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OOTP 18 - Historical Simulations Discuss historical simulations and their results in this forum.

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Old 04-11-2018, 07:15 PM   #1
realstar
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Ruth's orioles

Hey, everybody. I have a new historical concept. Kinda weird. Maybe interesting to some...

The idea is to replace the NY Yankees with the Baltimore Orioles, beginning in 1914, George Ruth's first year in the majors.

"At the end of 1900, Ban Johnson, president of the American League—a minor league previously known as the Western League (1894–1899)—reorganized the league. He added teams in three East Coast cities, forming the American League (AL) as a major league in an attempt to challenge the National League (NL) for supremacy. Plans to add another team in New York City were blocked by the NL's New York Giants, who had enough political power in New York City to prevent the AL from establishing a team. Instead, a team was placed in Baltimore, Maryland, a city which the NL abandoned when it contracted from 12 to 8 teams in 1900.

Nicknamed the Orioles, the team began playing in 1901 and was managed and partly owned by John McGraw. During the 1902 season, McGraw feuded with Johnson and secretly jumped to the Giants. In the middle of the season, the Giants, aided and abetted by McGraw, gained controlling interest of the Orioles and began raiding it for players, until the AL stepped in and took control of the team. In January 1903, a "peace conference" was held between the two leagues to settle disputes and try to coexist. At the conference, Johnson requested that an AL team be put in New York, to play alongside the NL's Giants. It was put to a vote, and 15 of the 16 major league owners agreed on it, with only John T. Brush of the Giants opposing. The Orioles' new owners, Frank J. Farrell and William S. Devery, found a ballpark location not blocked by the Giants, and Baltimore's team moved to New York." (wikipedia)

..played in Manhattan's highest elevation, Hilltop Park as the Highlanders (1903-12), moved to Harlem River & renamed by the press as the Yankees etc

Not such a fair deal for the citizens of Baltimore (not to mention the mayor), who were obliged to become Senators fans.

So all I did was open an historical 1914 game & change the Yanks to the Baltimore Orioles. Simple enough.

(Note: If you forget to do in the creation editor, you can do it after in the Team Settings editor. But you will be forced to reset every year & no team data will be saved in the historical page.)

A local news blurb in 1914, for example, the year Ruth started playing for the Red Sox IRL, might be as follows:
When asked how he feels playing for the new AL team, the Baltimore Orioles, George Ruth said "I'm just happy to be playing for my hometown."

Part of this is noticing how much talent came from Baltimore & the surrounding area & then ended up on the Yanks & other ML teams:

A couple of examples:
IF Fritz Maisel, from nearby Catonsville, MD, played for the Yanks
IF Ray Morgan, from Baltimore, MD, played for the Senators
George Ruth, from Baltimore, MD, played for the Red Sox & Yanks..
and there are others.. so I guess that was part of the talent ransacking of Baltimore.. (?)

Then something occurred to me..

What if you separated all the players who were born in---therefore assuming they are from (grew up in)---the Southeastern region, and then put them all on the Orioles? Would there be too many players on this one team? Too much talent?

So I tried this, and that's what Ruth's Orioles is. And it turned out fairly balanced, as far as number of players on the team, including how many were starters IRL.

So what happens? They kick butt. LoL Go figure..

A big part of that may be because of Cobb moving from Detroit to Baltimore & how the Phillies, for example, lose three ace pitchers who were from southern states.

Here's how I did it.

Nine states. With western and northern borders. All players from these nine southern/southeastern states play on the Orioles:

Mississippi
Alabama
Florida
Georgia
South Carolina
North Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
Maryland

Border states are Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and then D.C. gets isolated as it's surrounded by Maryland. Because obviously the Senators must have players born in their own state, while Baltimore must have players born in their own state.

First thing I had to do: Anybody from (born in) other states get taken off the Yanks-turned-Orioles & placed (using the editor) on other teams. I decide which team, based on teams they actually played on other than the Yanks during their careers.

(Note: You have to go through this process every year, as players get moved to their IRL teams & rookies show up on their IRL teams, while some are on the Orioles but born in other states. Plus, you have to go through all the players on every team, find players from these nine states & transfer them to the Orioles using the player editor. It's pretty tedious. So be forewarned.)

Of course, most of these guys aren't ML quality, and I didn't bother to include Minor Leagues in this game. Just a simple ML historical, with Reserve. But the player changes to different teams became pretty drastic, you know. The biggest upset obviously being Ty Cobb...

