Version 17 Does Standout Job on Replay of 1947 Southern Association Season

[Eugene Church]

In my EC's Southern Association Dynasty League I plan to replay the final 15 seasons of the Southern Association... the league folded after the '61 season... I started with the '47 season.

Thought you might be interested in the real 1947 Southern Association Final Standings... and the replay Final Standings... OOTPB does a darn good job of recreating the season.

If you can come fairly close to the real players ratings, the results is really good... I used Baseball-Reference - though it is missing a lot of the stats... and the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper for the player stats and lineups... it took a lot of time to research everything, but it was worth it.

Being a former Mobile Bears' ballboy, I was really disappointed they lost to Nashville in a terrific stretch drive... in real life it was between the Bears and the New Orleans Pelicans... I also lived in New Orleans for several years in the early 50s and saw many Pelicans games at Pelican Stadium.

I don't think I coded the New Orleans pitchers well... not sure why Nashville won the pennant... I thought I did a good job on their hitters' ratings and pitchers' ratings.

REAL 1947 SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION STANDINGS ON TOP WITH THE OOTP DYNASTY REPLAY FINAL STANDINGS ON BOTTOM

[Eugene Church]

HERE ARE THE REAL BATTING STATS FOR THE 1947 SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION SEASON TAKEN FROM THE BASEBALL-REFERENCE DATABASE.

Note: Baseball-Reference is missing a few players from their records that played in the Southern Association in '47... also is missing a lot of statistics.

It included the non-qualifiers.

[Eugene Church]

*
Group 2

[Eugene Church]

Group 3

[Eugene Church]

1947 Real Pitching Stats for Southern Association

[Eugene Church]

Here are the Batting Stats for the Dynasty Replay of the 1947 SA season.

Include Non-Qualifiers... Only Current Roster Players are shown... Players no longer with the teams are not included... some were demoted, some promoted to higher level... some were sold... or released.

[Eugene Church]

Group 2 Dynasty Batting Stats

[Eugene Church]

Group 3 Dynasty Replay Batting Stats

[Eugene Church]

Group 4 Dynasty Replay Batting Stats

[Eugene Church]

Dynasty Replay Pitching Stats for 1947 Southern Association

Includes Non-Qualifiers... Only Current Roster Players are shown... Players no longer with the teams are not included... some were demoted, some promoted to higher level... some were sold... or released.

[swampdragon]

Did you edit every player? Did you just plug he real stats into the top linr of the editor? What did the fielding ratings look like? When I did the 1919 Texas League, all of the fielders were average, probably because of missing stats. I don't think the Times-Picayune would have been much better with fielding stats.

I'm really interested in trying something like this with the old time PCL in OOTP 18, but my previous efforts at minor league replays haven't gone well.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by swampdragon

Did you edit every player? Did you just plug he real stats into the top linr of the editor? What did the fielding ratings look like? When I did the 1919 Texas League, all of the fielders were average, probably because of missing stats. I don't think the Times-Picayune would have been much better with fielding stats.

I'm really interested in trying something like this with the old time PCL in OOTP 18, but my previous efforts at minor league replays haven't gone well.

I created all the batting and pitching stats for each player using the PLAYER EDITOR (see screenshots)

Fielding ratings are hard to come by... I used Baseball Reference to guestimate them... the database is missing a lot of stats... I would just look at a player's overall minor-league record and try to come up with ratings when the stats in the 1947 Southern Association season were incomplete... strikeouts are hard to find for pitchers and batters... if they played in Triple A leagues, they were more complete... some of the lower minors kept good stats, but not many of the them.

Occasionally after midseason I also "adjusted" a player or pitcher's ratings if they were greatly under-performing or over-performing.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune would publish league batting and pitching stats every Sunday for the Southern Association, but they usually cut them off at the .250 BA mark... I used their Final Season Stats to help me create the ratings for this season... several years ago I also used the Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Times-Picayune to get the Final Stats for each years from 1948 to 1959... that was my first attempt to create the Southern Association... I got the stats, but they were too incomplete for my picky demands.

