next step will be to increase the roster size, add even more pitchers, and possibly shorten the season to provide more rest days.

I'm closing in on a playable sim. Stay tuned!

***Followup***
I reset all the fatigue levels and the season played out fairly well ... the Gwynns even swept the WS! So solving fatigue is the issue. Once a team has no healthy pitching, they have no way of recovering. All I need to do is keep it from reaching that point.

[Radsmats]

The complete staff for both teams:
Cy Young, 1901
Rube Waddell, 1904
Christy Mathewson, 1908
Walter Johnson, 1913
Lefty Grove, 1936
Warren Spahn, 1947
Steve Carlton, 1972
Tom Seaver, 1973
Jim Palmer, 1975
Goose Gossage, 1977
Lee Smith, 1988
John Franco, 1988
Greg Maddux, 1992
Mo Rivera, 1996
Pedro Martinez, 2000
Clayton Kershaw, 2013
And for good measure, four inning eaters from the deadball era: Pud Galvin, 1883, Old Hoss Radbourne, 1884, Ed Morris, 1885, and Toad Ramsey, 1886. Those four alone are good for about 2,500 innings. I tried to have a range of lefties / righties, a few relief specialists, and it leans toward pitchers I have watched, or ones I have enjoyed playing in OOTP over many years. Pedro is the unquestioned ace for both teams, year after year, getting all but one of the test season opening day assignments (Toad Ramsey wtf?).
I've played about a dozen trial seasons and these staffs survive against both Gwynn and Ruth. Team ERA tends to run between 6.50 and 15.00.
So now, just the brackets.

[Radsmats]

1 v. 16: Babe Ruth & Tony Gwynn. It took a lot of tweaking to get the play balance right because they're both such extreme players. The game doesn't credit Ruth as a defensive player, although in 1923 he was an above-average corner OF and got a few games at 1B and CF. I had to touch him up or Gwynn's team BA was usually in the low .400s. Gwynn wins about one in six seasons, which is much better odds than most 16 seeds, but usually loses 90+ games. Very different players make for fun box scores. Because Gwynn is capable of stringing together such long on-base sequences, this is a MUCH tougher matchup for Ruth than any of the other 15/16 seeds.

2 v. 15: Honus Wagner v. Hank Greenberg. Greenberg's a bubble player until you factor in missed seasons due to WWII. The best all-round SS against a typical corner fielder should be a mismatch ...

3 v. 14: Barry Bonds v. Manny Being Manny Ramirez. Bonds' edges in speed & overall athleticism give Manny just a puncher's chance.

4 v. 13: Mel Ott v. Jim Thome. Thumper is essentially a poor man's Ott. Lots of high-scoring, station-to-station baseball in this one. Will either team have 10 SB by the end of the season? If so, why?

5 v. 12: Mickey Mantle v. Frank Thomas. Upset special right here at the 12 seed, just like in the NCAA bracket. Contact monsters like Thomas have a real chance against five-tool players who strike out, and that pitching staff can throw some K's on the board.

6 v. 11: Carl Yastrzemski v. Ozzie Smith. How the game treats Ozzie's D will likely make or break his chances. Yaz is a very limited player (decent average, Fenway power) and Ozzie never strikes out and can fly. Should be fun and VERY low-scoring.

7 v 10: Eddie Mathews v. Luke Appling. Another boxer-puncher matchup. Coin toss?

8 v. 9 Chipper Jones v. Charlie Gehringer. Our first all-infield battle. Gehringer's numbers are based mostly off his one monster season (215 hits, 64 BB, 19 Ks). Chipper could be in tough.

[Radsmats]

1 v. 16: Ted Williams v. Willie McCovey. Two no-run, no-throw players. One hits .400. With a McCovey fielding every position, that might be .500. Next!

