Yet Another Historical Random Debut Sim

[daveh2018]

Been interested in trying one for awhile, so I decided just to jump in and see what happens.

Went with starting in 1921 using the historical engine, but putting random MLB player debut on and having both AAA and AA teams (with fictional players to fill out those teams, not eligible for the MLB squad).

I have taken ownership of the Philadelphia Phillies, but to make it interesting with the inaugural draft, I set it to auto complete for all 16 teams. I used whatever draft pool the game setup, so we ended up with the 34 year-old Pete Rose, Sr. playing for the Boston Braves and a 35 year-old Mickey Mantle playing for the Detroit Tigers, while a 25 year-old Stan Musial is playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates and a 20-year-old Carlos Correa is playing on the Philadelphia Phillies.

We are roughly 50 games into the inaugural season and as would be expected with any sim using the 1921 engine, the pitcher win leader in both leagues (10) is higher than the HR leader (9 in each).
A few of the highlights of the season so far:

• Opening day featured a Pete Falcone no hitter for the New York Giants
• Ken Forsch already has a game under his belt with 14 IP/174 pitches thrown
• The Pittsburgh Pirates led by Musial and Garrett Atkins are 41-10 after starting the season 32-4 to pace the NL
• The Browns are making it close in the AL, only 3 games back of the Tigers
• 24-year old Jim Whitney appears on both WAR leaderboards for the New York Giants, going 10-2 with a 1.68 ERA while putting up a .380/.462/.547 slash line in 173 PAs in CF

So I am learning a lot of things that I want to change for my next one - like I have already found that The Georgia Peach is 34-years old and retired, so he is managing the Detroit Tigers vs. showing up in one of the future draft pools.

But I'll run this one for a bit with the next draft being the first one where I make my own selections to improve the fate of my Phillies, who are at .500 entering the 2nd 1/3rd of the regular season.

[daveh2018]

At the midway point, the races continue to tighten with the St. Louis Browns holding a slim one game lead over the Detroit Tigers in the AL, while the Pittsburgh Pirates have come back to earth and played about .500 ball recently and only hold an eight game lead over the Boston Braves.

My Phillies played at a .750 pace in June to get above .500 and start to close the gap on the NL leaders, propelled by the league's best team offense.

1B John Reilly (SLA) and OF Mike Donlin (BRO), pace each league by batting over .400 at the turn to July, while Larry Jaster (SLA) and Rube Waddell (BSN) lead in the ERA races for each league. On the Triple Crown watch, Stan Musial (PIT) looks to grab the batting categories in the NL while Jim Whitney looks to do the same from the pitching side of the scoresheet.

[daveh2018]

It's been a while since I posted about my Random Debut Sim, so I figured I would update with how this league history has developed.

We have just completed the 1926 season, so we now have six seasons in the books.
The early inaugural season dominance of the NL by the Pittsburgh Pirates masked the true dominant beast that lurked elsewhere in the NL: the Boston Braves, who are now four time champions.
Not only are the Braves the only repeat champions so far in the short history of the league, they are the only team to have EVER qualified from the NL for the World Series.





And those Braves have done that in nail biting fashion from year one, winning the NL by 2 games in 1921 over the Pirates, 3 games in 1922 over the Pirates again, 4 games in both 1923 and 1924 over the New York Giants, 3 games in 1925 over the Philadelphia Phillies and 1 game (via Game 155) in 1926 over the Phillies.

So why haven't those Braves won six in row? Six words tell that story: Rube Waddell was injured while pitching.

In both 1921 and 1924, the Braves limped into the post-season with their ace making a visit to Dr. Andrews prior to October.
The Braves managed to hang on and win the NL each of those seasons, but the Waddell-less squad got knocked out by the St. Louis Browns in 1921 and the Detroit Tigers in 1924.

Even more interesting is that those were the only World Series appearances for the Browns and Tigers so far, showing that those two teams made the most of their opportunity.
Unfortunately for the Cleveland Indians and Washington Senators, each of their two World Series appearances led to meetings with the Braves featuring Rube and the ensuing loss.

[daveh2018]

That Rube Waddell OOTPBaseballReference page tells the entire story - lights out when he pitches (a 3x Cy Young Award winner), but two seasons basically wiped out by injuries:

• A ruptured ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow in August 1921 (out 12 months)
• A torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in November 1924 (out 9 months)

[daveh2018]

At the dish, the Braves have three guys of recent MLB vintage leading the charge - Javier Baez, Bernie Williams and Cody Bellinger.

All three are inaugural season Top 10 picks of the Braves and have they delivered - the WORST season of the three (using WAR as a metric) was 3.1 during the one season Baez put up a slash line of .319/.334/.475/.809 with 12 HRs and 121 RBIs (only season so far where he did not lead the NL).

Bellinger has been an absolute beast and Bernie has well eclipsed his 8th round draft status, as the three have combined to bring the offensive firepower to support Rube Waddell (1st round pick, overall pick #3) and the Braves staff.

[daveh2018]

More later as we take a look at highlights from the AL and the standout players from the rest of both leagues, how the Phillies I am managing have fared and other oddball things I have noticed in the first six seasons.