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

[actionjackson]

I'm bringing in 16 Spritze players for the Inaugural Draft in , in order to add an extra round to it, and make it 45 rounds. The RNG said 6 Japanese Leaguers, 3 Korean Leaguers, 3 PCLers, and I always bring in 4 Negro Leaguers for the Inaugural Draft. For each Ammy Draft, I bring in two Spritzies, 1 non-Negro Leaguer, and 1 Negro Leaguer. As the league expands, I bring in more Spritzies, but never a crazy number. The 4 Negro Leaguers in the I.D. are Walter McCoy, Herbert Souell, James Zapp, and some 16-year old kid catcher from Buena Vista, GA, named Josh Gibson. Anyone ever heard of him before? Hope I can stick with this one. I've had a lot of trouble over many versions staying with games. Jackie Robinson and Frank Robinson are in there too.

I never replace old stars with their younger selves, so 42 year old Hoyt Wilhelm, 39 year old Craig Biggio, 39 year old Greg Maddux, 38 year old Tris Speaker, 36 year old Joe Start, 33 year old Nap Lajoie, 32 year old Bid McPhee, 32 year old Sam Crawford, 31 year old Pedro J Martinez, 30 year old Randy D Johnson (he broke out at age 29 IRL though, so he may be just fine), 30 year old Charles Bender, 30 year old Jackie Robinson (if he wasn't in the Inaugural, I'd be bringing him in Spritzie style at a much younger age than he debuted for obvious reasons), and 30 year old Jim Wynn will have to wait for another game to be young again. If I've learned anything in playing this game over the years, others will rise up to fill the void.

I guess I'll just have to console myself with the aforementioned Gibson, 19 year old Tim Raines Sr, 20 year old Sandy Koufax, 21 year old Barry Bonds, 22 year old Noodles Hahn, 22 year old Ted Simmons, 22 year old Paul Molitor, 23 year old Cal Ripken, 24 year old Vern Stephens, 25 year old Pete Rose Sr, 25 year old Kirby Puckett, 25 year old Roger Bresnahan, 25 year old Sal Bando, and 25 year old Lee Smith. The OOTP HRD gods giveth, and the OOTP HRD gods taketh away.

[actionjackson]

A little over three months now? Welp! I've only really started to put the pedal to the metal on this one very recently. I'm pretty much down to controlling the amateur draft, and who gets into the HoF. Reluctantly let go of controlling the awards and who goes to the ASG, despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of how the AI does either. If I was going to make any progress though, I was going to have to sacrifice some things. Absolutely could not relinquish control of who gets drafted when, and bestowing the highest honour on those that warrant it.

For the draft, I use the Hall of Stats rankings, and create draft values based on a player's ranking among his close to 20,000 peers all-time. I just do them in reverse order of the ranking all the way down to 1 for poor ole Bill Bergen.

Currently, the Hall of Stats runs through 2019, so it lines up perfectly with OOTP21 in terms of historical stats. I hope the site's creator, Adam Darowski is OK, because he hasn't posted in almost two years, and hasn't updated the numbers through this past truncated season. It's a great site, and I encourage anyone (even the "WAR...What is it good for?" crowd) to check it out, and see how it matches up with their opinions on the quality of players' careers.

What follows is a short series of posts on leaders in various categories in the four seasons so far (1901-1904), as well as interesting goings on in the league. Hopefully I can push this thing forward, and get to the point where I have a HoF. My previous record was a 63 season league in OOTP16 (1901-1963), which featured 74 HoFers. Looking for more this time, and hopefully pulling back a bit on my OCD tendencies, will help me get there. If you have a category you'd like to see the leaders for, both in single season, and in career rankings, let me know and I'll post it. Anything else you want to see, just give a holler.

[actionjackson]

Leaders in single season, and career position player WAR so far. Rico Petrocelli has been an absolute beast, and seems to be continuing to get better through his age 27 season.

Jackie's looked great too, but he's now through his age 33 season, so hopefully he can keep it up. I normally take Negro Leaguers that came to MLB later in their careers (Robinson, Campanella, Irvin, Paige etc) back to a much younger age via Spritze, but Jackie was in the Inaugural Draft, so I couldn't do so for him. I do it for Japanese leaguers, and any other league for that matter as well, so I'd probably bring in Ichiro for his age 17 season (debuted at 18).