2 v. 15: Tris Speaker v. Ernie Banks. Mr. Cub is actually a pity pick to even be here, but there were a bunch of identical deadball hitters (Ed Delahanty, Dan Brouthers, George Davis, Cap Anson), so I thought Ernie would be more interesting. Anson belongs on the basis of his numbers, but he's the most notorious racist in baseball history ("Get That N***** Off the Field" is a really good book about that era and his role ... the title is one of his quotes.)
So here's Ernie instead. Likely for just the one round.

3 v. 14: Eddie Collins v. Gary Carter. Collins is the first player I discovered through playing computer games (Earl Weaver, if I remember right). Super player, all-rounder. Kid Carter is doomed. But he was always going to get one round ... see my avatar picture for why.

4 v. 13: Alex Rodriguez v. Barry Larkin. Should be a mismatch as ARod is ahead of Larkin in everything but class. I'm cheering for Larkin here.

5 v. 12: Mike Schmidt v. Johnny Bench. Bench will have a huge advantage in passed balls / wild pitches / caught stealing. I have no idea if it will be enough to make up Schmidt's advantages in everything else. Should be fun to find out.

6 v. 11: Albert Pujols v. Josh Gibson. I don't know if this is the right ranking for Gibson (I think it's probably low). But having no clue where to seed him, I put him immediately ahead of the greatest all-round catcher ever. Seems fair-ish?

7 v. 10: Jimmie Foxx v. Pete Rose. The original muscles-on-his-muscles first baseman v. the hits leader. I'll skip the cheap betting joke in favor of suggesting Rose's versatility makes this an upset looking for a place to happen.

8 v. 9: Al Kaline v. Jeff Bagwell. Bags is the modern player with a lot more walks but a lot more strikeouts. No clue who will win. Could be some ugly baseball here.

[Radsmats]

1 v. 16: Willie Mays v. Robbie Alomar. Alomar's another guy I moved up a few spots to get in. Originally Eddie Murray's place, but who needs a slow, 1B / DH in a 16 seed? Plus throwing a bone to Jays fans. There's at least one player from every team up to the 1977 expansion.

2 v. 15: Hank Aaron v. Yogi Berra. Given Yogi's shadow over the game, I was surprised his career numbers aren't higher. Hard to see a second round for Mr. Yogi.

3 v. 14: Stan Musial v. Tim Raines. The Man v. Rock sounds like a WWE matchup. The second-best leadoff man ever might steal 200 bases with Musial catching. Fun!

4 v. 13: Rickey Henderson v. Johnny Mize. In case you thought that sounded lopsided, how about the greatest leadoff man of all time v. a weak-armed 1B behind the plate. 300 steals? Will test the limits of the game engine, for sure.

5 v 12: Nap Lajoie v. Paul Waner: Two long-dead, mostly forgotten players. Feels like a space filler, honestly. Advantage to the SS?

6 v. 11: Mike Trout v. Paul Molitor. The best current player up against a bit of an enigma. Molitor was always a little out of sync ... different positions, different teams, different roles. Great player though, and his versatility might give him the upset.

7 v. 10: Cal Ripken Jr. v. Robin Yount. Fun one! Ripken, who hung around at SS for years when his game was screaming 3B, up against a guy who was pretty good at short before moving to CF. I think Yount getting ratings at both IF and OF might give him the edge. Will be interesting, for sure.

8 v. 9: George Brett v. Ken Griffey Jr. Coin toss. Great match-up!

[Radsmats]

1 v. 16: Ty Cobb v. Jackie Robinson. Another notorious racist, this time against No. 42. Robinson has a chance here.

2 v. 15: Cool Papa Bell v. Pudge Fisk. The steals / caught stealing game might be fun in this one. Large edge everywhere else to Bell.

3 v. 14: Rogers Hornsby v. Miguel Cabrera. The Raj will have advantages over Miggie in most areas in this one.

4 v. 13: Lou Gehrig v. Derek Jeter. Perfect for the former New York Highlanders to meet. There can only be ONE captain!

5 v. 12: Frank Robinson v. Reggie Jackson. The cerebral Robinson v. Mr. October. Can't see Reggievision winning this one.

