Who was the best team in the 1920s?

Here is the second installment of the ongoing series of simulations by decade. Today we will simulate the 1920s.

Division One

1929 Philadelphia (A)	84	66	-
1921 New York (A)	82	68	2
1927 Pittsburgh	82	68	2
1925 Washington	74	76	10
1928 New York (A)	74	76	10
1923 New York (N)	66	84	18

Division Two

1927 New York (A)	93	57	-
1928 St. Louis (N)	74	76	19
1922 St. Louis (A)	67	83	26
1924 New York (N)	65	85	28
1929 Chicago (N)	64	86	29

The race in Division One came down to the final day, when the ’21 Yankees defeated the ’22 Cardinals 4-1 to force a one-game playoff with the ’27 Pirates. The Yankees won the playoff 6-2 behind a 131-pitch complete game effort by Bob Shawkey, who also went 2-4 at the plate with 1 RBI. The race in Division Two was not nearly so close, with the legendary 1927 Yankees with their Murderer’s Row running away with it, winning the division by an astounding 19 games, as the only team with a winning record.

Division Series
1927 New York (A) def. 1921 New York (A), 3-2: The ’21 version of the Yankees got off to a 2-0 lead in this series with two one-run victories. In game three, Murderer’s Row came alive for the ’27 Yankees, rapping out 13 hits in a 13-9 win, and Herb Pennock went 9 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 K in game 4 for a 4-1 victory. The 1927 Yankees won game 5 6-4 to finish up the series.

1928 St. Louis (N) def. 1929 Philadelphia (A), 3-1: The first two games were split, and in game 3, St. Louis rode a 6-hit shutout by Bill Sherdel to win 11-0, and won game 4 11-10 to move on to the championship series.

1920s Championship Series
1928 St. Louis (N) def. 1927 New York (A), 4-3: The first two games were split, and again in game 3, St. Louis pitcher Bill Sherdel tossed a gem, going 9 innings and giving up 7 hits and 1 earned run in a 3-1 win. In game 4, Flint Rhem and Art Reinhart combined to one-hit the powerful Yankee offense to give the 1928 St. Louis Cardinals a 3-1 series lead. Still, the Yankees would not go away, winning the next two games to force the series to a winner-takes-all game 7. St. Louis got 4 quick runs in the first with help from a 3-run Chick Hafey home run, and did not look back, shocking the favored Yankees.

Champion: 1928 St. Louis Cardinals

Stats of some notable players:
-Paul Waner, 1927 Pittsburgh: 48 2B, 21 3B, 132 R, 147 RBI, .424 (led league)/.509/.626

-Babe Ruth, 1921 New York (A): 58 HR, 167 RBI, 175 R (led league), .387/.531 (led league)/.891 (led league). Ruth’s OPS of 1.422 would have been the best of all-time.

-Babe Ruth, 1927 New York (A): 59 HR (led league), 173 RBI (led league), 165 R, .364/.483/.770

-Lou Gehrig, 1927 New York (A): 53 HR, 160 RBI, 147 R, .342/.460/.752

-Wilcy Moore, 1927 New York (A): 15-8, 10 S, 2.78 ERA, 1.18 WHIP in 12 GS and 35 as a reliever with 7 CG.

-Waite Hoyt, 1927 New York (A): 22-2, 3.12 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 19 CG, 265 IP. This was the lowest ERA by a regular starter by 0.59 runs, as number two was Carl Mays and his 3.71 ERA.

-This league had 0 pitchers with an ERA under 2.00, as opposed to the previous decade, which had 19. This decade’s lowest ERA was 2.78.

-38 hitters had batting averages over .300 in this 11 team league. 29 hitters had a batting average over .300 in 2008, in a 30 team league. In the 1900-1919 league, only 3 hitters had a batting average over .300. This really shows how quickly hitting overtook pitching in just one decade.

Interesting baseball fact of the day: The .400 barrier was broken 7 times in the 1920s. Rogers Hornsby hit .401 in 1922, .424 in 1924, and .403 in 1925. George Sisler hit .407 in 1920 and .420 in 1922. Ty Cobb hit .401 in 1922 and Harry Heilmann hit .403 in 1923. These account for 7 of the 13 .400 seasons since 1900.

Diamond Mind Baseball, and a fun simulation

Today I thought I would give you an introduction to an amazing baseball computer simulation game: Diamond Mind Baseball. It is probably the most accurate simulation game out there, and you can buy leagues and teams in packages, such as season projections, past seasons, or leagues that are compilations of some of the greatest teams of all time. There are 8 discs which contain the best teams of all time, and I have all 8. You can then create leagues of any of the teams you have and simulate entire seasons in about 5 minutes. You can also play each season game by game, making every decision a manager makes in terms of lineups, pinch hitting, infield alignments, etc. So, I thought it would be fun to make a league for every decade that I have and simulate the league and playoffs to see what the best team in every decade was. I already ran this simulation for every decade last summer, but I’ll re-run it and put the results up here. I will just do one decade at a time, and I’ll put results up every so often (read: when I have nothing else to write about) along with a short summery of the season.