Considering Robinson's days at UCLA, I'd probably take him back to his age 21 season. He would've been 22 in the "1941 draft" had it existed, and had he not been busy with other things. Most players have their first season in my universe a year before they did in MLB IRL, so I'd put him in for his age 21 season.

Anywho, the leaders:

Batting Average, single season and career leaders:

[actionjackson]

Single season/Career OBP and SLG leaders so far:

[actionjackson]

Single Season/Career OPS and Runs leaders so far:

[actionjackson]

Ok, enough with the leaderboards for now. Let's look at the interesting tidbits. These four players at relatively young ages should be fun to track, compare, and contrast as they develop. Accidentally brought Gibson in one year earlier than I should have, but that's OK as far as I'm concerned:

[actionjackson]

Good grief...Look at that Athletics lineup. Raines and Molitor are #1 and #2 in career stolen bases, and have combined to steal 503 in their first four seasons together. Anthony Rizzo just sits back in his rocking chair, and routinely hits 20+ HR, and knocks in 100+ every year so far. Rizzo signed an 8 year/$18,570 deal that takes him through seven more seasons, but as of right now, Raines and Molly are still going year to year.

The Brooklyn Superbas rotation had a very sweet season on the way to 96 wins and a World Championship. Looking at the names, I'm not sure they're built to last, but everything clicked in 1904.

The Boston Beaneaters bullpen was nuts. Trevor Hoffman as a setup guy? Clay Carroll as a middle reliever? Well...Yeah. Rookie Bob Black went 7-2, 27 SV, 0.99 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, and 12.0 K/9. Look at the Who's Hot column off to the right to see how Black, Hoffman, and Carroll performed down the stretch. Sadly, the team wasn't in contention, but that's a tremendous performance by the 'pen.

Yes, Black's a 19th century pitcher Mr. Watts, and yes, we've discussed the perils of allowing them into our games before, but I can't let go of the Cap Ansons, the Charlie Bennetts, the Deacon Whites, the Ross Barnes' etc etc, and so I put up with the aberrations of the pitchers of that era. I use strict rotation mode to keep the SP innings leaders in the 260-270 range, which works for me, even if it's unrealistic to hold back the horses of that era. It does mean your 5th SP has to be more than a mere afterthought, which also provides a challenge I s'pose. Pics below:

[Beirnej1]

Great to see you posting about your league again.

Are you still using 1984 for the output/strategy?

Question for ya on settings. I know before each season you change the strategy year. Do you change the hook settings? Or just leave it at whatever the game generates for that particular season you’re in?

[actionjackson]

Some interesting trades before I quit for the day. The first one (made on August 12, 1902 - trade deadline is August 31) looks like a tale of two very good players at the back end of their careers getting swapped out with very little consequence, but look a little deeper and it gets interesting.

By that time in his career, Tris Speaker was probably the worst defensive player I've ever seen in my OOTP days. He was in the National League, so in order to get his bat in the lineup, the Cubbies had to throw him out there, and watch him absolutely butcher everything hit his way. 68 games, 67 starts, 10 errors, a .937 FPct, -28.7 ZR (this is between one third and one half of a season here folks), and .800 Defensive Efficiency. This is completely unsustainable in such an important position as CF. So the Cubs dealt him across town to the Sox for Urban Shocker.

Shocker proceeded to go 19-12, 2.79 in 41 starts over the next season and a quarter, and was pretty pivotal in getting the Cubs to the doorstep of the postseason. The lost to Pittsburgh in a Game 163 in 1903, and missed by 2 games in 1904. So they got a really nice pitcher for a guy who finished out his career in 1902 as a DH with the ChiSox. Speaker certainly responded in his final 43 games with the Sox hitting .353/.420/.503/.923 without the worry of pooping his pants in CF. Good trade for both teams there. Probably the White Sox would've been better served to get some prospects, but sometimes teams go after the big name vet to distract the fans from the misery of a lost season (41-70 at the time of the trade), and they don't come any bigger than Speaker.

