I did something like this before, though not 1000 DM sims. More like 100 simple sims. I think the one thing I found that stood out is that you are more likely to have parity with 28 great teams then with 28 bad teams.

I have also done a thing where I take the 3 worst teams in franchise history and take their best players to build a team. No real point to it besides a time waster.

the three worst Cubs teams. I chose the 1962 Cubs (59-103), 2000 Cubs (67-95), and the 1980 Cubs (68-94). I chose these three because each team is completely different than the other two. If I had chosen the three with the most losses I would have the 1962 and 1966 team. Plus I chose the 1980 team because they played a full season whereas the much worse 1981 team did not even though they had a lower winning percentage.

Catcher:
(2000)Girardi .278/.339/.375
(1980)Blackwell .272/.352/.394
(1962)D Bertell .302/.343/.377

I chose Blackwell and it isn't even really as close as these stats make it out. Blackwell had 14 Win Shares to Joe's 9 and Bertell's 5. He had an OPS+ 103, while Joe's was 89 and Bertell's 91.

1B:
Grace .280/.394/.429
Buckner .324/.353/.457
Banks .269/.306/.503

This is a toughy because on the surface it appears we have a battle over which is better OBP or SLG? Grace OPS+ is 118 compared to Buckner's 119 and Banks' 110. Grace Win Share is 18, Buckner's 17 and Banks 14. This is a toughy for sure but not the OBP/SLG one. Both Grace and Buckner appear to have put up almost equal value years for their teams. So which one? Both in there primes were considered good defensive first basemens, both were not your stereotypical first basemen. Both played almost the same amount of games and stole and go caught stealing the same amount. The odd part is is that Buckner put almost everything into play rarely striking out or walking while Grace walk a good amount but didn't strike out a lot. Because Buckner always put the ball in play he ground into 16 double plays while Grace only ground into 7. Fortunately we can look at the splits for both of them. Buckner couldn't hit lefties while Grace couldn't hit righties. Buckner's OPS was lower against Lefties then Graces was for righties. Though again this is balance by the fact that Grace faced more right handed pitchers then Buckner faced left handed pitchers. Unfortunately it doesn't get better from here. Buckner hit better with men on (though Grace's OBP was better) but Grace hit way better than Buckner with RISP. In the end I have no idea. In the end I guess I'll go with Buckner who is 6 years younger than Grace.

2B:
E Young .297/.367/.399
M Tyson .238/.273/.337
K Hubbs .260/.299/.346

I can't believe I am saying that I choose Eric Young but unfortunately I have too. This was Hubbs first full season and though he would die tragically a couple of years later I don't think he had the skill to make it.

3B:
W Greene .201/.289/.365
L Randle .276/.343/.370
Santo .227/.302/.358

Aargh! I am going to have to pass on Santo and pick Randle even though 1962 was only a off year for Santo. Anyone know what happened to him in 1962? I could find no info.

SS:
Gutierrez .276/.375/.401
DeJesus .259/.327/.325
A Rodgers .278/.343/.388

Rickey beats out the Bahamian on this one.

LF:
H Rodriguez .251/.314/.525
Kingman .278/.329/.522
B Williams

On the surface it looks like a tough call but in the end it is not. Both Kingman and HRod (plus got traded) barely played their seasons due to a wide range of injuries. Whereas Billy played the full seasons plus Billy's OPS+ compares favorably to both players. Billy's 120, HRod's 118, and Kongs' 128. So in the end I chose the young Billy Williams

RF:
Sosa .320/.406/.634
Vail .298/.330/.423
G Altman .318/.393/.511

And the winner is George Altman. Just kidding, it's Sosa. Though in the end I was surprised to find such a good hitter buried in the mediocrity that was early 60's Cub baseball.

CF:
D Buford .251/.324/.390
J Martin .227/.281/.419
L Brock .263/.319/.412

Not much to look at is it? You have the defensive specialist, the young brat with no position on the Cubs, and an unknown. In the end I go with the speedy youngster who has the slightly better bat than the old glove hand. Lou Brock it is.

So here is the lineup:
1. 2B Eric Young .297/.367/.399
2. 1B Bill Buckner .324/.353/.457
3. RF Sammy Sosa .320/.406/.634
4. LF Billy Williams .298/.369/.466
5. SS Rickey Gutierrez .276/.375/.401
6. C Tom Blackwell .272/.352/.394
7. 3B Lenny Randle .276/.343/.370
8. CF Lou Brock .263/.319/.412

Not a lot of power on this team besides Sosa but it does feature some good on base skill by up to 6 players. Eric is lead off becuase of the his speed what follows after that has a lot to do with R/L/R/L combo and bunching the quality players. I put Buckner second because he puts a ton of balls into play and he doesn't have a lot of power. I figure that Eric Young with his speed and potential to steal will offset the increased chance of a double play happening when Buckner is up to bat.

