Replay League - 97 years of alternate history

[3fbrown]

Hey all - I have had a historical league going since 1901 (OOTP time) and I just completed the 1997 season. I started this way back with OOTP5, so long ago! I had a thread in the OOTP20 forums that you can read here, to catch up on how the league works and learn about some of the players and teams that have existed over 97 years of simming.

The short summary is that I have controlled the Braves since 1901, with no financials, an amateur draft, and historical levels of offense. I sim the games but check every box score and control every aspect of my franchise. You can read the old thread to learn more.

I also have a separate historical league that also started in 1901, and is now in 1911. Two big differences there - one is that I use modern-ish financials, the other is that I import all of the Black and Cuban players into my league as well. That's called the Integrated Historical League, and I will probably post a separate thread about that too. Since all of those players have to be imported/edited manually, I am very curious about the experience of others.

So please read the old thread to catch up, and I will post about the 1997 season shortly.

[3fbrown]

Apparently I never posted a recap for 1996, so here we go.

In the AL, Toronto and Seattle were clearly the best teams, mostly because each had dominant offenses. Like the real 1990's Mariners, Seattle was led by several big time hitters and one pitcher. Jeff Bagwell won his 3rd MVP award in four years, leading the AL in OBP, OPS, and WAR. They also have Tim Salmon, Barry Bonds, Wil Cordero, Vinny Castilla, and Phil Nevin. It may sound weird to list Bonds in the pile of good hitters, but he has lost some talent and is merely very good. They also have 2nd-year pitcher Paul Byrd, who won the Cy Young Award and is looking like the best pitcher in the AL.

Toronto has a dominant outfield, with Ryan Klesko, Kenny Lofton, and rookie Dmitri Young. Danny Tartabull has been their SS for more than a decade, and his offense has been strong enough to make up for questionable defense. Lofton was also a new edition, having been stuck behind Jim Edmonds in Pittsburgh for a few years. The Blue Jays pried him out of Pittsburgh for the bargain price of Mark Guthrie. They also have Kevin Appier and Hideo Nomo pitching, so their defense wasn't a weak spot. They also traded for Andy Ashby, but he was hurt most of the season and did not contribute.

These two teams had the best records in the AL, and ended up playing in the ALCS, which was won by Toronto.

Unlike in 1995, the NL was dominated by several excellent teams. The Mets won 103 and Pittsburgh won 101, while the wild card team was Montreal sliding in at 98 wins. The Padres won the west with 90 wins, and they got lucky to even get that number.

The Mets you can (and should) read about in previous posts, but for the 4th straight year, Larry Walker won the NL MVP. In addition to their plethora of great hitters, Pat Combs (!) stepped up with a good year on the mound. Pittsburgh also has a great outfield - Brady Anderson, Jim Edmonds, and Johnny Damon (plus Ellis Burks if they need). But John Olerud gained some power and is extremely good as well, since that was rally his only "weak" spot as a hitter. They also have Pedro Astacio, who is probably the most accomplished pitcher in the NL this decade, him and Greg Maddux anyway. He won his 3rd CYA in 1996.

Montreal is a well-balanced team. Their offense is led by Mike Piazza and Brian Giles, and also boasted excellent rookie Darin Erstad. Their pitching staff unexpectedly stepped up in 1996, led by Steve Cooke, perennially good pitcher Tommy Greene, and '96 ERA champ Bob Wickman. As for the Padres...they are actually pretty good, but their best hitter is Cliff Floyd who missed a lot of time with injury. So their biggest contributors were Rich Aurilia, Raul Ibanez, and Carlos Perez. They also have Bill Risley, the NL's best reliever.

To cut this story short, the Padres upset the Pirates and Expos to get to the World Series. There they took down the Blue Jays to win their second championship, and their first since the Miracle Padres of 1972.

Other AL news: the Yankees. They scored 950 runs, but finished in 3rd place because they allowed 930. They have a tradition of picking top 1B in the draft (Kent Hrbek, Will Clark, Ken Phelps, etc.). They got Carlos Delgado in 1994, and he is really good. In 1995 they chose Jason Giambi, who got kicked out to LF, where he smoked everyone. In 1996 they added Mike Sweeney. Sweeney is a really good hitter too, but had no position, so they let him catch a bit and pinch hit. When Delgado got hurt, Sweeney took over at 1B, and went on to hit .372 and take the batting title. BTW, my leagues do not use the DH.

The big news in the NL was Edgardo Alfonzo of the Rockies. He hit .387 to lead the league, and in doing so, broke Max Carey's 74 year old record for hits in a season. Carey had 247 hits in 1922, and Alfonzo easily beat that with 259. Denver! It may not be such a surprise though, in 194 alone, 5 different guys were within 20 of the record.

[3fbrown]

1996 Awards

Rookie of the Year
AL: Scott Rolen
NL: Nomar Garciaparra

Cy Young Award
AL: Paul Byrd
NL: Pedro Astacio

MVP
AL: Jeff Bagwell
NL: Larry Walker

Top players at each position (according to me, but usually it is the guy leading in WAR)

AL
C: Craig Biggio
1B: Jeff Bagwell
2B: Jeff Blauser
3B: Scott Rolen
SS: Alex Rodriguez
LF: Ryan Klesko
CF: Andruw Jones
RF: Moises Alou
P: Paul Byrd
P: Chuck Finley

NL
C: Mike Piazza
1B: John Olerud
2B: Brent Gates (2B was weak this year, especially in the NL)
3B: Edgardo Alfonzo
SS: Nomar Garciaparra
LF: Tony Longmire
CF: Jim Edmonds
RF: Larry Walker
P: Steve Cooke
P: Pedro Astacio

Note: Alex Rodriguez has lost much of his hitting ability already, he is roughly a league average hitter. However, he also has by far the best defense in the league, so he is still really good.