The first “decade” is the period of time from 1900-1919, because there weren’t enough teams to make either of those an individual decade. Here are the standings:

Division One

Team	W	L	GB
1908 Chicago (N)	95	55	-
1902 Pittsburgh	74	76	21
1912 Boston (A)	73	77	22
1917 Chicago (A)	72	78	23
1918 Boston	69	81	26
1912 New York (N)	68	82	27
1911 Philadelphia (A)	65	85	30

Division Two

Team	W	L	GB
1919 Chicago (A)	90	60	-
1909 Pittsburgh	81	69	9
1906 Chicago (N)	80	70	10
1915 Boston (A)	75	75	15
1904 New York (N)	73	77	17
1914 Philadelphia (A)	70	80	20
1919 Cincinnati	65	85	25

Teams from Chicago and Pittsburgh dominated this era. Of the 4 teams with winning records, 3 were from one of the two cities, and 4 of the 5 best records and all 4 playoff spots are occupied by Chicago or Pittsburgh teams. The 1908 Chicago Cubs were the ONLY team with a winning record in Division One, with an unthinkable 21 game lead over the second place team. This makes the playoff match-ups 1908 Chicago (N) vs. 1909 Pittsburgh and 1919 Chicago (A) vs. 1902 Pittsburgh.

Division Series
1908 Chicago (N) def. 1909 Pittsburgh, 3-0: The first game went to 15 innings and the Cubs won on an astonishing 6 errors by Pittsburgh, while committing 3 errors themselves. 1908 Chicago won game 3 4-2 in 11 innings by means of 10 innings from Ed Reulbach, giving up just 5 hits, 2 runs, 0 earned, 4 BB, and 5 K.

1919 Chicago (A) def. 1902 Pittsburgh, 3-2: A thrilling series where every game was decided by just one run. Pitching was the name of the game in this series, as a total of 25 runs were scored in the series, good for 2.5 per team per game.

1900-1919 Championship Series
1908 Chicago wins the series 4-2 on the back of a strong pitching effort, with 3 complete game wins by their starting staff, including a 124-pitch gem by Orval Overall in game 3, where he gave up just 6 hits and 5 walks in a shutout and a 139 pitch effort by Ed Reulbach in game 4, where he gave up 11 hits and 1 run in 9 innings.

Champion: 1908 Chicago Cubs

Stats of some notable players:

-Babe Ruth, 1918 Boston (A): 15 HR (led league), 68 RBI, .227/.401/.455 in 396 AB as a hitter, and 8-15, 4.96 ERA in 23 GS, with 20 CG in 207 IP. This version of Babe Ruth tends to struggle in simulations against the much better competition than he faced in real life.

-Eddie Collins, 1911 Philadelphia (A): .326 (led league)/.416 (led league)/.408

-Tris Speaker, 1912 Boston (A): 12 HR, 67 RBI, 47 SB, .314/.415/.499

-Honus Wagner, 1909 Pittsburgh: 77 R, 30 SB, .280/.389/.380. It really speaks volumes of how much pitching dominated this era when Honus Wagner hits .280.

-Orval Overall, 1908 Chicago (N): 20-4, 1.35 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 151 K

-Mordecai Brown, 1908 Chicago (N): 21-9, 1.46 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, 30 GS, 26 CG, 8 SHO

-Eddie Cicotte, 1919 Chicago (A): 27-9, 1.54 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 39 GS, 32 CG, 11 SHO.

-Christy Mathewson, 1904 New York (N): 15-28, 3.08 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 45 GS, 350.1 IP

-Joe McGinnity, 1904 New York (N): 18-16, 1.92 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, 43 GS, 365.1 IP

-12 players had more than 40 SB, and Frank Chance of 1906 Chicago (N) led the league with 55, but he still got caught 22 times.

-19 starting pitchers had an ERA under 2.00, and 4 of those pitchers threw more than 300 IP.

-27 pitchers had more than 20 CG. To put this in perspective, the last time a pitcher had 20 CG was Fernando Valenzuela in 1986. There are only 25 pitchers active with more than 20 CG in their entire CAREER.

Before I end this, I also want to recognize and congratulate the Netherlands on their stunning 3-2 win in WBC action over the Dominican Republic! I wear my Ruud van Nistelrooy Netherlands national team jersey with pride today.

Interesting Baseball Fact of the Day: Christy Mathewson had the most complete games from 1900-1919, with 434 CG out of 551 GS, along with 79 SHO.