Sansterre's Baseball History Replay Education

sansterre · 04-29-2016, 10:06 AM

So. I like having games running in the background and I thought it might be fun to start out in 1901 with historical transactions and lineups. In addition to satisfying my craving for games to glance at I thought it would be a fun way to learn about baseball history. Sure I know that Cy Young was good, but what does that mean? Who were the Chicago Orphans? If it was the deadball era, why were teams scoring 5 runs a game? I wanted to gain an appreciation of every year of baseball by playing it out.

The process is pretty simple; as I said, I use historical lineups and transactions and I 'watch' one game every in-game day through the season. Early in the season I'll watch whichever game has the best underdog (whichever game has the team with the worst record that is the best). Later in the season when it becomes clear who has a shot at the pennant (usually the last month or two) I'll only watch games that affect those teams, even if they're against someone crappy. And once the pennant is locked up in both leagues I just sim to the playoffs, because there's no point in watching irrelevant games. I'm turning ratings off because I don't want to corrupt the experience by simply looking at a rookie and going 'oh, this guy is obviously great.' I'd like to experience his rise first-hand.

So this series of posts is basically an attempt to do two things; record the results of the sim for entertainment value and to record the things I've learned from the game, for educational value.

A caution: this is a replay. That means that the seasons will play out generally the same, but not exactly the same. A player that bats 300 may bat 330, or 270. A team may have multiple players underperform and itself underperform. It's like we're replaying every year, knowing that (injuries etc aside) it may play out differently than it really did. But perhaps that's the fun of it; learning from the past without being shackled to it.

I've already done the first two seasons; I'm halfway through May 1903. I wanted to give myself some time to see if I'd stick with it. Having done so, and become more excited each year to see what happens, I'll now start recapping the 1901 and 1902 seasons, within reason.

I recently read the Bill James Historical Abstract and it was really funny to read the player rankings (1-100 at each position for all time) and realize that because the book was written around 2000, the era I knew best, by far, was the deadball. He'd talk about Ryne Sandberg and I'd think "yeah, 2b with cubs in the 80s or so, pretty good wasn't he?" But I'd see a decent 1901 player like Joe Kelley and think "oh yeah, he was great for brooklyn that one year, nice!" So I guess using this as a tool to educate myself appears to have worked :P

I hope it makes for interesting reading

sansterre · 04-29-2016, 10:10 AM

First Reactions

Baseball in 1901 is weird.

There are so many things to adjust to. It's a very, very different game from the one that seems normal to me. And truthfully, it took me most of 1901 to get used to the differences.

1) Massive, (massive!) amounts of errors. The teams average 2 errors per game per team. This keeps the scoring near 5 r/g even when league ERAs are 3.30 or so.

2) No home runs. Teams average about 30 home runs per season per team. Suddenly gap power is a really big deal.

3) No strikeouts. League average k/9 is around 3.2. Average K/BB is around 1.3.

4) Starting pitchers are super-valuable, but not in the way you'd think. The best pitchers of the era pitch a ton, but are not as dominant as modern starters. A top starter in 1901 may pitch 29% of their team's innings (17% is unusually high these days) but on a per-game basis aren't as good as modern starters because their strikeouts are so low.

5) There are a lot of replacement level players. This is 1901; it's not like these guys are making millions. It seems like every team has a few good players and the rest are just scrubs. Makes my life easier, but it's a little disorienting.

I think that's everything worth mentioning. On to our players and teams!

sansterre · 04-29-2016, 11:24 AM

American League

I'll go through the teams in inverse order. I won't bother too much with a season preview since the season's already over. I will say that before the season the top 3 teams projected were Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia in that order.