If you can gain access to the them, the best source of minor league stats is in the wonderful Baseball Yearbooks published for years by Spaulding and The Sporting News... they are complete with batting, pitching and fielding records for each minor league each year going back to early 1900s... I had the 1954 yearbook when I was a teenager... it really was some great reading for a baseball fan... it covered all 49 minor leagues that were active that year.

If the OOTPB Historical Minors Database uses the Baseball Guides to create player ratings, they will be quite accurate, but if they use the Baseball-Reference Database, they will not be accurate... I didn't use the Historical Minors in OOTP17 this year because the rosters were not accurate... also the game wouldn't let me just replay each season the way I wanted for some reason... I just had to start in '47 and then let the game determine the rosters in each succeeding seasons... the rosters for 1947 were not realistic, so I didn't use the game... I created my own player ratings.

Baseball-Reference has Batting Registers, Pitching Registers and Fielding Registers for position players and pitchers... but they are spotty for the most part... but if you spend enough time, you can come up with a pretty fair rating... especially if you research each player's overall minor league record.

My ratings came out pretty well... I was pleased.

My second season should really be great... I will use box scores to play each game in 1948... hopefully, the New Orleans Times-Picayune will cover them on a daily basis so I can determine the regulars and the pitching rotations.

Let me know if I can help you.

I think there was a movement on the OOTPB Forum to create a Pacific Coast League database... it might already be finished... I know people were volunteering to work on the PCL project by doing data entry work.

You should post on this Forum to see if it was ever completed.

[Statsman1]

That's fascinating stuff, Eugene, and I really admire your dedication to this!

I think the Player Editor is one of the most under-rated options that OOTP offers, and wish more time would be spent on developing and fleshing it out.

For instance, it would be great to understand how it creates "potential" ratings out of one stat line - presumably it uses age of the player as well, but what else?

Maybe there's more info available, but I don't see people talking about it.

Also, having said that, it'd be great to have an "import" function to use with it, and have, perhaps, a little less data entry to do...

Anyway, great job, and thanks for sharing this!

[swampdragon]

Thanks for the information. That's about what I thought you would have to do to get a good minor league replay that far back. At least you got a good return on that sizable time investment.

[swampdragon]

1947 BASEBALL OFFICIAL GUIDE SPORTING NEWS RECORD BOOK | eBay

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by swampdragon

Thanks for the information. That's about what I thought you would have to do to get a good minor league replay that far back. At least you got a good return on that sizable time investment.

Yep, it was really worth it.

Looking forward to 1948... I think it will be even closer to reality, if I can find the box scores for each and every game in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

[swampdragon]

If you join SABR, that will give you access to the Sporting News, which has the box scores from multiple minor leagues, including the Southern Association. A bit pricey, but it has the box scores for the 1919 Texas League and many, many others.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by swampdragon

If you join SABR, that will give you access to the Sporting News, which has the box scores from multiple minor leagues, including the Southern Association. A bit pricey, but it has the box scores for the 1919 Texas League and many, many others.

I used to read The Sporting News in the 50s... they only gave box scores for the Majors and Triple A leagues at that time... they just covered the rest of the leagues in a very general fashion... not very thoroughly.

Perhaps they did better in later years.

Thanks for the info... I'll check it out.

[swampdragon]

The farther back you go, the better they do. Now they don't have any box scores at all. In the 1920s, they had full box scores for every AAA and AA league (or at least whatever they called them back then). I don't know about 1948 specifically.

[Eugene Church]

Originally Posted by swampdragon

The farther back you go, the better they do. Now they don't have any box scores at all. In the 1920s, they had full box scores for every AAA and AA league (or at least whatever they called them back then). I don't know about 1948 specifically.

In the 50s The Sporting News only posted box scores for the Majors and PCL, International League and American Association.

I just looked at the beginning of the 1948 Southern Association season in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and it gives most of the box scores on a daily basis... that should really be great for me... all I have to do is just code the player ratings well.