Next up is the pitching staff. For this I'll just list who I picked instead of listing all the players.

1. (1980) Rick Reuschel 3.40 ERA, 257 IP, 140/76 K/BB, 116 ERA+
2. (1962) Bob Buhl 3.69 ERA, 212 IP, 109/94 K/BB, 112 ERA+
3. (1962) Cal Koonce 3.97 ERA, 190.2 IP, 84/86 K/BB, 104 ERA+
4. (2000) Jon Lieber 4.41 ERA, 251 IP, 192/54 K/BB, 97 ERA+

Yes the Cubs pitching staff is that bad when the 4th best starter is 3% below league average for ERA. In all fairness though to Lieber he would probably be the number two starter for this team. He is a work horse that strike outs people and doesn't really walk them. Plus though I didn't show it Lieber allowed significantly less people on then Buhl and Koonce.

Relievers.

(1980) Bruce Sutter 2.64 ERA, 102.1 IP, 124 BB+H, 76 K, 149 ERA+
(1980) Dick Tidrow 2.79 ERA, 116 IP, 150 BB+H, 97 K, 141 ERA+
(1980) Bill Caudill 2.19 ERA, 127.2 IP, 159 BB+H, 112 K, 180 ERA+
(2000) Tim Worrell 2.47 ERA, 62 IP, 84 BB+H, 52 K, 173 ERA+
(1962) Don Elston 2.44 ERA, 66.3 IP, 89 BB+H, 37 K, 169 ERA+

Surprisingly the 1980's Cub bullpen was very good plus it contained future MVP Willie Hernandez. Go figure the only time the Cubs have a good pen is the times when they don't need it.

No worky. :(

No worky. :(

It works now.

My fault, not #1 Fan's. There was a minor glitch in the article. I thought I could sneak in and fix it. I really really really really shouldn't have and the article went offline. Fortunately, one of the component people at THT (re: not the author of this article) apparently fixed it for me. THANK GOD.

Before I go crawl under a rock out of mortification, let me note that it wasn't my computer doing the sims. It was SG.

still no worky for me

Does this link work?

If that doesn't work, go to THT's mainpage and it should be there. Third article down, just about THT Daily.

The 2003 Detroit Tigers...ah, what a team.

C: Brandon Inge. Today's Brandon Inge is Babe Ruth on steroids compared to the Inge of yesteryear, a defense caddy who hit .203 while starting 98 games.

1B: Carlos Pena. I always expected bigger things from Carlos. He did hit .248 and 18 HR, which makes him (sigh) one of the more productive hitters.

2B: Warren Morris. Remember this guy? He had that great freshman year. He wasn't really THAT Bad this year (hitting .272), but never played again.

3B: Eric Munson. I saw Eric in the minors as a first baseman and got his autograph. The Tigers began placing guys at third around this time, hoping that one could replace Dean Palmer's rotting corpse; Inge proved he could (inexplicably) do it, Munson really couldn't.

SS: Ramon Santiago. Just .225, but the Mariners apparently thought he was snazzy.

LF: Craig Monroe. Craig has been the same player throughout his career: .240, 23 HR, no OBP, lots of K's.

CF: Alex Sanchez. Alex was acquired early on and was pretty neat because he could RUN. I mean, he would do the infield single thing, steal a lot of bases (44). Then, next year, with the Tigers fielding a better team, Alex did none of those things.

RF: Bobby Higginson. The 2000 season was All-Star worthy. 2001 and 2002 were at least useful. From then on, Higgy was nothing more than a third-rate outfielder.

DH: Dmitri Young. Strikeouts aside, this was a darn great year--29 homers, 85 RBI. It helped to make the Meat Hook a temporary fan favorite, but injuries and personal crap killed that off.

Others
Well, there was .217 hitting Shane Halter, an utilityman who I admit having a thing for in 2001, Kevin Witt who came out of nowhere and didn't hit like he did in Baseball Mogul, a .222 version of Omar Infante, Andres Torres who was one of those centerfielders the Tigers fooled around with before Granderson finally came up in 2006, Matt Walbeck who I saw manage at Single-A a lot and is now at Double-A, Sir Gene Kingsale who did not hit like he did in MVP Baseball, Ben Petrick (who played in the outfield, I remember, and made a great catch in one game), Dean Palmer (who, unlike in 2002, got a hit), A.J. Hinch (I always forget he was a Tiger), Danny Klassen (who?), Craig Paquette (the Tigers' "big" free agent signing in 2002), the entertainingly named Hiram Bocachica, Cody Ross, and Ernie Young's comeback year.