6 v. 11: Joe Morgan v. Sam Crawford. Morgan is such a self-important little bozo behind the mic, I almost forget how great a player he was. Almost. Crawford -- another of the deadball OF/1B hybrids -- is in tough here.

7 v. 10: Roberto Clemente v. Joe Dimaggio. Joltin' Joe did so many things well, he could be hard for Clemente to take out. Joe is another ex-Yankee whose legend is bigger than his numbers, though.

8. v 9: Wade Boggs v. Rod Carew. The battle of the antisocial slap-hitting specialists. The good news is that only one will make it to the second round. The bad news is that one of them will make it to the second round.

[Radsmats]

Kicking off play in the Hey Batta Batta Baseball League is the much-heralded tilt between Babe Ruth 1923 and Tony Gwynn 1987. Let’s head down to San Diego to see how the first game played out.

It’s partly cloudy and cool here on the evening of April 1. Both teams choose Pedro 2000 Martinez as Opening Day starter.

Here’s the first pitch, a fastball from Martinez. Ruth clobbers it! It’s deep to straightaway center field … Gwynn is back to the wall … he times his leap and … . Makes a great catch! Little bit of a sno-cone on that one but he hangs on. We were inches away from a first-pitch home run right there!

After that, Martinez settled down for a 1-2-3 top of the first. In the bottom half, Tony Gwynn opened the scoring with a leadoff single, advancing to third on a wild pitch and a ground out before an RBI single just past Ruth at first base. One run on two hits, and a 1-0 lead for the Gwynns. Some small ball there from Gwynn and heads-up baserunning. He’ll need that to make up Ruth’s power advantage.

But Ruth jumped right back in front in the second, with Martinez getting wild early. He fell behind the first six batters in the inning. Ruth loaded the bases on a double, single, and walk, and scored three times with two runs forced in on bases-loaded walks and another on a sac fly. It could have been worse for the Gwynnians, as Martinez escaped with the bases loaded on consecutive strikeouts, but three runs, two hits and 47 pitches thrown there. Ruth led 3-1 after two.

Gwynn crept closer in the bottom of the third with one run on three straight singles. Big infield gaps with outfielders all around the horn. Then in the bottom of the fourth, Gwynn took the lead back with five runs on six hits, chasing Pedro 2000. Lefty Grove ’36 came in to pitch with runners on first and second and four runs across already. An RBI single and a fly out but the damage was done. High-scoring this, 6-3 for Gwynn after four. The line on the Ruthian Pedro: 3.2 innings, seven runs, all earned, on 10 hits, no walks, and two strikeouts. Tough start to the year for the little righthander.

It was a sign of things to come, as the Ruths jacked three homers in the top of the next inning: Two one-out solo shots chased Gwynn’s starting Pedro Martinez. Lefty Grove also first out of the Gwynns bullpen, but after two walks and a strikeout, he gave up a three-run bomb to left. Walter Johnson ’08 was next in, getting the final out but not until the Ruthians scored five on three hits to retake the lead, 8-7.

The teams continued to trade runs at a wild clip, with the Gwynns banging out 26 hits and 19 runs. They came up one short, as the Ruthians put up 20 runs on just 13 hits – four of those homers – 14 walks and 12 strikeouts. The Gwynnians picked up just two walks and four Ks.

Steve Carlton got the win, Mariano Rivera the save. For the Gwynns, Grove had the blown save and Clayton Kershaw picked up the loss in an ugly stretch at the end of the 7th and start of the 8th, which he opened by walking four straight Ruths.

Your final again, 20-19 for the visiting House of Ruths. If this is any indication, the pitchers for both teams could be in for a long season!

[Radsmats]

April was unkind to the Gwynn 87 camp, with the Ruth 23s off to a blistering 19-9 record.

The whole Ruthian lineup got hot and stayed that way, with four regulars in double-digit home runs in the month. And the hits are coming off the bench, too, with backup catcher Ruth belting nine homers in 11 games.

