Finally sprung for OOTP21...Random Number Generator says...

[actionjackson]

The best pitchers by rWAR (of the two pitching WAR measurements, it's my preference, so...) so far. This list will be all starting pitchers. It would take a miracle for a reliever to crack it because of the difference in workloads, but I've got something for relievers as well:

[actionjackson]

The best relievers by WPA (Win Probability Added) so far. Not a perfect measurement by any means, but it does bring the better ones to the surface:

[actionjackson]

Kirby Puckett ended up with exactly 2,000 hits to lead the league, because of course he did. Tim Raines and Paul Molitor have been with the Philadelphia Athletics for the entire decade, and they've been driving pitchers and catchers nuts with a combined 1,246 stolen bases. They're #1 and #2 in the league so far.

12 hitters have belted 200+ HR so far: Barry Bonds (246), Josh Gibson (243), Yordan Alvarez (228), Anthony Rizzo (228), Richie Sexson (228), Vern Stephens (219), George Foster (218), Richie Zisk (212), Kevin Mitchell (208), Charlie Hickman (207), Frank Robinson (204), and Rico Petrocelli (203). I'm not a huge fan of RBI as a measurement of a hitter's prowess, but even I can't help being blown away by Anthony Rizzo's 10 straight 100 RBI seasons. Phenomenal. All the more phenomenal, when you consider that his season high for HR is 28. There's something to be said for consistency. Also, take a look at Yordan Alvarez! What a beast!

[actionjackson]

On the pitching side, Sandy Koufax is the man. His 146 W lead the league so far. He hasn't had a 20 win season yet, but give him time. He'll be pitching in his age 30 season next year. Hopefully the development engine will be kind to him because he's had a fantastic start to his career. He has nine straight 200+ strikeout seasons. Nine. There have been 48 such seasons so far, and he has nine in a row. Oye! Two pitchers have 2,000+ K so far: Koufax, and Randy Johnson. More to come another day.

[actionjackson]

As for the relievers so far, Bob Black looks like he's gonna sail into the HoF. I don't see any of the others on the above list getting there, as they're all older than he is (he'll be 27 in 1911), but he's been absolutely phenomenal. He's been an All-Star in all seven seasons of his career, and won four of the last five Mariano Rivera Awards (3 in the NL, and the 1910 AL one).

He's now joined one of the most formidable bullpens I've ever seen in this game, in signing a four year deal with the Phillies. He'll be joining 1909 draftee Craig Kimbrel (heading into age 22 season), fellow free agent signee Dave S Smith (the 1980s and early 1990s reliever with the Astros, and briefly with the Cubs, who will be the old man at 31), 1907 draftee Danny Farquhar (will be 26), and Alex Claudio (will be 25), who came over in a deal with the Reds in a deal for fellow reliever Eric Plunk. Absolutely beastly. Picture below:

[actionjackson]

Front page of the History Index so far:

[actionjackson]

AL and NL Award Winners so far:

[actionjackson]

AL and NL Brooks Robinson (Gold Glove) Award Winners so far:

[actionjackson]

AL and NL Ted Williams (Silver Slugger) Award Winners so far. I don't think that Ted Williams guy who's won five of these things is the same Ted. Couldn't possibly be :

[OzzyOz23]

Great read so far!

It has inspired me to return to a RDL project I tried getting off the ground 2 years ago but abandoned a month into the season because I wasn't happy with the settings. I won't take up more bandwidth in your thread except to thank you for the good read and shot of inspiration.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by OzzyOz23

Great read so far!

It has inspired me to return to a RDL project I tried getting off the ground 2 years ago but abandoned a month into the season because I wasn't happy with the settings. I won't take up more bandwidth in your thread except to thank you for the good read and shot of inspiration.

Thanks for reading, and for the response. I'm actually trying not to put too much into the posting, which should free me up to move more quickly through the years, but I'm glad to see some interest. I'm through 1914 so far, and the really fun part is doing each draft for every team using the Hall of Stats website (it's more of a dispersal really - best to worst career players, which kind of takes the best on the board strategy to a whole new level, but also ensures that the teams that are hurting get the best players they can get). Thankfully, I downloaded the career numbers for every MLB player through 2019 while they were up, because 2019 is the year that the stats run through for OOTP 21.