Pitchers
Well, Mike Maroth was a good soldier that year, losing 21 games. Jeremy Bonderman, having been denied a chance to learn how to pitch in the minors, lost 19. Nate Cornejo, who had junkballing stuff, lost 17 but was probably our best pitcher. Gary Knotts and Adam Bernero added to the general suckitude before Bernero got traded. Knotts looked like he was going to put it together in 2004 but never did.

8 Tigers got a save in 2003. The "leaders" were Franklyn German, who I remember being big and round and throwing hard, and Chris Mears, who apparently won a raffle to become Tigers closer. Others were Jamie the Cat Walker (basically putting up the same numbers he would always put up in Detroit), Chris Spurling, Steve Sparks (moved to the pen and starting to wear glasses), a young and sucky Fernando Rodney, Matt Anderson (our number one draft pick!), and Danny Patterson, the pitcher I disliked the most out of all the Tigers relievers.

The rest of the Tiger pitchers tend to blend together: Matt Roney, Shane Loux, Eric Eckenstahler, Brian Schmack. Both Nate Robertson and Wilfredo Ledezema pitched this year, though. And Steve Avery, winding down his career with a sad performance in Detroit (I remember somebody...Vizquel?...stealing home off him).

Good times, that. I can't remember how happy I was watching the game in which they beat the Twins the last day of the year (and Jesse Orosco, of all people, I believe threw the wild pitch).

Blech. This headline did nothing for the digestion of my lunch.

Blech. This headline did nothing for the digestion of my lunch.

Sorry about that. Normally I don't want people to wretch over my headlines. I want them to be sickened by the quality of my articles.

The 2003 Tigers had the hubris to think that they could challenge the Mets' (modern) record for baseball futility. Amateurs!

Sorry about that. Normally I don't want people to wretch over my headlines. I want them to be sickened by the quality of my articles.

Naw, it says more about me that I interpret everything gastronomically.

Cool concept. There's a book you may want to check out if you haven't seen it - "On A Clear Day They Could See Seventh Place". There's a fairly detailed chapter on the worst team for each decade from the 90s to the 80s (I think by record, except for picking the 42 Phils over the 41 Phils, but I'm not entirely sure). They all made your list, except they had the 79 Blue Jays instead of the A's.

One thing you got wrong, though. The guy who owned the Phillies and was bounced for betting on them, William Cox, only owned them in 1943. The owner for the atrocious 38-42 teams was Gerry Nugent, who was pretty much just broke, always selling off his good players for cash.

Works.

I love articles like these; yeah, it's fun to debate over who the best players and teams are and run sims computing that, but for me, nothing's better than an old-fashioned debate of "who sucks more?"

:)

Sorry about that. Normally I don't want people to wretch over my headlines. I want them to be sickened by the quality of my articles.

Don't worry, everyone knows that storywriters don't write their own headlines. Blame someone else. It's what a journalist would do.

The 2003 Tiger bullpen was better than the 2007 one.

The White Sox have never been among the best of all time or the worst of all time. We dominate the "Most Shameful Episodes" lists though. Nobody can throw a World Series, beat up a first-base coach, wear shorts, or make disco sympathetic like our guys can.

The White Sox have never been among the best of all time or the worst of all time.

The 1970 White Sox (56-106) were pretty terrible. The pitching staff consisted of Tommy John, Wilbur Wood, and a lot of pain. They did underperform pythag (62-100), though.

The 1948 White Sox (7th in offense, 7th in pitching out of 8 teams) was pretty horrible, too. Aside from Luke Appling and Dave Philley, even serious baseball fans would have trouble recognizing most of the players on that team.

They weren't as bad as the 1934 White Sox, though, who finished last or next-to-last in pretty much every important statistical category.

Luke Appling played on some pretty bad teams.

Nobody can... make disco sympathetic like our guys can.

Uh, Disco Demolition did not make disco sympathetic. It just made Steve Dahl and the White Sox look stupid.

I RTFA. No Cubs?!?!?!? I'm simply astounded. I lived outside Chicago in the '80s. Biittner, deJesus, Kelleher, Thompson, Reitz... those teams were REALLY bad.

I can't remember how happy I was watching the game in which they beat the Twins the last day of the year

I can, Poochie. I was there, too. The Tigers won five of their last six, thus averting history. Just three years later, they're in the Series. Funny world, ain't it?

1962 Chicago Cubs, 59-103 Actual; 61-101 Pythagenpat: Sure lots of teams have lost 103 in a year. But how many have lost 103 while playing a 120-loss team 18 times? Plus they're possibly the worst Cubs team ever. Improbably, the Cubs never had a team bad enough to qualify here.