The first base Bambino was batter of the month, hitting .492 with 10 HR, 42 RBI and 75 runs scored.

Pitcher of the month went to Jim Palmer, coming out of the pen for The Ruths, with six appearances, 16.2 innings, a 2-0 record, 11 Ks and a nifty 2.16 ERA. The really bad news for the Gwynnians is that they've been hitting great as well, with 11 Gwynns hitting at a .400+ clip. Their leading hitter, CF Gwynn, hit .496 for the month. But the monster staff created in vain to hold Ruth in check is working well against the Gwynns, who have only four HR in a month, and the power differential is just too much.

[Radsmats]

More of the same in May for the Gwynn 87s, as the Ruth 23s ran off to an 18-11 record.

To give you some idea how hot the Bambinos are running, check out the news headlines from May ... how often they feature Tony Gwynn running off big hitting streaks, 5-hit games and the like. And still losing seven more games in the head-to-head race.

Six Ruths in double-digit homers this month, and with all the walks, most of the starting lineup are on base at least a .500 clip or higher. Every Gwynn starter except LF Gwynn ("Bench the bum!") hit at least .400 for the month and they still trailed in OBP because Ruth walks a lot and Gwynn seldom does. 14 HR for the Gwynn team this month; 14 for the leading Ruth.

Hard to see a way back into this one for the underdog ... .

[Radsmats]

It's the Babe. Hands down. I was hoping to see a rebound I could use to make a more interesting read but it never came. June was 18-7 for the Ruths. July was 19-10. August 21-7. September was an anticlimax at 17-6. Final standings: 112-50. Gwynn was 62 games behind. Shrug.

I spent several hours tinkering with an eye toward a balanced league, and then when I hit the Go button, there was an old-fashioned butt-kicking. That's baseball.

There's no hidden reason why. Gwynn had a small advantage in hits. Ruth walked 1,400 more times, so was always on base when Ruth hit one of his spare 546 HR. Baseball is a very simple game at times.

This was far and away the most dominant season I saw in the dozen or so trials I ran. For whatever reason, the "real" year was a good one for hitters. And that favored Da Babes. It didn't help (but didn't make the difference) that the Ruths were +6 by Pythagorean projection ... so not just good but lucky. The low end offensively in the trials I saw was a year Gwynn won (handily) where the top HR hitter was 43 dingers.

I'll wrap up the individual stats and do the World Series in a post before moving on. Not sure what to do with the Series ... it's more for fun than anything at this point.

FUN STAT UPDATE! I just noticed. No IBB all season for either team ... so the game is smart enough to understand that there's no percentage walking Ruth with a runner on second to pitch to Ruth with two guys on. Well programmed Marcus!

[Radsmats]

So the scary thing is how realistic the sim was. CloneRuth hit .393. Real Ruth hit .393. CloneRuth had a .544 OBP. Real Ruth had a .545 OBP. Of course Ruth maxed out at 60 HR IRL, but there was no way / point to pitching around him here, so 65 is not a bad total. The clone's OPS is 0.007 off Real Ruth's actual best.

Really, really impressive numbers.Scary to think that in real life, any player could be so dominant (especially with beer & frankfurters as performance enhancing substances). If anything, Gwynn was the one the sim gave a boost to: 305 hits? .436 BA? Please.

On the mound, Jim Palmer of the Ruths won the Cy Young Award, well ahead of Cy Young. He had a 10-3 record in 23 starts, with a 6.72 ERA and 106 Ks to 50 walks in 136.1 innings. Most impressively, he held a team of nine Tony Gwynns to a .324 average, which is like magic. Cy went a combined 8-11 with ERAs of 11 + 15 plus. Gwynn hit him for a .426 average, Ruth .402, although with a respectable 3.8 HR/9. The range was from Walter Johnson (8.0 HR/9) to Mariano Rivera (0.8 HR/9).