#8 Milwaukee Brewers, 46-91

Milwaukee, as you may have guessed from their record, sucks all over the place. They have maybe 2-3 decent players. John J Anderson is a solid 27 year old 1B, who hits 319/355/484 (44 doubles, 12 triples, 9 homers) for a 3.8 WAR. They also have two decent pitchers, both 27. Bill Reidy puts up a 75/53 K/BB for a 4.1 WAR and Ned Garvin a 66/113 for a 4.8 WAR (13-15 even on this crap team).

#7 Baltimore Orioles, 57-76

Baltimore has some decent bats, but no pitching. Their best pitcher, Joe McGinnity, 30, has a K/BB below 1 but still has a 3.8 WAR, by virtue of his 371 innings pitched. Because in 1901 even a 1 K/BB is above replacement level. John McGraw, 28, is a great fielding 3B who puts up a 334/450/429 line for a 5.1 WAR in only 317 ABs. McGraw is also the player-manager who goes on to more fame as a manager than a player. But he was damned good this year. Turkey Mike Donlin, 23, is a mediocre fielder but hits well with a 360/414/567 for a 4.4 WAR. I also recognize Roger Bresnahan but this year he's 21 and does nothing.

#6 Washington Senators, 58-75

I know this is hard to believe but Washington has no players worth mentioning. It's not that they aren't good (I mean, they aren't) but they do combine for 22 WAR. But nobody's above 4.

#5 Cleveland Blues, 66-70

Cleveland is a team with a lot of upside. They have no pitching at all; 409 BBs to 370 Ks isn't a good ratio. Their only pitcher of any value, 24 year old Pete Dowling (1.5 K/BB) retires at the end of the year. (Welcome to 1901, with 30 year old rookies and 25 year old retirees!)

Their bats are another matter. Ollie Pickering, 31, is a CF who throws up a 329/403/416 for a 6 WAR season. Bob Wood, 35 puts up a 4.5 WAR season at catcher. Erve Beck, 22, has a 4.5 WAR season at 2B and Bill Bradley, 23, puts up a 322/360/467 at 3B for a 3.3 WAR season. It's not hard to look at Beck and Bradley and think that with just a little bit of help they could take this team in a good direction. Just not this year.

swampdragon · 04-29-2016, 12:29 PM

McGraw was a good player. He tended to miss a lot of time due to injuries, which is why you haven't heard more about him as a player. But he was the 3rd baseman for the great 1890s Orioles teams. Beck seems to overperform in this game. My Cleveland Blues team is contending after about a dozen games, and Beck is hitting over .350 and is tied for the home run lead with three.

joefromchicago · 04-29-2016, 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sansterre

3) No strikeouts. League average k/9 is around 3.2. Average K/BB is around 1.3.

The average should be a bit higher than that for the NL. The AL still hadn't adopted the foul-strike rule, so the ratio there was close to 1-to-1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sansterre

4) Starting pitchers are super-valuable, but not in the way you'd think. The best pitchers of the era pitch a ton, but are not as dominant as modern starters. A top starter in 1901 may pitch 29% of their team's innings (17% is unusually high these days) but on a per-game basis aren't as good as modern starters because their strikeouts are so low.

Well, I'm not sure that's the proper measure for a good starter.

webrian · 04-30-2016, 10:21 PM

Really well-written and fun to read. I never thought of starting a replay in 1901 but I'm still happy to read this. I'll be following.

Dukie98 · 05-01-2016, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sansterre

American League

#5 Cleveland Blues, 66-70

Cleveland is a team with a lot of upside. They have no pitching at all; 409 BBs to 370 Ks isn't a good ratio. Their only pitcher of any value, 24 year old Pete Dowling (1.5 K/BB) retires at the end of the year. (Welcome to 1901, with 30 year old rookies and 25 year old retirees!)

Their bats are another matter. Ollie Pickering, 31, is a CF who throws up a 329/403/416 for a 6 WAR season. Bob Wood, 35 puts up a 4.5 WAR season at catcher. Erve Beck, 22, has a 4.5 WAR season at 2B and Bill Bradley, 23, puts up a 322/360/467 at 3B for a 3.3 WAR season. It's not hard to look at Beck and Bradley and think that with just a little bit of help they could take this team in a good direction. Just not this year.