In terms of wins and losses they are but in terms of quality no.

Ernie Banks
Ron Santo
Billy Williams
Lou Brock
George Altman

The problem was they didn't have a pitching staff with any real talent.

I hope SG has installed the recently released DMB v9b patch! The changes should help the very poor fielding teams "win" this simulation.

Don't worry, everyone knows that storywriters don't write their own headlines. Blame someone else. It's what a journalist would do.

Actually, I came up with this one. I was pretty damn proud of it, too.

The White Sox have never been among the best of all time or the worst of all time.

The original version was a little longer. I explained why I didn't include the 106-loss 1970 Sox. Worst Sox team ever, but there's so many terrible teams around there, not all of them Padres squads.

In terms of wins and losses they are but in terms of quality no.

Ernie Banks
Ron Santo
Billy Williams
Lou Brock
George Altman

The problem was they didn't have a pitching staff with any real talent.

Their hitting was actually worse than their pitching. Eighth in runs scored in a hitters park. Sure they had some names, but they weren't producing. Sanot was horrible, Brock was young, Banks was below average for a firs baseman, especially when you consider how SLG-rific his OPS was. They had two good hitters, maybe the worst bench in the league and several sinkholes in their lineup.

One thing you got wrong, though. The guy who owned the Phillies and was bounced for betting on them, William Cox, only owned them in 1943. The owner for the atrocious 38-42 teams was Gerry Nugent, who was pretty much just broke, always selling off his good players for cash.

D'OH! It's so hard to keep track of incompetent Phillies owners.

1899 Cleveland Spiders, 20-134 Actual; 23-131 Pythagenpat: Doing this study and not including them is like going to the Sistine Chapel and not looking up.

This is a good line, Chris.

I was proud of that line. That and the "Me? I'm a Cubs fan. By definition I have no interest in quality baseball" crack. Fortunately, after the last week or so, that line looks a little dated.

Yes I know Santo was in his sophomore slump and Banks had his first off season but again in terms of quality the Cubs had plenty on the offensive side. Almost none on the pitching side. Granted it would be the last good year for Altman.

The '16 A's would be pretty hard to beat (in this context). Here's an example...a three-game series at Comiskey Park was rained out in May, and rescheduled when Philly came back to the South Side in late July. The Sox swept the eight-game series, something I doubt has happened before, or since.

The A's finished 40 games behind Washington, which was 76-77. Had it not been for a rainout, the seventh-place Senators might have finished at .500.

I'm feeling good about this. Jumping Jack Orsulak and The Whammer will help lead the O's back to glory.

The '16 A's would be pretty hard to beat (in this context). Here's an example...a three-game series at Comiskey Park was rained out in May, and rescheduled when Philly came back to the South Side in late July. The Sox swept the eight-game series, something I doubt has happened before, or since.

The A's finished 40 games behind Washington, which was 76-77. Had it not been for a rainout, the seventh-place Senators might have finished at .500.

Yeah, they're one of the teams that inspired this.

Question for anyone interested -- any guesses as to how the Spiders did? Average wins? How many times in last place in the 1000 sims? How many times they score a winning record? Land 100 wins? Avoid 100 losses? Anyone wanna take a stab at that before Part II goes up?

Absolutely stunning that there are no Indians teams on the list.

'91 was a total cluster###k: five everyday players with OPS+ below 75 (four under 70), their first basemen hit a combined .236/.287/.329, their DHs hit a combined .252/.286/.357. Alex Cole was the second-best offensive player on the team. The bench was atrocious as well - the only guys who even approached adequacy were Carlos Martinez (hit an empty .284) and Glenallen Hill (108 OPS+ in 122 AB).

Thank God the pitching staff was pretty decent that year, otherwise the '91 Indians would have lost 115-120 games.

The scariest thing about the '04 D-backs is that the front office believed they had assembled a contender. I draw a distinction between teams that had perfectly legitimate reasons to be bad because of expansion or because the owner gutted them and teams like the '04 D-backs.

I'm feeling good about this. Jumping Jack Orsulak and The Whammer will help lead the O's back to glory.

Oswaldo Peraza, Jay Tibbs, Rene "Gonzo" Gonzalez...Jon Miller made it almost poetic. Plus, from Game 22 on, the team was 54-85, or, over 162 games, a team that would've won 63! Too bad about those first 21. It's pretty amazing that we barely edged out the Braves for Ben McDonald (the Braves finished 54-106, a half game ahead of us!).

My personal fave was Pete Stanicek, mostly because I thought his last name was cool.

the Whammer