With the Yankees experiencing more success in 1915 than they had since 1906, I was hopeful that the team wouldn’t need more than a few tweaks to at least hold their own in 1916. I hoped Baker would rebound from his injury-filled 1915, that Heilmann would continue to mature toward an eventual .400-hitting future, and that I could ease Oscar Charleston into becoming an everyday player. I had (and have) no particular reason to expect Babe Ruth to ever wear pinstripes, but I hoped this would do. I didn’t think I had drafted any particularly high-upside players at the end of 1915, only later realizing that the Bill Terry who I drafted in the 13th round as a pitcher was actually the same Bill Terry who hit .400 in 1930. So, that was a nice surprise. Even if we didn’t win in 1916, which I figured was a bit much to ask for, I thought we’d compete.
We did not compete.
I wrote a long blog post about it
here and
here about a year ago when I had just finished, but I’ll hit the highlights again here. Frank Baker did bounce back nicely, playing 133 games in 1916 vs. the 112 he played in 1915. Everything else was manageable early on—Ray Caldwell ruptured his UCL in Spring Training and was out 9-10 months. But on August 23rd, Paddy Baumann (our regular 2B) was injured and would miss 5 weeks. The next two days found two more injuries to two more players, neither too serious. On 5 September, Heilmann (our regular RF) and Baker (3B) both experienced season-ending injuries. The next day, Birdie Cree (backup 2B and OF) strained his oblique. At this point, 16-year-old Allie Watt made his MLB debut for us out of position at 3B because Peckinpaugh (our regular SS) was tired and Luke Boone, our infield utility guy had to play SS. For good measure, Elmer Miller (our 4th outfielder who was back in the lineup because of Heilmann) was lost for 6 weeks as of mid-September, ending his season. But the Yankees were well out of the chase long before all of these injuries.
At the end of June we were 43-37. Not great, but not terrible. We went 39-43 the rest of the way, with a 16-11 September counteracting (somewhat) a 11-18 August. The overall blame fell to the pitching—after finishing 1st in ERA, tied for 1st in runs allowed, and 2nd in opponents average in 1915, we fell to 6th in ERA, 5th in runs allowed, and 7th in opponents average in 1916. We also slipped in batting, but not nearly as badly. Eddie Plank realized how old he was and regressed to league average (and then retired). Allen Russell developed into a 20-game winner, but Ray Fisher went from a 20-game winner to a below-average pitcher (and then to trade bait). Trades for Frank Allen, Pat Ragan, and and Babe Adams had mixed results. Heilmann had a great year, and Charleston had a solid rookie year, and Pipp led the league in home runs, but they could only do so much. Peckinpaugh had an MVP-level season based on his fielding (so it wasn’t an obvious help).
The pennant races didn’t have a lot of intrigue, either. The 1915 winners returned to the World Series without too much drama. The White Sox ended up with a 7-game lead and the Rustlers a 5-game lead. The Packers absolutely collapsed with a 111-loss season. As a sign of how things were going, the Packers had a 22-game losing streak that began right after they crushed the Yankees 19-2, and the Yankees could only muster a 10-8 season record against them.
The real-life winners, the Red Sox and Robins, finished in 2nd and 8th place—the latter team was missing two of their best IRL pitchers, and was using a third in the bullpen. The Rustlers won the World Series 4 games to 1 yet again, making them the first team to win 3 championships in a row. I’ve again attached some screenshots with leaders. Shoeless Joe, still with Cleveland, won the AL MVP. The Phillies’ Dave Bancroft won it in the NL. The Cy Young winners were Tom Hughes of the Rustlers in the NL and Boston’s Dutch Leonard in the AL. Carson Bigbee of the surprisingly resurgent Athletics won Rookie of the Year in the AL, with Baltimore’s Bert Graham winning it in the NL.
After the season ended I decided to run a developmental fall league in Florida and the Caribbean, if only to use some parks I made. Havana defeated Jacksonville to win that championship, and in a sign of things to come 20-year-old Roger Hornsby won the winter league MVP unanimously.