We're not done yet though. You have to go back a bit to see what the Cubs were up to in full. On June 19, 1902 (two months before the Speaker trade), the Cubs had acquired CF Al Oliver from Cleveland for lefty Brad Havens (who's been awful so far), and right handed pitching prospect Walter McCoy (Negro Leaguer who has pitched in one game before requiring elbow ligament reconstruction). McCoy could eventually be something, as he's only going on 22, but Havens is utterly meh with a 6+ ERA since the deal.

But wait...There's more. Waaay back on June 30, 1901, the Cubs dealt CF Juan Samuel to the Reds for reliever Bill Fleming and CF Johnny Lindell (#7 prospect at the time). Fleming's quietly done a decent job as a reliever since then (9-7, 4 SV, 3.88 in 153.0 IP), but he's not the jewel of that trade. That would be Lindell. Once Oliver went free agent after the 1902 season, Lindell grabbed the CF job, and hasn't looked back. He's an averageish hitter (.264/.324/.415/.738, 105 OPS+), but that isn't really what he's there for. He hasn't won a GG yet, but it's definitely in his future. Brooklyn's Carden Gillenwater has foiled him both times, but Lindell's every bit as good out there.

If you're keeping score at home, the Cubbies really haven't given up much to get a very good starting pitcher, a decent reliever, and a very valuable (9.0 WAR and counting) CF. It's the sequence in which they did it that intrigues me though. They got their CF of the future first, then their place holder CF, and then they dumped their aging former star CF. Pretty cool.

Final trade has nothing to do with these three, but is for David Watts. It involved yer boy Bill Freehan, and is kind of a blockbuster. On December 7, 1902, the Pirates dealt him and solid reliever Rick Camp to the Clevelands for Dan T Murphy (today's Daniel Murphy), 3B Paul Schaal, and SS Eddie Leon. Murphy's a three time All-Star, while Freehan's been there twice. The Pirates either showed great impatience with Freehan, or had figured out that it was time to cash in while he still had some value. He finished runner up in NL MVP voting in 1901 to Frank Robinson of the Beaneaters, then regressed in a big way in 1902, and sadly hasn't done a whole lot since. Murphy's hurt the Pirates with his defense at 2B, but the dude can hit.

Side note: I have my league AI trading frequency cranked to 11. Seeing really good prospects get blocked used to drive me bonkers, and though I don't follow too closely, I think this is helping out. It also creates tons of chaos, and some really fun trades that might not otherwise happen. The latest World Champion team (Brooklyn Superbas) seem to have built their team through awesome drafting, and awesome trades. A bunch of their players are originals from the Inaugural Draft, but they've brought in some really key pieces in trade.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Beirnej1

Great to see you posting about your league again.

Are you still using 1984 for the output/strategy?

Question for ya on settings. I know before each season you change the strategy year. Do you change the hook settings? Or just leave it at whatever the game generates for that particular season you’re in?

Thanks Beirnej1. We'll see how long it lasts. Really upset to hear about Spritze when David Watts told me about it. He was so helpful to me, and so mind bogglingly efficient, comprehensive, and patient with the databases.

The strategy year stays locked actually. Once I've set it for 1901, I uncheck the auto-import strategy settings box on both pages it's on, and it stays in place. In 1903, I forgot to reset the BABIP (to .286), the two Hook Settings (to Default), and the Bunting setting (back to Normal), as they all seem to change once I select 1984 for my output. The Hook Settings (very quick for starters, and slow for relievers) resulted in the leaders being off by about 15 or 20 innings from where I like to see them, and offense went up, probably because crappy bullpen pitchers were filling the gap for the starters who were getting the hook too quickly. It also slows down the hook for relievers, which probably added to the issue.

If I were to reset the strategy year to 1984 every year, it would bork the financials because they'd follow suit, which would make for a hot mess, if you're in the early 20th century. I just have to remember to catch the strategy settings that get reset when I set the stats output, and things run pretty smoothly.