The game appears convinced Gwynn is a better fielder than Ruth, as the ex-Padre took the Gold Glove at every position but 2B.

[Radsmats]

By Red Lyons
SAN DIEGO (H4B News Service) -- The New York Ruth '23s finished a one-sided season with a one-sided World Series, but the local Tony Gwynn '87s didn't go down without a fight -- literally.

In the top of the fourth, with the visitors up three games to one and 3-0 in the potential clincher, right fielder George "Babe" Ruth was facing local ace Pedro "2000" Martinez. With two out and two strikes, Martinez came inside with three straight pitches. With the count full, Ruth appeared to point to the nickel seats in the left field bleachers, and promptly deposited the next pitch right where he had pointed.

Words were exchanged as the big slugger rounded the bases, but the home manager, the always colorful Jeff "Dude" Lebowski, put an end to Martinez' night and apparently to the entire sordid affair. But relief pitcher Cy Young had other ideas.

On his first -- and only -- pitch of the night, the veteran right-hander ventured inside with a fastball to left fielder Babe Ruth, striking the fleshy part of Ruth's upper bicep. To this observer, it seemed a harmless accident, a pitch up in the zone that simply strayed inside on Young's first effort of the contest. Still, Ruth, the Baltimore Brawler, took exception and charged the mound and both benches and bullpens emptied. Light fisticuffs ensued, with Ruth taking the worst of the exchange in the view of the local boys on press row. Both players were ejected.

Adding insult to injury, the pinch runner, Babe Ruth, came around to score in the fourth and then went two-for-two with two walks and two more runs scored the rest of the way.

Still, the fray seemed to put some iron in the Gwynn's britches, as they fought back -- on the scorecard this time -- to within one run.

However, as has happened throughout the season, the bullpen was unable to shoulder the onslaught and the Ruthians trotted off winners, 20-4, and World Series Champions, however bitter that might be to the valiant California boys.

There's always next year.

--30--

[Radsmats]

So the question for Honus Wagner v. Hank Greenberg is: Can you tweak the league setup to make a head-to-head season close between one of the great shortstops in league history and a noodle-armed first basemen with good power?

The answer: No. No is also spelled 117-45 for Wagner, the No. 2 seed.

Greenberg is a slightly better hitter in the career percentage stats (BA, SLG, OBP, etc.) because he didn't play long. Wagner's hurt by the long tail to his career. Honus at 35 was better than Greenberg at 27, but Honus played till he was 43. But OOTP models best on three peak seasons, and Wagner's top three years were much better than Greenberg's.

Wagner also has Deadball Era power ... a lot of the stadiums had huge outfields, and if you could run and drive the ball into gaps, you picked up a lot of doubles and triples. Wagner is a great example of that, and so his isolated power numbers aren't bad ... cutting into Greenberg's power advantage.

Plus Honus played a key defensive position ... not great, but well enough. Slightly above average SS with the glove. Wagner also played 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and all three outfield positions, so he doesn't earn the dreaded dash for experience all over the field. Greenberg played just OK at positions where you hide guys who can't throw. Greenberg started at first then played some in left, badly, after he got pushed off 1B by Rudy York. York came up as a catcher but led the league twice in passed balls (including one season when he only caught 54 games). Given the choice, the Tigers moved York to first and Greenberg to left, where the best description of his skills is likely At least he's better out there than York.

York was replaced at catcher by Birdie Tebbets, who threw pretty well for a guy called Birdie.

Honus also runs better than Greenberg, so it doesn't matter if you tweak towards a hitting, pitching, or speed game, a small improvement for Greenberg is a bigger one for Wagner. I spent just enough time on it to decide Wagner was going to win 90% of the time or more, then ran a season for reals. There's too many good matchups here to spend a lot of time on the bad ones.

After the blowout win, the Wagners ran up a 4-0 World Series sweep for good measure.

Stats up next, then time to move on.

[Radsmats]

Digging into the player stats, the HR hitter didn't have a great year, the fast guy was better than expected. Hank Greenberg was a legit power hitter -- most similar modern player is Albert Belle -- but didn't do much else. He hit .328 in 1935, but the league hit .280 -- almost 30 points higher than today. Teams averaged 70 complete games, so a lot of ABs were against guys throwing slop. Given the practice sims I ran it would have taken a huge year for Greenberg & a crappy one for Honus Wagner to give a different winner. Most years were closer, certainly, but with the same player advancing.

Second straight sim with 300 hits from one player. I expect that fairly often: Great hitters top to bottom (with no easy outs, the whole lineup gets more swings), most guys out of position on defense. But so far we've had one power guy win and one speed guy, so not a trend favoring one type of player.

Awards:
Wagner won six Gold Gloves. Greenberg won at catcher (Greenberg seldom ran so Wagner almost never threw anybody out?). Bizarrely, Greenberg also won in CF. Pedro at pitcher.

Pedro 2000 of the Wagners won the Cy Young Award, with a 20-3 record and 4.67 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 252 Ks to only 45 walks.

MVP was 3B Honus, with 302 hits, 54 doubles, and 7.3 WAR, all league bests. Runner-up was Pedro 2000, then six more Honuses. Honii?

Apologies for the eye-bleed yellow on the stats. Haven't been spending much time on the sizzle so far. Enjoy!

[Radsmats]

Slugger v. slugger in our third matchup. Barry Bonds & Manny Ramirez.

Despite my attempting to represent only Bonds in his 20s, he's still a monster. He had three MVPs, a Hall-of-Fame career, and about $80 million in career earnings. Plus I spent $8.60 of my $26 budget on him and Eric Davis in my first Rotisserie League. (Another team -- The Disciples of Elvis -- spent $1.90 on Andy "Elvis" Van Slyke and ruled the league for years. Maybe because they could afford better pitching than the bottom of the 1991 Phillies rotation. Sad but true story: 31-year-old Danny Cox was the "ace" of my rotation.) Van Slyke is the only reason Bonds didn't play center field with the Pirates, so Barry also piled up a stack of Gold Gloves in left.

Still, MannybeingManny has a legitimate slugger's chance.

Digression here:
It's interesting that once his stats are adjusted for park effects, Ramirez was a better hitter in Cleveland than he was in Boston. I've long thought that the inability to understand park effects is the actual Curse of the Bambino. The Red Sox would get some pretty good outfielder ... Mike Greenwell, for example, or Jim Rice, and they would pay them like they were as good as their Fenway numbers suggested. Rice, away from home, was a career .277 hitter, with a sub-.500 slugging percentage. Greenwell played a few more road games than home, but had more hits, doubles, and triples at home. His batting average went up 18 points, OBP 24 and slugging 53 at home. A winning organization would figure this out early and sell high on guys like that. Let the buyer find out that in a neutral or pitchers' park that they were comparatively just OK hitters. Instead, the Sox, in a park that hugely played to RH pull hitters, overpaid (and overplayed) guys like this year after year, decade after decade. Pitchers who somehow found a way to be average at Fenway were discarded, despite the fact that being "average" in such a good hitters' park means they were way better than their numbers suggested.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the Sox hired Bill James -- who was the first guy to really put forward the idea that park effects were at least as important as lefty/righty platooning -- as their lead analyst and then started winning.

Digression over ...
So advantage Bonds ... but I think by less than we've seen the last couple of rounds. I give Manny a real shot. Might be a few high-scoring games here, folks. And a few strikeouts to go with.

[Radsmats]

OK, just a sweep of the first series, but still ... . The Manny 2000s opened with a three-game sweep of the '93 Bondseses.

Game three was worth the price of a season's ticket, with underrated deadball era knuckleballer Toad Ramsey throwing a one-hit shutout through 6 innings for the home* team, Roger Clemens taking the loss for the visitors, who got two innings of shutout relief from underrated deadball era knuckleballer Toad Ramsey.