[3fbrown]

By far the story of 1997 was Cincinnati rookie David Ortiz. He wasn't just good, he completely dominated baseball. He won the MLB Triple Crown, leading all of baseball with a .347/55/154 line. In fact, by the time the All-Star game came around, the only question was whether he could win the batting title, because he was so far ahead in HR and RBI. And that was tight - Joe Randa led most of the way, but fell of hard late in the season. Ortiz and Rusty Greer then both battled for the title, and both ended up at .347, with Ortiz winning .34733 to .34730.

By OPS, the next two best hitters in baseball were also rookies with little defensive value - Todd Helton and Ben Grieve. Something they had in common with Ortiz was that none of their teams (Helton with Colorado and Grieve with the White Sox) were good, despite the big boost from their rookie sluggers.

I run my rookie draft with a lottery system that advantages teams that with worse records, but not overwhelmingly. And for the first time, the first pick of the 1997 draft went to the World Series champion Padres. (They chose Chris Carpenter.) Despite being the reigning champions AND having the top pick in the draft, the Padres were not good - they ended up 79-83. But despite that, the Padres and Giants played Game 162 against each other tied for 1st place in the NL West. The Giants won, so they took the west with am 80-82 record, the first time I ever had a division winner with a losing record.

The Giants are an interesting team. The lineup has one superstar - Gary Sheffield (at SS!) - and nothing else at all. Sheffield has generally been the best player in the NL despite his poor defense, though he has some injuries in recent years. The rest of the lineup is terrible - 2nd year catcher Jason Kendall is now pretty good, but past that the best player is probably Alex Gonzalez (the Blue Jays one, not Sea Bass), who has to play 3B for Sheffield. On the other hand, the rotation has long been pretty good, led by Jason Schmidt, Paul Quantrill, and Frank Castillo (until he was traded in July for the roughly equivalent Andy Benes). In any case, they weren't very good either.

Who was good? In the NL, the Pirates were as usual. I won't bore you with a recap of their roster, but Johnny Damon broke out with a 6.7 WAR year. Also good: The Expos. Piazza and Giles were great of course, and the pitching staff was still very good, but there was also the career year from Lyle Mouton. Also good: the NY Mets, as always. Their big hitters seemed to all have slightly down years and/or injury, but they were still good enough to take the Wild Card.

The Astros were right behind the Mets, even though Greg Maddux was only "regular" good. Their offense is loading up with real life Red Sox - Nomar, Manny, Mo Vaughn for starts. Brief Red Sox Mark Loretta was also excellent at 2B, as was Tony Batista, who has improved his hitting skill since arriving in the league. Manny though, his offense dipped a bit, and his defense is bad enough that he isn't that great.

In the AL, the big hitting Mariners once again led the way with Byrd, Bagwell, Bonds, and Salmon. Bagwell and Salmon were 2/3 in OPS behind Grieve. Cleveland won the central with Andruw Jones leading the way, supported by a strong pitching staff with lesser names - Salomon Torres and Derek Lilliquist being the best ones. In the east, Boston and Toronto were tied for first on the last day, but since the loser won the wild card it wasn't that important. Boston had star rookie Kevin Millwood and a strong middle infield of John Valentin and Fernando Vina. Toronto's outfield I have discussed before, but the big story there was the breakout season from Andy Ashby, who led the majors in ERA by more than a third of a run.

The AL playoffs were boring - Cleveland swept Toronto and easily beat the Mariners to take the pennant. In the NL the Expos swept the Mets but the one good LDS was the Pirates beating the Giants in 6, needing several big comebacks to do it. In the NLCS, the Pirates needed big 9th inning comebacks in games 5 and 7 to win the pennant. The World Series was rather boring - the Pirates won 5-2 (I have 9 game series). Pedro Astacio threw two shutouts for Pittsburgh, but John Olerud still won MVP.

Which brings us to the last big story of the season - Pittsburgh's championship. This was their first one since 1903! This was only their 4th pennant, and their second since 1946. They have been a very weak franchise, and the 1990's have been the greatest stretch in team history. They have made the postseason in 4 of the last 5 seasons, after making it 3 times in the previous 92 years.

They aren't the least successful team though. The Senators/Twins have never made it to the World Series. In fact, they won zero pennants in Washington! They got good as soon as they moved to Minneapolis, but still never won it all. Someday...

[3fbrown]

1997 Awards

Rookie of the Year
AL: Ben Grieve
NL: David Ortiz

Cy Young Award
AL: Paul Byrd
NL: Pedro Astacio (#4!)

MVP
AL: Dmitri Young (I would have gone for Salmon or Bagwell...)
NL: David Ortiz (not Larry Walker!)

Top players at each position (according to me, but usually it is the guy leading in WAR)

AL
C: Craig Biggio
1B: Jeff Bagwell
2B: Fernando Vina
3B: Scott Rolen
SS: Alex Rodriguez
LF: Kal Daniels
CF: Carl Everett
RF: Tim Salmon
P: Paul Byrd
P: Andy Ashby

NL
C: Mike Piazza
1B: David Ortiz
2B: Mark Loretta
3B: Edgar Martinez
SS: Gary Sheffield
LF: Rusty Greer
CF: Jim Edmonds
RF: Johnny Damon
P: Pedro Astacio
P: Tommy Greene

(Check out that infield defense for the NL!)