I did some back of the napkin calculations, and there are enough players in the database (nearing 20,000 through 2019) to have a five round draft through 2058, with expansion to Montreal and Portland after 2019, and all the other expansions that have happened through the years. That's extremely ambitious for me. My personal best in that area is 63 seasons in OOTP16. In OOTP17 and 18, I had a grand total of zero, with 7 in OOTP19, and 2 in OOTPXX, so 14 seasons is a major accomplishment for me.

I've had to let go of some things to speed up the process. I don't pick All-Stars, or vote on awards any more. I leave that up to the AI, which I'm constantly cursing out for not picking the guys I would pick, but I really want to keep this thing chugging along. I reserve the right to have the final say on who goes into the HoF though, and it looks like there will be guys with many awards who miss, and guys with few awards who get there. I also try not to check out who's up to what too much, but that's hard to do as I have my favourites.

You're not happy with the settings you say? I can help. Just ask, either here or by PM if I'm around. I have a ton of starting and stopping experience (mostly with OOTPX), which led me to getting the ones that I prefer. Trial and error's really the way to go. Frustrating, but well worth it when you figure out what works for you.

I might also be able to upload the draft values database, but it would have to be in chunks. Looks like it would take 3 separate uploads, and possibly 4, which you could take and turn into one big one if you wanted. S'up to you. I also use Spritze draft values for the guys I bring in from there. I rank every player in the draft by their Spritze draft values, single out the few Spritze guys in each draft, and keep their rankings, and then rank the rest by the Hall of Stats rankings. One drawback is that the cup of coffee players wind up in the middle of the draft, ahead of players who played a lot, but weren't too good. Some of those that weren't too good IRL wind up being decent players, and the cup of coffee guys can wind up anywhere from HoFers to complete duds. I rationalize it by saying that there are surprises in every draft IRL too.

[actionjackson]

The St. Louis Browns' looong and bumpy road to the top in pictures. They had some of the absolute worst teams I've ever seen, but they finally reached the playoffs in 1914, with a 108-54 record, and knocked off the 107 win White Sox to reach the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies. The 88-74 Phillies pulled off some voodoo magic of their own by knocking out the heavily favoured 111-51 Cardinals to reach the World Series. Fun times in St. Louis these days eh? All three series went seven games.

The Brownies almost blew the ALCS. Up 3-1 in the series, they lost 3-0, and 10-3 to set up a Game 7 at Sportsman's Park. They were down 4-3 after six when John Clarkson came out of the 'pen on two days rest to set down 6 in a row, whiffing five. Jack Clements hit a game tying solo HR off Pat Clements in the bottom of the eighth. Lee Smith got three straight ground outs in the ninth, and Nick Castellanos hit a walkoff sac fly to send them off to the Series.

Then, they faced huge obstacles in the World Series against the Phillies as well, falling behind 3-1 in the series. Not a good idea to fall behind 5-0 after three innings in a potential elimination game either right? No probs. 6.1 innings worth of two hit shutout from the bullpen plus twelve runs over the final six innings created a 12-5 blowout for the Browns. In Game 6, they held on to a 3-0 lead after one inning to win 3-2, and send things to a deciding game 7. Not. Even. Close. 8-1 with John Clarkson going all the way.

But it was a very difficult, extremely slow climb to that moment. 1905 and 1906 were so far away from the ultimate goal:

[actionjackson]

Different distribution, but same amount of combined wins (120 total) in 1907 and 1908:

[actionjackson]

1909 and 1910 looked like things were on an upward swing. But the runs allowed in both years should've been a warning of the disaster that was to come. Playing .500ish ball was probably a nice breather for their fans, from the losing teams of the previous four seasons, but things were about to get reeeally bad:

[actionjackson]

As I indicated above, look away if you don't have the stomach for it. 1911 and 1912 were horrific, bottom of the barrel seasons. Truly awful.

Not sure I've ever seen anything like their 1911 season. Relievers were being used as starters. Position players were being used as relievers. The injury list was a mile long (I use the Normal [OOTP Classic] setting with High Position Player Fatigue) when I checked in on them at the end of the season. Why do I inflict such carnage? Am I a sadist? Nah. I just want to see as many players get some game action as possible. I suppose I could crank both settings up to "Very High", but I think the setting is just fine where it is.

The good news for them was that they gave up 232 fewer runs in 1912 than in 1911. The bad news is right there in plain sight. Their runs allowed was still in quadruple digits.