I recently started a historic league with Cleveland, but starting in 1902, when they acquired Nap Lajoie midway through the season, and also had Addie Joss as a rookie. So far, they're scuffling along about 40 games into the season -- and making 5-6 errors a game at least twice a week.

BaseballMan · 05-01-2016, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by swampdragon

McGraw was a good player. He tended to miss a lot of time due to injuries, which is why you haven't heard more about him as a player. But he was the 3rd baseman for the great 1890s Orioles teams. Beck seems to overperform in this game. My Cleveland Blues team is contending after about a dozen games, and Beck is hitting over .350 and is tied for the home run lead with three.

Well the Orioles didn't exactly play a gentlemans game.

MarkInCincy · 05-01-2016, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BaseballMan

Well the Orioles didn't exactly play a gentlemans game.

Nobody did back then

Sent from my Z812 using Tapatalk

04-29-2016, 10:06 AM	#1
sansterre Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 248 Blog Entries: 2	Sansterre's Baseball History Replay Education So. I like having games running in the background and I thought it might be fun to start out in 1901 with historical transactions and lineups. In addition to satisfying my craving for games to glance at I thought it would be a fun way to learn about baseball history. Sure I know that Cy Young was good, but what does that mean? Who were the Chicago Orphans? If it was the deadball era, why were teams scoring 5 runs a game? I wanted to gain an appreciation of every year of baseball by playing it out. The process is pretty simple; as I said, I use historical lineups and transactions and I 'watch' one game every in-game day through the season. Early in the season I'll watch whichever game has the best underdog (whichever game has the team with the worst record that is the best). Later in the season when it becomes clear who has a shot at the pennant (usually the last month or two) I'll only watch games that affect those teams, even if they're against someone crappy. And once the pennant is locked up in both leagues I just sim to the playoffs, because there's no point in watching irrelevant games. I'm turning ratings off because I don't want to corrupt the experience by simply looking at a rookie and going 'oh, this guy is obviously great.' I'd like to experience his rise first-hand. So this series of posts is basically an attempt to do two things; record the results of the sim for entertainment value and to record the things I've learned from the game, for educational value. A caution: this is a replay. That means that the seasons will play out generally the same, but not exactly the same. A player that bats 300 may bat 330, or 270. A team may have multiple players underperform and itself underperform. It's like we're replaying every year, knowing that (injuries etc aside) it may play out differently than it really did. But perhaps that's the fun of it; learning from the past without being shackled to it. I've already done the first two seasons; I'm halfway through May 1903. I wanted to give myself some time to see if I'd stick with it. Having done so, and become more excited each year to see what happens, I'll now start recapping the 1901 and 1902 seasons, within reason. I recently read the Bill James Historical Abstract and it was really funny to read the player rankings (1-100 at each position for all time) and realize that because the book was written around 2000, the era I knew best, by far, was the deadball. He'd talk about Ryne Sandberg and I'd think "yeah, 2b with cubs in the 80s or so, pretty good wasn't he?" But I'd see a decent 1901 player like Joe Kelley and think "oh yeah, he was great for brooklyn that one year, nice!" So I guess using this as a tool to educate myself appears to have worked :P I hope it makes for interesting reading Last edited by sansterre; 04-29-2016 at 10:13 AM.