[3fbrown]

It is now (almost) 1998 in Replay League, which means expansion! Expansion is something I have struggled with in the past, so I thought I would write about the challenges, and the solution I came up with this time. Maybe you have good ideas too?

First, I should say that I don't really feel the need to make expansion teams bad. Ideally they would be average or so, or maybe good or bad, but they should not default to being terrible. Just my own view on things, YMMV.

Back to business. In the past I have run expansion drafts with default settings, more or less. I think teams could protect about 11 players, and I would have a limit of 4 players taken from any one team. Normal stuff. Teams could protect any good players, but would risk losing average players.

The problem is that the expansion teams would have access to limitless average players. So their 40-man rosters would be comprised of 40 solid players. Not many stars, if any, but no holes at all. Even the backups would be solid players, and so would the minor leaguers. The expansion teams would end up winning 80-85 games usually, and with these really strange rosters.

My solution this time would be to go outside of the OOTP expansion draft. I wanted to make the expansion team rosters look like regular rosters. So I started by defining the average roster. How many 5 star players on the average roster? 4.5 star players? 4 star players? I figured this out by finding the total number of 5 star players in the league, and dividing by the number of teams. Same for all other quality of player, through the 3 star players. I don't have the exact numbers anymore, but it looked something like this. The total number of players in the league...

5 star: 8
4.5 star: 18
4 star: 40
3.5 star: 82
3 star: 170

Then per team...
5 star: 0.25
4.5 star: 0.6
4 star: 1.3
3.5 star: 2.7
3 star: 5.7

Then each expansion team was randomly assigned the appropriate number of players. For 5 star players, each team had a 25% chance of getting a random 5-star player. Similar for 4.5 star players. For 4 star players, each team got one, plus a 30% chance at another. And so on, until 3 star players, where each team got 5 plus a 70% chance at another.

After all that, teams could protect 16 of their remaining players, and the expansion draft was held to fill out the major league expansion rosters with below average players. Minor leagues had to be stocked with free agents, so trash. The upcoming rookie draft will help fill things out too.

This worked pretty well I think. In the end both teams ended up getting pretty normal rosters. One team got one 5 star player, and the other team got one 4.5 star player. They otherwise ended up with the number you would expect. So they have some stars and some good players, and some below average players and some garbage.

Of course, the other impact is on the other teams. Some teams lost nobody in the random phase of expansion. Other teams were hurt dramatically. The Rockies lost 5-star man Todd Helton. The Mariners lost 4.5-star pitcher Paul Byrd, who happens to be the best pitcher in the AL. Well, used to be, now he pitches for the Diamondbacks. The Padres lost two of their better young hitters in Cliff Floyd and Kevin Orie, and have little to replace them with.

Overall, I am pleased with what I did, and I would use it in the future, if this wasn't the last expansion for MLB. We shall see how it turns out in 1998. What do you think? Do you have other ideas that have worked for you?

[luckymann]

It is a real conundrum, there's no doubt about it. You want your expansion teams to be competitive in a reasonable amount of time but not at the expense of decimating your existing teams' rosters.

I've just started a league somewhat similar to your Replay League. The main differences between the two are that mine is a random debut league in which no superstars or big names are eligible to play, that I have financials turned on, and that as of 1901 (the inaugural season) I have just one minor league, which has been set to independent level. I plan to add another level every so often until I have AAA / AA / A in place around 1950. I think that's as far as I'll take the minors. Players will be added each year via a heavily-screened rookie draft, most likely with just 10 rounds per season just to keep the personnel trickling in and ticking over while still hopefully keeping some roster stability so that players get a career worth of stats. I do not have any managerial involvement in a franchise, it is purely a sim with me as chronicler of the results. At least that is the plan at the outset.

I have set this league to follow the historical MLB evolution and expansion, and am mindful of the challenges involved. Given I'm only in 1901 the first of these won't happen for a while, but if your league is still going when it does I'll report back with my settings and the results derived.

My only experience with expansion so far has been with my main league, which is a fictional in its 11th season. It began with just 12 teams in 2 leagues and gradually has expanded to replicate the current MLB format via a series of 3 expansions of 6 teams.

This league started with the top 500 players by career WAR being imported manually, giving each of the 12 teams a full 40-man reserve roster with a few spare. There were no minors and financials were off.

Then I started adding minors and fictional players from about year 4. I was very selective about the types of players entering the league, having them created under fairly strict guidelines so they could compete with the superstars of the game. What this has resulted in over the years since is an incredibly high-grade league full of quality players. It has been fantastic.

I run a franchise in this one (my beloved A's) and was pretty defensive when it came to the expansion years. The active roster for this league is 30 (15 pos / 15 pitchers) and the Constellation League (as it is known) has grown to have the full complement of minors (AAA / AA / A / SA / R with College and HS feeders) plus a second major league level I call MLB- which is basically an expanded reserve roster for the big league team. So I had a lot of players I'd been nurturing for some time and didn't want to lose them all. But nor did I want the Expansion teams to be completely useless.