ABOUT THE 'NEGLECTED' SOUTH
Baltimore didn't get a ML team until 1953.

Assuming Maryland is a southern state, and therefore Baltimore is from the "south," which some may dispute. And Delaware is also officially considered a southern state.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ted_States.svg

In fact---as folks from the South may be acutely aware---no cities from the above nine states got into the ML throughout the first part of the 20th century. Was this because none of these states had cities big enough to support a ML team? As that seems to be the accepted reason. (?) It's like the South was a feeder for northeastern & midwestern cities' ML teams. Please feel free to chime in here with your own two cents..

Southern/Southeastern ML cities: Baltimore (1953), Atlanta (1966), Miami (1993), Tampa Bay region (1998)

Obviously the 'South" should include Louisiana. How can you have Mississippi & Alabama, but not Louisiana? But making this choice turned out to help balance the number of players on the Orioles, keeping it from having too many. Other states officially considered part of the South are Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma & Texas.


Here's some of the bigger talent who get taken off their famous Northeastern/Midwestern teams & placed on my "Southern-born-only" Orioles:

Ty Cobb (Detroit) --born in Narrows, Virginia
Babe Ruth (Red Sox, Yankees) --born in Baltimore, Maryland
Pete Alexander (Phillies, Cubs, Cardinals) --born in Elba, Alabama
Shoeless Joe Jackson (Naps/Indians, White Sox) --born in Pickens County, South Carolina
Erskine Mayer (Phillies, Pirates, White Sox) --born in Atlanta, Georgia

Of course, some of these guys were in the Black Sox scandal. Which makes if fun because, you know, there is no Black Sox scandal now. So for those of us who still believe Shoeless Joe was innocent, this is the place to be!

What else?

I dunno. You tell me.

It's really just a fun way to have a winning team while playing OOTP. Which, as we all know, is more entertaining (that word) than having a more balanced team. LoL

What happens to the Babe?

Well, first of all, he's not mostly pitching for Boston during 1915-17 (1918 he pitched 20 games & played LF 47 games). My new Orioles had an opening at 1B and he thrives there, the tall rookie firstbaseman whose batting soars & he becomes, along with Cobb, a major mid-lineup force. For that matter, Shoeless Joe also kicks butt & the result is this powerful 1910s lineup that historically rivals the 1920s Yanks with Ruth & Gehrig etc. Without very many homers, either. Are we having fun, yet? LoL

Here's some more transferred talent on the team:

White Sox ace pitcher Reb Russell, born in Jackson, Mississippi

Hard hitting 3B Red J Smith who kicked butt for the Brooklyn Robins and Boston Braves, born in Greenville, North Carolina

Infielder Buck Herzog, played for Giants, Braves, Red & Cubs, born in Baltimore, Maryland

Spitball pitcher Allen "Rubberarm" Russell, pitched for the Yanks, Red Sox & Senators, born in Baltimore, Maryland

Ace lefty Eppa Rixey, wins leader in a 21 season career for Phillies & Reds, born in Culpeper, Virginia

Remember, a lot of these aces start massive numbers of games because the stamina level is high during the dead ball era & into the 1920s. For example, in the current year I'm playing, 1917, Pete Alexander started 44 games (45 last year & 42 the year before), while Rixey started 39 games IRL in 1917. So the team has a surplus of IRL games started & you will feel that & be forced to manipulate starters in order to give them enough playing time. Which brings us to the Balance Issue.

I suspect the main complaint I will get is people saying how the ML leagues/teams' owners somehow managed players by balancing talent, so as not to have severely imbalanced teams/leagues. Which I've done (caused imbalance of talent) by forcing players onto the Orioles based on birthplace.

Well, I guess you're right.

Anyhoo... I welcome your comments & thanks for reading.
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"The use of defensive shifts has exploded in Major League Baseball -- a 440-percent increase just since 2010, according to Baseball Info Solutions. So increasingly, defenses are judged not just by their personnel but how that personnel is specifically deployed, pitch by pitch."
--Anthony Castrovince, Sports on Earth

Last edited by realstar; 04-11-2018 at 08:30 PM.
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Old 04-11-2018, 08:37 PM   #2
realstar
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P.S. I also allowed a few Caribbean players on the Orioles. Which seems appropriate.
__________________
"The use of defensive shifts has exploded in Major League Baseball -- a 440-percent increase just since 2010, according to Baseball Info Solutions. So increasingly, defenses are judged not just by their personnel but how that personnel is specifically deployed, pitch by pitch."
--Anthony Castrovince, Sports on Earth
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