[asrivkin]

I figured pitching was my biggest problem after 1916, even after trying to acquire pitchers in-season, but I wasn’t sure what if anything I could actually do about it. A few half-hearted attempts to see what it would take to get a big name fell short but I did sign Dick Redding as a free agent late in 1916, drafted Dutch Reuther (among some other non-pitchers like Lefty O’Doul, Pat Collins, and Sammy Hale), and most notably pried Herb Pennock from the Athletics for Roxy Walters. I hoped those additions plus (hopefully) healthy seasons from the big hitters plus Heilmann and Charleston getting closer to their peak would help matters enough to make a pennant plausible in 1920 or before.

The preseason predictions put us in second place, four games behind the Red Sox, and that is indeed where we ended up. We played well (95-67), without any real rough stretches—Boston just played better. We led most offensive categories, often by quite a lot. Our pitching was middle of the pack, very close to league average. Tris Speaker or Joe Jackson (the latter still with Cleveland) led most categories (AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS/WAR) but Charleston had a real coming-out year and often Pipp was right there with him on the leaderboards. Charleston led in triples and isolated power, and was 4th in SLG and 5th in OPS. Charleston and Pipp were #1 and #2 in RBI and #3 and #4 in total bases. Pipp, Baker, and Charleston were 1-2-3 in home runs. Even Peckinpaugh got into the act, hitting .309, finishing 4th in RBI, and having a crazy 11.9 WAR. But while the Yankees were 1st in most hitting categories and middling in the pitching ones, Boston was 2nd in most hitting categories and 1st in most pitching ones.

The National League crown went to the Phillies, who ended the season with a 6-game cushion over the surprising Pirates. The Phillies were predicted to win the pennant, but the Pirates were forecast to be a 9th place team and only a game out of last place, so that was a shocker. I was expecting the 99-win Red Sox to defeat the 96-win Phillies, but Philadelphia took the series pretty handily in 5 games. With this win, the NL has taken the last 4 World Series in a row, and the last 8 champions back to 1910 were from either Boston or Philadelphia (1910-1914 the historical winners, of course).

After the season ended, I had a set of single-game City/State series in St. Louis, Chicago, Balt/Wash, and Ohio, and a best-two-out-of-three pitting the Pirates vs. the Yankees for 3rd place. The NL team won each series, which in conjunction with the NL’s recent World Series dominance must be causing Ban Johnson some sleepless nights…

Again, I’ve included some screenshots of the leader boards. The MVP/CY/RotY of the NL were Rogers Hornsby/Art Nehf/Whitey Whitt, and for the AL it was Tris Speaker/Walter Johnson/Ross Youngs. The Caribbean Winter League championship went to the Havana Almendares, who defeated the Tampa Smokers in the finals.

Looking ahead to 1918 (already in progress), I’m hoping to take the Yankees the next step, but they were rather unbalanced in 1917 and might not been as good as their record suggests—we were 18-0 vs. the terrible KC Packers, but no better than 10-8 against anyone else other than 11-7 vs. the also-bad Newark Peppers. So, we might have been closer to a 90-win team than 95.