In the end I settled on a Protected List of 50, with no per team limit. The way I saw it, the franchises could keep their MLB squad and absolutely top prospects, and the rest would be up for grabs. I saw the no per team limit as a kind of de facto realignment toward parity.

It has worked pretty well. As IRL some expansion franchises have fared better than others - one even won the WS in its 4th year of existence. But there are some dismal failures that remain completely non-competitive 8 years down the track. Which both upsets and annoys me, especially as two of the worst performers - Seattle and Texas - are in my division.

I switched on financials at the start of Season 10, so I'll be watching keenly to see if this changes things over the next few seasons.

I have also been giving serious consideration to expanding again with an extra team to be added to each division. But I am worried all this will do will be weaken the underperforming teams even further. It would be ideal if you could impose a different sized protection list on a team-by-team basis, so that the strong franchises would have a shorter list than the weaker, again trying to gain some parity in the process.

A possible workaround recently came to mind. It is a bit too smart for its own good (which increases the chance of it backfiring) and would involve a lot of work, but if it comes off it may well solve the lack of parity in the present iteration of the league AND allow me to expand to 36 teams in a fairly realistic way whereby the new teams have OK rosters to begin with and the same chance as the others to improve and achieve success over time.

It would involve me expanding with the 6 teams at the end of this season with a protection list of 40 players in place. Then I would redistribute the players drafted back to the 6 weakest teams in the league as it currently stands in a supplementary draft I would have to do off books and then manually reallocate the respective players within OOTP. Then I'd delete the 6 expansion teams. Then do another expansion draft with a protection list of 50 players but this time let it stick. If I have got it right this will improve the weaker existing teams to a certain degree and then let them keep the 50 best players in their upgraded squad, and take some decent players off the hands of the stronger teams without it being too punitive on them.

Obviously I'll save my league beforehand in case it all goes horribly wrong. Either way I'll let you know what transpires.

Anyway, not sure any of this is of interest or help to you but thought I'd share some thoughts nonetheless. Looking forward to continuing to follow the Replay League into the 21st century. Are you planning on just letting it run ad infinitum or do you have a set finishing date for it?

[3fbrown]

To briefly answer a couple of question from luckymann:

* I have no end date. I never considered getting this far - I may have active players in my league soon! I'll play until I don't feel like it anymore I guess.

* I have just about started the season, and it wouldn't surprise me if the Diamondbacks win their division. In 1997 no NL West team even had a .500 record, and both the Padres and Rockies were hurt considerably by the expansion draft. The Dodgers were absolute garbage. The Giants won the division, but aren't good. Tampa Bay is not in such a good situation.

[3fbrown]

Back to some Replay League history...

All of the achievements start in 1948, so I usually have no record before then. But as far as I know, no 4 home run games happened before then. These are the men that have hit 4 HR in a single game, in chronological order.

Hank Aaron, 1956
The Hammer was quite unlike his real life career. He led the league in HR once, with a career high 33. He was a good, but not great hitter. He never won an MVP, nor did he ever deserve to. But, he did win 12 Gold Gloves. He is in the HOF because of his defense. Despite all this, he somehow managed to be the first 4 home run guy.

Curt Blefary, 1971
Blefary, on the other hand, was a monster. He had two more 3 HR games in 1971, something nobody else accomplished that year even once. Given that he led the league in HR eight straight years, this is not surprising at all.

Len Matuszek, 1981
I don’t know exactly what to say about this. Matuszek had 83 career home runs and 6 career WAR. The 4 HR game was on April 11, so that would have been just a week into his rookie season. This is the strange one for sure.

Bo Jackson, 1987
You already know about another guy that hit some homers for the 1987 Mariners. Bo was no slouch, hitting 44 himself that year, in his sophomore season. The Mariners hit 285 HR that year. McGwire hit 84 of course, but then Dan Pasqua hit 48. Bo had 44 as I just said, and coming in fourth on his own team was Darren Daulton with 42. That’s 218 HR from four guys. I don’t think that ever happened in real life!

Anyways, Bo Jackson was sadly (for him) traded after the 1987 season to the Astros, for Bill Wegman and Chuck Jackson. After five mostly disappointing seasons in Houston, the Marlins picked him up in the 1993 expansion draft. He has mostly been a bench player since his one big season. Sorry to all you Bo fans!

Mickey Tettleton, 1988
One year later, Mickey Tettleton joins the club. 1988 would be the third of three consecutive seasons where Tettleton would win the NL MVP award. His combination of homers and walks have made him the Mickey Mantle of catchers. He deserved all three MVPs, he hit 50+ HRs in 1986 and 1987, and has generally hit the crap out of the ball for his entire career.

As time went on, Tettleton settled down as merely a perennial all-star. Things got a little tricky in San Diego however, when they drafted Ivan Rodriguez a few years back, and he is really good too. They split time, with Tettleton playing about 2/3 of the time, until Rodriguez was traded last year. Tettleton has slowed down but is still hitting HRs and walking enough to be an above average player. He had 3.7 WAR last year, at age 36. He plays solid defense too - he even won a gold glove in 1995. He will reach 400 HR this year, and with more than 80 WAR to his credit, he will sail into the Hall of Fame when his time comes. He was the premier catcher of his era.

That’s it - just those five games. A much more rare event than in real life for whatever reason. With all of the offense of the 1990's. it hasn't happened since 1988.

[3fbrown]

This hasn’t been done too many times, at least not since 1948, when such records exist.