It's at times like these that you want to step in and help them out. They had a lot of quality depth at some positions that they could've used to get pitching. I'm an extremely hands off commish though (and I don't manage/general manage any teams), aside from the draft. I'll give them a ton of quality depth at some positions if that's what the Draft Value says I should do. Even though I'm tempted to, I won't interfere in that. It's up to them to upgrade via trades and free agency, and I'm kept busy enough with the draft once a season.

Anywho, on to the mess. Oh what a disaster. You've been warned.

[actionjackson]

Once again they dropped their runs allowed in 1913. This time by a staggering 246. If you're keeping track at home, that's 478 fewer runs allowed in a season over two seasons. Remarkable. Add in a further 205 runs allowed reduction in 1914, and you have a reduction of 683 runs allowed between 1911 and 1914, which is more than the 614 runs they allowed in 1914. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this in OOTP either. 8.01 runs allowed per game, to 6.57 per game, to 5.06 per game, and finally to 3.79 runs allowed per game culminating in a World Championship:

[actionjackson]

And finally...What it's all about baby...Wish I could've snapped the pic when they were still in their Browns' unis, but c'est la vie I s'pose. I guess I've had a soft spot for these guys, as I watched them go through utter hell, and it seems like they went from lovable losers to deadly destroyers overnight, but all those very high draft picks finally paid off for them. Good on them.

[actionjackson]

Decade number two is finito. The top six picks from the 1911 through 1920 amateur drafts.

1911 Amateur Draft:

1. Cool Papa Bell, CF
2. Pete Browning, LF
3. Brett Butler, LF
4. Ned Hanlon, CF
5. Clint Barmes, SS
6. Jack Aker, P

1912 Amateur Draft:

1. Jake Beckley, 1B
2. Brandon Webb, P
3. Tom Zachary, P
4. Huston Street, P
5. Pat Dobson, P
6. Austin Kearns, RF

1913 Amateur Draft:

1. Scott Rolen, 3B
2. CC Sabathia, P
3. Johnny Callison, RF
4. Kent Tekulve, P
5. Edgardo Alfonzo, 3B
6. Josh Hamilton, CF

1914 Amateur Draft:

1. Shoeless Joe Jackson, RF
2. Stan Hack, 3B
3. Amos Otis, CF
4. Kent Hrbek, 1B
5. Tommy Tucker, 1B
6. Marlon Byrd, RF

1915 Amateur Draft:

1. Wilbur Cooper, P
2. Jason Kendall, C
3. Lefty Leifield, P
4. Oliver Perez, P
5. Tom Seaton, P
6. Art Fromme, P

1916 Amateur Draft:

1. Carlton Fisk, C
2. Rafael Palmeiro, 1B
3. Babe Adams, P
4. Edwin Encarnacion, 1B
5. Mike Stanton, P
6. Chan Ho Park, P

1917 Amateur Draft:

1. Honus Wagner, SS
2. Justin Verlander, P
3. Davey Johnson, 2B
4. Dave Giusti, P
5. Whit Merrifield, CF
6. Del Unser, CF

1918 Amateur Draft:

1. Roberto Alomar, 2B
2. King Kelly, RF
3. Orel Hershiser, P
4. Earl Moore, P
5. Dick Rudolph, P
6. Floyd Robinson, RF

1919 Amateur Draft:

1. Mark Buehrle, P
2. Dave Parker, RF
3. Eddie Yost, 3B
4. Jim Piersall, CF
5. Chris Hoiles, C
6. Bill North, CF

1920 Amateur Draft:

1. Carl Yastrzemski, LF
2. Carl Hubbell, P
3. Mickey Lolich, P
4. Lonnie Smith, LF
5. Ellis Kinder, P
6. Terry Turner, SS

It's nice to see the quality of pitching coming into my game on the upswing. The early years definitely had some imbalance towards offense, and hopefully these guys will right the ship. The 1911 and 1914 drafts in particular threw things toward the offensive side, but I think it'll start to come back towards the middle. The 1920 draft might've been the strongest ammy draft I've seen yet. Very deep with excellent to very good players. I think this game's gonna be tons of fun over the next five years.

[actionjackson]

Front page of the History Index through the first two decades, as well as the teams page.

[actionjackson]

1911-1920 AL and NL Awards. Left to right: Babe Ruth Award (MVP), Walter Johnson Award (Pitcher of the Year), Jackie Robinson Award (ROY), and the Mariano Rivera Award (Reliever of the Year).