04-29-2016, 10:10 AM	#2
sansterre Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 248 Blog Entries: 2	First Reactions Baseball in 1901 is weird. There are so many things to adjust to. It's a very, very different game from the one that seems normal to me. And truthfully, it took me most of 1901 to get used to the differences. 1) Massive, (massive!) amounts of errors. The teams average 2 errors per game per team. This keeps the scoring near 5 r/g even when league ERAs are 3.30 or so. 2) No home runs. Teams average about 30 home runs per season per team. Suddenly gap power is a really big deal. 3) No strikeouts. League average k/9 is around 3.2. Average K/BB is around 1.3. 4) Starting pitchers are super-valuable, but not in the way you'd think. The best pitchers of the era pitch a ton, but are not as dominant as modern starters. A top starter in 1901 may pitch 29% of their team's innings (17% is unusually high these days) but on a per-game basis aren't as good as modern starters because their strikeouts are so low. 5) There are a lot of replacement level players. This is 1901; it's not like these guys are making millions. It seems like every team has a few good players and the rest are just scrubs. Makes my life easier, but it's a little disorienting. I think that's everything worth mentioning. On to our players and teams! Last edited by sansterre; 04-29-2016 at 10:53 AM.

04-29-2016, 12:29 PM	#4
swampdragon Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2002 Location: The Lonely Mountain Posts: 2,509	McGraw was a good player. He tended to miss a lot of time due to injuries, which is why you haven't heard more about him as a player. But he was the 3rd baseman for the great 1890s Orioles teams. Beck seems to overperform in this game. My Cleveland Blues team is contending after about a dozen games, and Beck is hitting over .350 and is tied for the home run lead with three. __________________ “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies." -- C.S. Lewis

04-29-2016, 11:24 AM	#3
sansterre Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 248 Blog Entries: 2	American League I'll go through the teams in inverse order. I won't bother too much with a season preview since the season's already over. I will say that before the season the top 3 teams projected were Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia in that order. #8 Milwaukee Brewers, 46-91 Milwaukee, as you may have guessed from their record, sucks all over the place. They have maybe 2-3 decent players. John J Anderson is a solid 27 year old 1B, who hits 319/355/484 (44 doubles, 12 triples, 9 homers) for a 3.8 WAR. They also have two decent pitchers, both 27. Bill Reidy puts up a 75/53 K/BB for a 4.1 WAR and Ned Garvin a 66/113 for a 4.8 WAR (13-15 even on this crap team). #7 Baltimore Orioles, 57-76 Baltimore has some decent bats, but no pitching. Their best pitcher, Joe McGinnity, 30, has a K/BB below 1 but still has a 3.8 WAR, by virtue of his 371 innings pitched. Because in 1901 even a 1 K/BB is above replacement level. John McGraw, 28, is a great fielding 3B who puts up a 334/450/429 line for a 5.1 WAR in only 317 ABs. McGraw is also the player-manager who goes on to more fame as a manager than a player. But he was damned good this year. Turkey Mike Donlin, 23, is a mediocre fielder but hits well with a 360/414/567 for a 4.4 WAR. I also recognize Roger Bresnahan but this year he's 21 and does nothing. #6 Washington Senators, 58-75 I know this is hard to believe but Washington has no players worth mentioning. It's not that they aren't good (I mean, they aren't) but they do combine for 22 WAR. But nobody's above 4. #5 Cleveland Blues, 66-70 Cleveland is a team with a lot of upside. They have no pitching at all; 409 BBs to 370 Ks isn't a good ratio. Their only pitcher of any value, 24 year old Pete Dowling (1.5 K/BB) retires at the end of the year. (Welcome to 1901, with 30 year old rookies and 25 year old retirees!) Their bats are another matter. Ollie Pickering, 31, is a CF who throws up a 329/403/416 for a 6 WAR season. Bob Wood, 35 puts up a 4.5 WAR season at catcher. Erve Beck, 22, has a 4.5 WAR season at 2B and Bill Bradley, 23, puts up a 322/360/467 at 3B for a 3.3 WAR season. It's not hard to look at Beck and Bradley and think that with just a little bit of help they could take this team in a good direction. Just not this year.

04-30-2016, 10:21 PM	#6
webrian Minors (Triple A) Join Date: Jun 2012 Posts: 232	Really well-written and fun to read. I never thought of starting a replay in 1901 but I'm still happy to read this. I'll be following.