Del Ennis, 1949: .355, 32, 118
Ennis could hit the ball, and is in the HOF, but his defense really dragged down his value. He was worth only 4.6 WAR in 1949, despite winning the triple crown, and he was only 23!

Ron Blomberg, 1974: .353, 38, 97
Blomberg, on the other hand, earned 11.3 WAR that year. As I already told you, he was the best hitter in baseball in the 1970’s. Didn’t even need 100 RBI for the triple crown.

Willie Aikens, 1986: .342, 41, 123
While Aikens had been a good hitter for the Orioles over his career, but there was nothing in his record to indicate that he could win the triple crown at age 31. He had never led the league in anything significant before that time, and never would again. This was one of the big surprise seasons in league history.

David Ortiz, 1997: .347, 55, 154
He was a rookie!

There have also been three pitching triple crowns since 1948.

Dwight Gooden, 1985: 21-7, 2.32, 303K
Dwight Gooden, 1988: 24-5, 2.15, 328K
Dwight Gooden, 1990: 22-11, 1.98, 335K

Doc was a rookie in 1984, pitched only half the season due to injury, and so led the league in nothing. He would have led the league in ERA by 0.64 runs, but he didn’t qualify.

Starting in 1985, excepting an off year in 1989, he would lead the league in ERA every year through 1991, and lead the league in WAR every year through 1992. He would lead the league in strikeouts in 8 of the next 9 years, missing only due to an injury shortened 1987. He would have won 7 straight Cy Young awards as well, if it weren’t for that 1987 injury. He struck out everybody, and allowed homers to nobody. In short, Gooden was a mile ahead of everyone else for pitching during the first decade of his career. He lost some control though, so he is no longer a top pitcher. Starting in the mid-90’s he morphed from dominant SP to wild SP to wild RP. He is basically Mitch Williams at this point. Still, he already racked up 80 WAR by the time he was 28, and has reserved his spot in the HOF.

[3fbrown]

Reminder: If you are interested in reading about my league here, you should start by reading THESE POSTS, as they explain the league in detail, and have a bunch of stories about the league already.

Thanks for reading, and if you are interested in any particular aspects of the league, or specific players, I am happy to oblige!

[3fbrown]

There have been 66 no-hitters between 1948-1997. This comes out to about 1 ⅓ no-hitters per season. The longest drought was roughly four years, which happened twice. There was a gap from July 1950 to September 1954, and another from May 1960 to April 1964 with no no-hitters. The latter was broken with a record four no-hitters in 1964, by Jim Owens, Sonny Siebert, Bob Veale, and Gary Peters. That record was tied in 1989 with no-hitters from Bob Sebra, Shane Rawley, Rich Gale, and Bob Shirley. The 1989 group is surely an unlikely group.

A personal story...growing up (late eighties, early nineties) I had an uncle that was a TV repairman in a small town in Washington, and was heavy into TV technology. He had a TV dish big enough to fit several people in it, long before such things were easily commercially available. By using some controls in his house, he could maneuver the dish to receive TV broadcasts from just about anywhere in the US. I’m not totally sure how the information of where to point the antenna dish was distributed in the pre-internet age, but he had books that had it. So, when I visited, I could watch TV broadcasts from anywhere in the country.

I know exactly where I was on June 29, 1990. I was sitting at my uncle’s house watching a Dodgers/Cardinals game. I remember vividly because Fernando Valenzuela threw a no-hitter in that game. And what was so special about that no-hitter is that on the same day, Dave Stewart no-hit the Blue Jays in Toronto. The odds of two no-hitters being thrown on the same day are pretty low, but it has happened. But why would I tell you this story of my childhood?

Because believe it or not, this happened in the Replay League. On May 15, 1979, the Padres’ Mario Soto no-hit the Astros, while the Giants’ Juan Berenguer also no-hit the Reds. I haven’t done the math, but it seems like this has a low probability of happening within the short time that Replay League has existed. But that’s not the craziest thing.

The craziest thing is that three years later, it happened AGAIN! On August 9, 1982, there was another pair of no-hitters. The Giants’ Don Kirkwood no-hit the Astros, at the same time that the Padres’ John Matlack was no-hitting the Dodgers. Amazingly, it was the same two teams throwing the no-hitters, and even one of the victims was the same!

Other items of note - a few players have thrown two no-hitters. These players would be Gary Peters, Dennis Leonard, and Larry Christenson. Nobody has thrown three.

Four perfect games have been thrown. These would be by Early Wynn (1948), Jim O’Toole (1965), Bob Moose (1975), and Dennis Martinez (1977).

[3fbrown]

Wow, it's been a month already! Time...does weird things during quarantine. I'm not sure if flying is the right word.

Anyway, tomorrow I will post updates on the recently completed 1998 season. It's a big season for me - in the actual 1998 I graduated from college, and a friend and I drove around the country and saw ballgames at every major league park. So I got to walk down memory lane while simulating through the season.

One tidbit for tonight though. I walked through the evolution of Dwight Gooden's career a few posts up. In 1997 he was a poor relief pitcher, walking well over a batter per inning for the second year in a row. So in 1998 the Red Sox ... put him back in the rotation. And it worked! He brought the walks down to a sub-catastrophic level, and had an ERA better than league average. Thanks in part to Gooden, Boston won the AL East and made it to the ALCS.

Big update tomorrow, I will be glad to write a bit again.

[3fbrown]

My 1998 review will be long, and certainly complete in one weekend. But I will start getting stuff out now. I will start with the American League results.
First, the key teams.