I believe Ramsey's 73 game score is the best I've seen so far (although I stop watching individual games once a season gets out of hand. Anybody putting up zeroes has been noteworthy.

The quick start are unexpected for the Mannys, as the sim expects them to lose 66-96. Maybe it's their new home* park? I neglected to change over between seasons and just noticed they're in Jack Murphy Stadium. As we're out of the preseason, I believe it's too late to change, so they'll be in El Murph for the duration. Team owner Rachel Phelps is reportedly happy about the change in weather, even if Orange County isn't South Beach.

[Radsmats]

After a 5-1 start, the Manny 2000s cooled off in excruciating fashion. They lost a blowout to fall to 5-2, then dropped three of four one-run games.

First they blew a 15-10 lead, surrendering two in the eighth, with Old Hoss Radbourne on in relief until giving up a double and a walk. Cy Young came on and was effective, getting three outs in four batters but allowing a crucial two-run single. Then with two out and a man on second in the ninth, Ramirez fought a line drive to a TKO loss in CF. Instead of getting three outs and keeping the lead, Manny watched Bonds score from second and reach on the error. Bonds promptly crushed a 2-2 pitch into the right field bleachers for a tie game. Then, with Mariano Rivera on, a double and single scored the only run in the 10th and the Bonds win, theeee Bonds win.

The next night, Bonds got one in the eighth off of Steve Carlton and two in the ninth off Rube Waddell for the come-from-behind 11-10 win.

In the third game, Cleveland 2000's Ed Morris gave up single runs in the 7th & 8th for the tie, then vultured the win in the 10th. After Manny 2000 scored on three consecutive singles, Rivera came on to pick up the save.

In the fourth game, Ramirez clawed back to tie a game in the top of the eighth, then 1B Manny booted a grounder to let Bonds take the lead back in the bottom of the inning.

Losing three of four where they led or were tied in the eighth had to be painful for M. BeingManny. If they wind up losing this by a game or two, they'll look back at this string of games in real remorse.

April ended with Bonds 1993 up 16 games to 12.

[Radsmats]

Speed is Bonds '93's first edge in the battle with Manny 2000.

By the time the game ranked each player, Ramirez held a tiny edge in power. But Bonds can run. It doesn't show up so much in steals -- about one a game -- as it does in extra bases on hits, scoring on sac flies, that kind of thing. And it's making a difference. A steal here and there, picking up the extra base ... first to third on a single is almost routine for Bonds.
He's winning one-run games, and a lot of those games are decided on the ability to generate offense beyond raw power.

In May, Bonds wins 19 games to 10. The lead is up to 13 games.

The second factor is Bonds' ability to avoid striking out. Ramirez is building a very slight lead in walks but is striking out about 80% more than Bonds. And the ability to put balls in play lets Bonds take advantage of his speed, moving up runners, taking the extra bag. In a contest between home run hitters, Bonds is winning with small-ball advantages.

June is closer. Bonds wins 15 to 10. But Manny needs a couple of big months, not close ones. He trails by 18.

Singles become doubles; Bonds hits four for every three by Manny. Triples are half again as common for Bonds. Home runs are about even.

July is the closest month yet, 16-13 Bonds; the lead is 21 and it's all over but the shouting. And the shouting sounds a lot like "Go Bonds, go!"

August seals it: 18-10 Bonds, and the lead is 29 games. A respectable September doesn't change anything. 12 for Bonds, 11 for Manny. Final is 96-66 Bonds. A big win built on a lot of little margins.

Going back through the box scores, and there's the rarest of the rare. First time in almost three seasons of all-star slugfests: A shutout!

A four-hitter, to be exact. Ten walks, 12 Ks. Manny 2000 wins 8-0. Greg Maddux goes 5 and two-thirds for the win. Goose Gossage and Warren Spahn each go 1.2 innings in relief. It's only a moral victory, but hey, a win's a win.