1871-2015, and Beyond

[chucksabr]

So, I ran an historical simulation starting in 1871, stopping at January 1st 2015, just to see how history might have replayed itself with different guys on different teams and slightly different careers, and I thought I would share it here.

This simulation uses 16.0.2. On my machine, it took 25 minutes to run from 1871 through the 1899 season, and then it took another 40 minutes to run through the 1924 season. Then I let it goes all the way through the 2014 season, and that part took a little over three hours. So, we're looking at between four and four-and-a-half hours to run a simulation of 144 seasons.

[chucksabr]

First of all, here are the champions of each league throughout the years.

Lots of surprising dynasties. The Senators won five straight pennants from 1909-1913. The Phillies took nine straight pennants 1925-1933. The Tigers dominated with five straight 1947-1951. The Yankees don't have their first long string of pennants until 1971-1974. The Giants took six in seven years 1986-1992, and faced the White Sox four straight years 1988-1991. The Expos finally got their pennant in 1996. It did not keep them in Montreal.

One kind of shocker: the Dodgers won four World Series in five years 1953-1957, yes still moved to LA for 1958 (where they won another pennant). I gotta think that if they'd won four Series in those five years, they would have stayed in Brooklyn, and some other team would have made their way out to LA, like the Cubs.

[chucksabr]

One other thing I notice above: the St. Louis Browns, winner of ten pennants and six World Series, still end up moving to Baltimore, while the Cardinals, winner of only seven pennants and three Series, stay put. How much you wanna bet the Cardinals would have been the extinct team now?

[chucksabr]

Check out this leaderboard:

How about Lou Gehrig hitting .441 in 1929! In fact, Gehrig hit .400 three times.

"Juan Gone" Gonzalez with 233 RBI in 1999!

Cobb stole 125 in 1991.

Mark Prior had a 22-1 WPCT for the Tigers in 2002 to take that single season mark.

Look who has the highest career winning percentage, and he didn't even get a Hall of Fame vote that I could see.

[chucksabr]

The leaderboard led me to look into the career of Charlie "Buck" Geggus, who has the highest WAR of any pitcher on the list. I never heard of him. Have you?

He was a real guy, and here was his real life stat line:





Compare that to his stat line in this simulation:





Geggus is second in career wins after Walter Johnson and 12th in career ERA, with the best ERA for anyone with a career as long as his.

He was clearly the best 19th Century pitcher in this sim. I wonder whether it would have been called the "Buck Geggus Award"?

[chucksabr]

Here's a list of the Hall of Famers who are position players. I highlighted some of the inclusions I found interesting. You can probably note many who were elected by the BBWAA but are missing from this list, such as Roberto Alomar, Lou Brock, Gary Carter, Eddie Mathews, Tony Perez, Kirby Puckett, Jim Rice, Brooks Robinson, Jackie Robinson (!), Ryne Sandberg, Ozzie Smith, Pie Traynor, Paul Waner and Carl Yastrzemski.

[chucksabr]

Here's the list for pitchers, with some of the ones I think are interesting highlighted. Missing among the real life BBWAA-elected HoFers are Dizzy Dean, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Catfish Hunter, Fergie Jenkins, Bob Lemon, Juan Marichal, Jim Palmer (!), Bruce Sutter, and Hoyt Wilhelm.

[chucksabr]

Frank Shellenback is another example similar to Buck Geggus: a real pitcher with a career shortened by injury at age 20.

Real life:





And his Hall of Fame sim life:

[chucksabr]

Guess who else isn't in the Hall of Fame?

Pete Rose.

Guess why?

Hint: it's not because of gambling.

[dynaboyj]

I love this kind of thing.

Did you use recalc or the OOTP engine's development to determine their careers?

[chucksabr]

I used whatever the default settings are. What would be the difference between the two, in terms of how it would affect the outcome?

[dynaboyj]

I'm not too familiar with it, but using recalc--which I think is the default setting for historical sims--basically recalculates a player's ratings based on their real-life stats over a one-year, three-year, or five-year period. Using the development engine means OOTP starts with a player's real-life-based ratings when they enter the game, and then fiddles with them over the course of time based on parameters in the same way that it does for fictional players in fictional leagues.

So with recalc, you get more true-to-life results and perhaps more believability but also less surprises (and, I believe, Babe Ruth will always turn into a hitter). The dev engine can take many good RL players and turn them into busts, but I personally prefer simming that way.

[chucksabr]

Originally Posted by dynaboyj

I'm not too familiar with it, but using recalc--which I think is the default setting for historical sims--basically recalculates a player's ratings based on their real-life stats over a one-year, three-year, or five-year period. Using the development engine means OOTP starts with a player's real-life-based ratings when they enter the game, and then fiddles with them over the course of time based on parameters in the same way that it does for fictional players in fictional leagues.

So with recalc, you get more true-to-life results and perhaps more believability but also less surprises (and, I believe, Babe Ruth will always turn into a hitter). The dev engine can take many good RL players and turn them into busts, but I personally prefer simming that way.

Goes to show you how little I know about this game outside of running my dynasty!

Well, then, I will need to run another sim with recalc off, just to see what happens!

[chucksabr]

Joe DiMaggio is not in the Hall of Fame, either, but not because he wasn't good enough to make it. It was because he had a career-ending concussion and the Browns cut him loose.

[chucksabr]

Love him or hate him, no one else has ever had a season quite like A-Rod (that's Alex Rodriguez, not Aurelio Rodriguez) had for the Colorado Rockies in 1999.

[chucksabr]

But as great as A-Rod is in this sim, the greatest batter in the history of baseball is not Babe Ruth, not Ted Williams, not Barry Bonds ... but Lou Gehrig. Check him out:





Lou is tops in batting average, on-base and slugging, but also in wRC+ and RC/27; third in base hits, runs scored and RBI, as well as WAR; and ninth in home runs. You'd think being able to play until 1945 would have been the key, but ne was terrible after 1939, so it really didn't matter all that much, and it actually hurt his rate stats. Most amazingly, he not only hit over .400 four times, but he landed on .399 twice more.

[chucksabr]

What constitutes the best pitcher season in the sim might be a matter of debate. If we do it based on WAR, then Hal Newhouser takes the cake. His 17.7 WAR translated to a 30-11 record with a 1.69 during 1945, including 308 strikeouts at a time that was truly remarkable, as was his 373-1/3 innings pitched. His ERA+ that year was 230.





If you're more a fan of the straight ERA approach, Rube Waddell's 1908 is for you. He had a record 1.10 that year with an astounding 35-4 record. His ERA+ was 236, which is a little better than Prince Hal's 1945.

[chucksabr]

As for the greatest pitcher in this sim history, there is a bunch of different ways you could take this. In terms of WAR, good ol' Buck Geggus takes the prize, but he was mostly a 19th-Century pitcher throwing against inferior competition. You could say the same for Walter Johnson, since the competition in the teens through the early 30s was not great, either. Roger Clemens and Sandy Koufax have a better claim to performing the best against the best competition in history. So, take your pick.





If, again, you prefer the ERA route, than Rube Waddell is your guy, since he not only has the best ERA for all pitchers of at least 1500 IP, but he is very close to 300 wins as well.





If you prefer to view ERA within the context of a pitchers' era and ballparks, though, then you can make a case for the still-pitching King Felix.

[gRaider2001]

This is amazing. Thank you for sharing the results with us.

[BaseballMan]

Originally Posted by chucksabr

Goes to show you how little I know about this game outside of running my dynasty!

Well, then, I will need to run another sim with recalc off, just to see what happens!

If you do keep an eye on Ruth. Dont forget he was a pitcher first.