AL

Anaheim: The Angels seem to be the most talented team in the AL. For years they were terrible, and after a while the good draft picks started to come through. This is especially true in the rotation, where Mike Mussina, Ben McDonald, and Bill Pulsipher lead the best pitching staff in the AL. The position players are also strong. Eric Chavez had the killer rookie season that seems to be common in OOTP historical sims, hitting .334 with 30 HR and strong defense, being worth 9 WAR. Longtime stalwart (and terrible human being) Mel Hall is looking toasty, but they acquired Bobby Higginson to take his place, another strong hitter. Juan Gonzalez patrols CF reasonably well. Quilvio Veras is a top leadoff man.

Boston: Their main guy is Bernie Williams, who had a strong season, winning the batting title at .345 and being worth over 8 WAR. John Valentin bounced back with a 6 WAR season, as he has good offense and very strong defense. Jason Varitek had his first strong season, Fernando Vina was a solid leadoff hitter, and Kevin Millwood anchors the rotation.

Chicago: The White Sox bullpen is the best in the league, thanks to many good pitchers, but particularly the closer Mike Cather. The White Sox are a strange team. They have had various strong players throughout the 90’s show up, lose talent, and leave. This includes Randy Johnson, Tino Martinez, David Justice, and Curt Schilling. Same goes for Alex Rodriguez - already a league average hitter at best at age - but he is still around, and worth it for his amazing defense at SS. 2nd year SP Matt Morris leads an otherwise mediocre rotation. The lineup is also good-but-not-great, features guys that fit that description like Ben Grieve, Jeffrey Hammonds, Scott Brosius, JT Snow, and Todd Walker. Also, Prime Time!

Detroit: The strength of the Tigers is team defense - everyone is solid, with CF Dwayne Hosey and 3B Leo Gomez are particularly strong with the leather. Ramon Martinez and Bartolo Colon head a strong rotation. The lineup isn’t great, but they do have a lot of power. Gomez was the best hitter easily, but Javy Lopez, Jose Cruz, Kevin Young, and Damon Mashore bring HR power.

Texas: I can’t dazzle you with top players on this roster. Andy Pettitte is certainly one of the best pitchers in baseball - he is clearly the best guy here. But he tore his UCL in early July and missed the second half of the season. After him in the rotation it is Willie Banks and not much else. The lineup also has an unimpressive list of names. The top WAR guys were Rondell White and Craig Counsell - both good and all, but not great. The name Ken Griffey might sound good, but like his buddy A-Rod he lost his hitting talents early, and is a bad hitter with an incredible glove. He hasn’t been a league average hitter since 1991. He has 6 Gold Gloves though.

The season:

Anaheim, Chicago, and Boston were clearly the best three teams in the AL, and each won their divisions easily. Texas had a big lead for the wild card, with Detroit a distant second. But when Pettitte got hurt before the all-star break, the Rangers slowed down considerably. Detroit kept on being a solid team, and slowly gained ground. Still, the lead never got small. But Texas lost 7 of their last 8 games, allowing Detroit to tie them up on the last day of the season.

In the one game playoff, Texas really put out a substandard lineup. Regulars Chuck Knoblauch and Phil Clark were injured, so Edgar Caceras and Chris Donnels had to play. And it was Donnels that dominated with a double, 3-run HR, and 2 walks, to lead to an easy 10-4 victory over Darryl Kile and the Tigers.

In the ALDS, the Red Sox outscored the Angels 36-17 for an easy 4-1 series win. John Valentin was series MVP, and Millwood had two strong starts. The Texas-Chicago series was tight the entire way, with the White Sox winning in 7. The games were all tight as well, as you can tell by two Chicago relievers (Matt Mantei and Greg McMichael) combined to go 3-2 in a combined 7 innings of relief. Few games were decided by the starters.

In the ALCS, Chicago relievers gave up only 2 runs in 5 games, and they won 4-1. Ed Taubensee won series MVP, but those 17 relief innings from the Chicago bullpen was huge.

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Arizona: The expansion Diamondbacks were the surprise contenders in the NL. But not really. They did compete, but were outscored on the season. Luckily for them they got some good fortune in their record, and play in a division where all teams were under .500 for most of the year, so that’s good enough to compete. They do have the amazing Paul Byrd, maybe the best pitcher in baseball. Rusty Greer is a top hitter, hitting his career average of .330 with 60 extra base hits and 90 walks. Essentially a typical Greer season. Cliff Floyd is also a big bat, but is injury prone, and only played in 107 games. A surprisingly good season from rookie Edgard Clemente helped, as did another good year from .335 hitting Reggie Jefferson, but they were partially cancelled out by a complete collapse from Ken Caminiti.

Cincinnati: A mediocre team, like many in the NL. They have a lot of power, led by David Ortiz, Jeromy Burnitz, and Garret Anderson. Rookie Adrian Beltre was just OK. Darren Oliver had a good year starting, going 17-8 with a 3.58 ERA.

Montreal: This is the one great team in the NL. They have the best pitching staff, led by the consistently excellent Tommy Greene and the consistently good Steve Cooke. Geremi Gonzalez also had an excellent year. His ERA of 3.41 was the worst of those three. The lineup is star-studded. Mike Piazza had his best season, winning the batting title at .353, hitting 30 HR, and earning 8 WAR. The outfield of Brian Giles, Darin Erstad, and Mark Kotsay is quite strong. FP Santangelo had a fluky season of 5.7 WAR, thanks to amazing 2B defense and above average hitting. The Expos easily outpaced the Mets, who had a down season.

Pittsburgh: The Pirates had a down season also, getting outscored, but lucking into a good record anyway. Coming off their first world championship in many decades, the pitching staff got little help behind Pedro Astacio, and the offense struggled outside of Jim Edmonds. Brady Anderson and John Olerud look done being elite players, and the middle infield of Omar Vizquel and Pokey Reese contribute little with the bat.

San Diego: The Padres of the nineties are a consistently solid team. Not great, but in their division that tends to be enough. This year they were carried by their deep rotation of Juan Nieves, Chris Carpenter, Carlos Perez, Jeff Suppan, and Eddie Guardado. They also had big years from infielders Kevin Orie and Rich Aurilia, plus rookie star Carlos Beltran. Unfortunately the rest of the lineup was bad enough to keep runs pretty rare.

St. Louis: The Cardinals have a deep rotation, but it’s the offense that powers them now. The middle infield of Derek Jeter and Carlos Guillen was top notch, Jorge Posada had his best season, and Will Clark is still able to pitch in. Fernando Tatis came up from AAA for the last couple of months to show that he is about to contribute in a big way.

The season:

The Expos smoked everyone. In the west, the entire division was just cruddy the whole season, but eventually the Padres and Diamondbacks separated themselves as the contenders. The Rockies tried to hold on behind triple crown contender Mo Vaughn, but didn’t quite have the horses. The Central was a three team race the entire season.

In the West, San Diego and Arizona played the final series against each other, and ended up tied. Another playoff game! In the Central, it could have been a three way tie had things gone a certain way. But while the Reds and Pirates were beating on each other in the last week of the season, the Cardinals were winning their games to take the lead. The Reds won that last series to take the wild card - one game behind St. Louis and one game ahead of Pittsburgh.

In the one game playoff for the NL West title, the Padres scored 5 early runs off of Shane Reynolds, and managed to hold on for a 5-4 win, barely keeping Arizona from tying it up.

In the NLDS, both series went 6 games. The Expos pitchers kept the Cincinnati bats in check, though they did lose Gonzalez to injury for the rest of the playoffs. The Reds were plain outmatched. On the other side, the Padres did what they do - win despite not being very impressive. Two strong starts from Eddie Guardado and najor contributions from Alex Cora and Rico Brogna helped take down the Cardinals.

In the NLCS, Padres starters were nearly untouchable, and the Expos scored only 11 runs in 5 games. Carlos Beltran won series MVP.

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World Series: RL has 9 game World Series, old school style. While the White Sox were the better team during the season, injuries had reduced them to a much weakened state. Instead of Grieve and Hammonds in the outfield, they had to start Ozzie Timmons and Butch Huskey. Top starter (and MLB ERA leader) Matt Morris hurt his arm in August (and Chan Ho Park missed most of the season), so the Padres saw the likes of Jamie McAndrew and Mauro Gozzo. The Padres, on the other hand, were healthy. The teams split the first four games. But then the White Sox bats went quiet, and the Padres won three of the next four to take the series 5-3. Guardado was again unhittable with a 1.29 ERA in two starts. Perez and Carpenter were nearly as good. And rookie Carlos Beltran won his second straight series MVP, hitting .344 with 4 HR in the World Series.

This is the second World Championship for San Diego in the last four years, despite not being a particularly great team. They are above average I suppose, but they benefit from playing in the poor NL West, and they win at the right time.

Up next: individual accomplishments in the season, and looking at a few interesting careers.

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1998 Awards

Rookie of the Year
AL: Eric Chavez
NL: Richie Sexson

Cy Young Award
AL: Andy Pettitte (didn't even qualify for the ERA title due to injury!)
NL: Paul Byrd

MVP
AL: Eric Chavez
NL: Mike Piazza

Top players at each position (according to me, but usually it is the guy leading in WAR)

AL
C: Craig Biggio
1B: Jeff Bagwell
2B: Quilvio Veras
3B: Eric Chavez
SS: John Valentin
LF: Carl Everett
CF: Bernie Williams
RF: Shawn Green
P: Ramon Martinez
P: Kevin Millwood

NL
C: Mike Piazza
1B: Mo Vaughn
2B: Carlos Guillen
3B: Kevin Orie
SS: Gary Sheffield
LF: Albert Belle
CF: Darin Erstad
RF: Larry Walker
P: Paul Byrd
P: Tom Glavine

Andy Pettitte got hurt on July 2 and didn't pitch again. But he was 14-3 with a 1.98 ERA in 146 innings, and nobody else really tore it up. Other than Matt Morris, but he barely qualified for the ERA title (and won it). Not deserving, but he certainly dominated while he was out there.

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After a brief hiatus, it is time to continue the stories of 1998. First, a few updates on well-known players. We will start with Pedro.

Pedro Martinez was my generation's Sandy Koufax - the most dominant pitcher we ever saw. He was drafted by the Dodgers before the 1993 season. In that season, after a brief time in AAA, he absolutely dominated. He only got 134 innings in, but he went 8-2 with a 2.15 ERA. His innings were short because of a couple of bouts with tendinitis in his elbow and a couple of blisters.

1994 was nearly as great, as his ERA rose to 2.54, but offensive levels rose across the league as well, so his ERA+ was still 166. But again the injury bug bit, most notably with season-ending surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow, limiting him to 78 innings.