Interestingly so far in the league, league wide HR are perfect (RL: 125.31 per team season, OOTP: 125.88), but that's not trickling down to the individual hitters. The single season record is 34, set by Vern Stephens in 1901. Vinny Castilla (1903 and 1904), and Richie Sexson have hit 32 HR in a season, and that's it for 30+ HR guys in four seasons. It might be that there's a huge amount of HR hitters in the game right now, so there are more people to spread it around to. As long as the league wide numbers are good, I'm fine with it. I think my OOTP16 game started this way as well, so we'll see what happens.

[actionjackson]

I'll certainly be following the Boston Beaneaters' 3B situation. Currently, Bill Bradley is heading into his age 25 season, and is blocking none other than David Wright, who's heading into his age 22 season. They need to resolve this soon, and Bradley would make for one helluva trade chip to address other needs for a team whose best season in four years was an 82 win season, and a fourth place finish in the inaugural season of the league. Their run prevention is in fantastic shape, but they desperately need help with their offense, and having two fantastic players at one position makes no sense. Here are the two guys' Profile and Batting Stats pages. They could get so much done by trading Bradley. Watch this space.

[actionjackson]

Speaking of Wright, he was taken in the 1902 Amateur Draft, which was chock full of great players. It's one of the deepest non-Inaugural Drafts I've ever seen. Here's the first round:

1. Ted Williams, CWS
2. Ivan Rodriguez, CIN
3. David Wright, BSN
4. George J Burns, PHI
5. Mike Morgan, SLA
6. Terry Kennedy, CLE
7. Harry Coveleski, PIT
8. Joe Benz, CHC
9. Trevor Bauer, WS1
10. Eduardo Rodriguez, DET
11. Monte Cross, BOS
12. Mike V Gonzalez, PHA
13. Joe Stripp, BRO
14. Austin McHenry, NY1
15. Dave Wickersham, STL
16. Bill Castro, BLA

Put it this way, the first overall pick in 1901 (catcher Johnny Bassler) would've gone 6th overall in this draft using my system. In 1903 that was Bret Saberhagen, who would've gone 3rd overall, and he was a fantastic pitcher. #2 Kelly Gruber would've gone 9th. Crazy sauce.
Speaking of Kelly Gruber, he's also a 3B and a Beaneater, so they have two trade chips at that position now. Holy moly. They could completely transform their team by trading Bradley and Gruber in separate deals, and keeping Wright. Nuts.

[actionjackson]

First Josh Gibson, and now...

[blubbla]

Originally Posted by actionjackson

For the draft, I use the Hall of Stats rankings, and create draft values based on a player's ranking among his close to 20,000 peers all-time. I just do them in reverse order of the ranking all the way down to 1 for poor ole Bill Bergen.

Currently, the Hall of Stats runs through 2019, so it lines up perfectly with OOTP21 in terms of historical stats. I hope the site's creator, Adam Darowski is OK, because he hasn't posted in almost two years, and hasn't updated the numbers through this past truncated season. It's a great site, and I encourage anyone (even the "WAR...What is it good for?" crowd) to check it out, and see how it matches up with their opinions on the quality of players' careers.

Adam Darowski works for Baseball Reference, and mentioned on his twitter feed that he had some issues with the hall of stats numbers. He did just release the 2020/21 update which puts in Tim Hudson and Mark Buehrle, and possibly returns some players IF anyone gets elected by the BBWAA. Find it as another neat measure to use.

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by blubbla

Adam Darowski works for Baseball Reference, and mentioned on his twitter feed that he had some issues with the hall of stats numbers. He did just release the 2020/21 update which puts in Tim Hudson and Mark Buehrle, and possibly returns some players IF anyone gets elected by the BBWAA. Find it as another neat measure to use.

This is excellent news. Just had a look, and I'm really happy to hear that. He's also on here, but doesn't post too frequently. I've been touting the site for replacing the historical draft values forever now. As for Hudson and Buehrle, they'd be right on my borderline, but I think they're worthy, and I'd probably put them both in too. Great news. Thanks!

[actionjackson]

He hasn't posted here in a little over six years, but this is the league he runs:

http://www.darowski.com/twml/

[actionjackson]

Looks like he's updated the site, but not the CSV Player career totals file. He probably just updated the site in the last couple of days, so hopefully that'll be there eventually as well. OOTP22's a ways away yet (I generally don't buy until October or November), so I can wait. I'm just glad he's still at it.