Same thing for 1995, lots of injuries, and only 118 (awesome) innings. Unfortunately the last injury was a torn UCL, and the recovery from Tommy John surgery took a full 2 years! He didn't come back until mid-1997. At that point, the injuries kept coming, and in September he tore his rotator cuff, an injury that would keep him out well into 1998. He only pitched 44 innings in 1997.

When Pedro got healthy (!) in 1998, the Dodgers did what they had to after injuries had about ripped his arm off...they put him in the bullpen. He still had some injuries of course, and only got into 38 innings.

All of this seems incredibly sad - Pedro has been destroyed by injury, and can't live up to his potential. But the thing is that even though injuries have kept him off the field, they have not reduced his effectiveness. Overall for his career, he has only pitched 413 major league innings across 6 years. But he has gone 27-12 with a 2.44 ERA, and has walked 2.1 per 9 IP while striking out 11.6. If he can keep that up in the bullpen and stay healthy, he will still be a star, just not the star he could have been.

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Today I have two more career path retrospectives. First, another Dodger, Frank Thomas. He started strong in his first two years (his rookie season was 1990), leading the league in walks and OBP both years. His second year was great - he hit .328/.448/.539 with 8 WAR. He looked like, well, Frank Thomas.

Then in 1992 he suffered a herniated disc in his back. This caused some talent declines, and they happened FAST. HE went from 121 walks in 1991 to 66 in 1992. He started out with 5 (out of 5) eye, but his eye was down to 2 by 1993. Why a back injury would affect his eye, I don't know. But he still had his power and hit .340 with 30 HR, and then .328 with a league leading 45 HR in 1993. But then his contact skills started to deteriorate too. In 1994 his average plummeted to .265, and hasn't been that high since. He has kept his power, never going below 30 HR, but these days his OBP is below .300! Very un-Thomas like.

One other guy to update tonight is Kal Daniels. Kal is now 35, having started his career in 1986. Like Thomas he was a superstar from day 1. Unlike Thomas, he has stayed strong his entire career. His career batting average is .316, and he averages 90 walks per season, so his OBP is consistently high. He has big power, with 417 career HR (average over 30), peaking at 53 HR in 1987. He also has tremendous speed, averaging more than 50 SB per year as well. In fact, he has gone 40-40 twice, 30-30 five more times, and 20-20 every year - his career low in HR is 22 and he has never had fewer than 40 SB in a season. His career SB total is at 673, and he had 44 last season so he isn't slowing down much.

Only two out of 13 seasons have been below 5 WAR (never below 4), and that total is currently at 85. He is #10 all-time in SB, only 60 behind Ty Cobb for 4th place. He is 22nd all-time in WAR (though pre-1948 numbers are wonky), and will reach the top 10 with only 6 more. He is 18th in career runs scored, 35th in RBI, 17th in HR, and well into the top 100 in hits and walks. In the rate state, he is 22nd in OBP, 9th in SLG, and 5th in OPS. Daniels is a monster of production. Sadly, he only made the postseason once, as the Twins have been pretty bad for most of his career. His abilities have started to deteriorate, so I suspect the end is near, though he was plenty good in 1998. Too bad the real Kal Daniels had bad knees!

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Up today for examination: Frank Pastore. As you can tell from the BBREF link, Pastore was just a generic pitcher in the early 80's. In fact, the most interesting thing about him is the story of when he ate a 72 oz. steak in under 10 minutes, a world record for over 20 years.

Replay League Pastore has had a much more interesting career. He was drafted by the Astros for the 1979 season, and did not start off well, going 7-20. But he improved, and soon was an above average pitcher that looked even better thanks to the Astrodome. He never again had an ERA above 4.00 with the Astros, for whom he played until 1992. He was never a world-beater, but he was consistently good, walking few and not allowing HR. His worst ERA+ in that time was 98, and overall for the Astros his ERA was 3.33. It says he was worth 67 WAR in that time, but I think that calculation may not factor in the Astrodome very well. Notably, he spent a total of 7 days "injured" during those 14 years, and 4 of those were when he had the flu. He was a rock solid SP.

By the early 90's he was slowing down a bit (but not much). The Astros decided to trade him to the Pirates for Paul Sorrento. Sorrento replaced Phil Plantier in LF for the Astros...not so sure about that one. In any case, the Pirates put him in the rotation for the second half of 1992, and he was bad. His overall record in 1992 with both teams was 4-16.

Apparently that, along with his dwindling stamina, inspired the Pirates to make Pastore their closer in 1993. He did well, continuing his pattern of good-not-great pitching - good control and ground balls - and led the league in saves his first year in the pen. He has been the Pittsburgh closer ever since, consistently pitching well (3.30 ERA), getting a lot of saves (over 200 in those 6 years), and always being available. He has missed only 4 days with Pittsburgh, still no real injuries. He also pitches frequently in high leverage situations in general, as his record over those 6 years is a robust 38-40. He gets a lot of decisions with his saves!

Now 41, Pastore finally showed signs of slowing down in 1998, increasing his walks while decreasing his strikeouts. But with 79 WAR in the bank, and a successful run as both starter and reliever, he seems like a poor man's Dennis Eckersley. He got a later move to relieving than Eck, and is obviously not as good, but the general path is very similar. 1999 will be his 21st year in MLB, with over 200 wins and saves. Not bad for a guy whose actual baseball career ended after 1986.