[actionjackson]

Shockingly, the first decade of this RD league is in the books. The top six picks (Six because it's the equivalent in a sixteen team league of a top ten pick in a 26 team league). Each draft is five rounds worth of players plus one Spritze player, and one Negro League player from the Spritze (they're hard to dig up with the ole Random Number Generator) Database. I will gradually increase the number of Spritzies, as teams get added to the league. Probably one more in 1969 (1968 draft, if I ever get there), and maybe one in 1998 (1997 draft, if I make it), but definitely once I expand in 2020 (2019 draft). That's a looong way away though, so for now it'll just be two.

1901 Amateur Draft (extremely weak):

1. Johnny Bassler, C
2. Mark Portugal, P
3. Kolten Wong, 2B
4. Sam Chapman, CF
5. Carlos Marmol, P
6. Michael Conforto, LF

1902 Amateur Draft (ridiculously strong):

1. Ted Williams, LF
2. Ivan Rodriguez, C
3. David Wright, 3B
4. George J Burns, LF
5. Mike Morgan, P
6. Terry Kennedy, C

1903 Amateur Draft (great top pick):

1. Bret Saberhagen, P
2. Kelly Gruber, 3B
3. Burnis Wright (Negro Leaguer), RF
4. Dave S Smith, P
5. Gary Bell, P
6. Tom Bradley, P

1904 Amateur Draft (extremely strong in pitching):

1. Bob Shawkey, P
2. Corey Kluber, P
3. Leon Day (Negro Leaguer), P
4. Dutch H Leonard, P
5. Anibal Sanchez, P
6. Dave A Roberts, P

1905 Amateur Draft, which was very strong at the top, and very deep. So deep that John Lackey, Clyde Milan, Brandon Phillips, and Tom P Daly didn't crack the top six:

1. John Clarkson, P
2. Graig Nettles, 3B
3. John Beckwith (Negro Leaguer), 3B
4. Pee Wee Reese, SS
5. Ed Reulbach, P
6. Andy Messersmith, P

1906 Amateur Draft. Excellent top pick, and a good second pick, but after that, it got kinda meh:

1. Mike Piazza, C
2. George Wright (19th century guy, brought in via Spritze pre-1871), SS
3. Wally Moon, 1B
4. Eddie Guardado, P
5. Pete Falcone, P
6. Alex Claudio, P

1907 Amateur Draft (very nice top six here, particularly the top four):

1. Brian Downing, C
2. Jack Clements, C
3. Ted Kluszewski, 1B
4. Hal Trosky Sr., 1B
5. Bernard Gilkey, LF
6. Todd Frazier, 3B

1908 Amateur Draft (unbelievable top three, but fell off steeply after that):

1. Rogers Hornsby, 2B
2. Reggie Jackson, RF
3. Joe Gordon, 2B
4. Don Slaught, C
5. Bob Nieman, RF
6. Bobby Lowe, 2B

1909 Amateur Draft. Not as deep as the 1905 draft, but very strong, and a very nice top four:

1. Robin Yount, SS
2. Chase Utley, 2B
3. Alonzo Perry (Negro Leaguer), 1B
4. Mike J Griffin, CF
5. Harold Baines, RF
6. Lee Meadows, P

1910 Amateur Draft. Lots of high impact position players have arrived in previous drafts, but this league could really use some high end pitching, and this draft provided some. Outside of the 1904 Draft, the high end talent has mostly been position players, and it's definitely showing in the level of league wide offense. What a fantastic top five:

1. Harry Stovey, LF
2. Dwight Gooden, P
3. Harry Brecheen, P
4. Lefty Gomez, P
5. Jose A Bautista, 3B
6. Mike Davis, RF

Just like RL, there are reeeally strong drafts, and reeeally poopy drafts, and drafts that are somewhere in the middle. My inner baseball geek loves to look back on them. Yep. I'm a weirdo.

[actionjackson]

Just to give you an idea of what players have been in the league over the first ten seasons, here are some leaderboards, starting with the best position players by WAR up to now:

[actionjackson]

Now, the best position players by BatR (basically the best hitters) so far: