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Monday, April 14, 2008

USA Today: Gardner: Crowning the greatest New York Yankees team ever

SATISFY YOUR BASEBALL APBAtite...by having Ralph Terry win 32 games? Why, Terry even broke into an impromptu version of the frug over this!

Imagine what it would be like if all the great teams that have played at Yankee Stadium throughout its history could face off against each other …

How would the Murderers’ Row squad of 1927 fare against Ron Guidry in his Louisiana Lightnin’ prime? Could they scratch out a run against Mariano Rivera in the bottom of the ninth? How would Reggie Jackson do against Whitey Ford?

We posed those questions to the makers of APBA Baseball and asked them to run a simulated 162-game season pitting each of the 26 World Series champion Yankee teams against each other (using their APBA Baseball for Windows software) to find out which was the greatest team in Yankee Stadium history. The result may come as a surprise.

...One of the most interesting aspects of the project was the ability to generate a full season’s worth of statistics. At last, Babe Ruth, Roger Maris and a healthy Mickey Mantle were able to go head-to-head with a level playing field, with each team playing 162 games. As it turned out the 1927 Babe prevailed as the Yankee Season home run king (and the extra games did make a difference). Ruth also won the RBI crown (by one over Maris) and had the three highest slugging percentages.

The batting race went down to the final day of the season before Lou Gehrig won it .38118 to .38103 over ... Lou Gehrig. Yes, the 1932 Gehrig was just that much better than the 1928 Gehrig. Meanwhile, the 1936 Gehrig led the league in runs scored.

Repoz Posted: April 14, 2008 at 09:12 AM | 24 comment(s)
Related News: General, Fantasy Baseball, History, NY Yankees

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1. TomH Posted: April 14, 2008 at 09:27 AM (#2743423)

Looks like the pre-1950 teams shred the modern counterparts in the simulaotr. Guess there isn't much adjustment for level of competition. So obviously, in this sim, the 1906 Cubs would tear all of these guys apart.

2. Guapo Posted: April 14, 2008 at 09:37 AM (#2743440)

Ralph Terry threw 391.2 innings for the 1962 team. Ah well, no sim is perfect.

Strange the 1939 team didn't do better.

3. Cooperstown Schtick Posted: April 14, 2008 at 09:44 AM (#2743445)

I got the sense that the pre-1950 teams only played each other up until the "World Series."

Game 1 is pretty hard to imagine when you have to pretend that Ramiro Mendoza went through that lineup (and then some) without giving up a single run.

4. SJ and the pants of freedom. Posted: April 14, 2008 at 09:54 AM (#2743453)

I got the sense that the pre-1950 teams only played each other up until the "World Series."

Can't be. Because their were only 3 Mantle/Steinbrenner teams over .500.

5. Crispix Attacks is in the best shape of his life. Posted: April 14, 2008 at 09:56 AM (#2743455)

If Jose Jimenez and Bud Smith can throw no-hitters in the real world, Mendoza can do that too in fiction.

6. SJ and the pants of freedom. Posted: April 14, 2008 at 09:58 AM (#2743457)

1998 Ramiro Mendoza was a fantastic pitcher.

7. DCA Posted: April 14, 2008 at 10:05 AM (#2743467)

#3: From TFA, "Each team played 7 games against teams in its own division and 6 against teams from the opposing division"

I think 98 was the best, and probably the best team of all time even if we don't limit it to the Yankees. How did SG's (I think) experiment go?

8. Cooperstown Schtick Posted: April 14, 2008 at 10:07 AM (#2743469)

Each team played seven games against clubs in its own division and six against teams from the other division.

My bad. I should have clicked more links.

On edit: jeez, I guess I didn't even have to clink more links. Just, like, read stuff. I'll be over by the coffee machine.

9. Jolly Old St. Neck Wound, Marching Through Georgia

Posted: April 14, 2008 at 10:10 AM (#2743472)

10. Kid Charlemagne Posted: April 14, 2008 at 10:40 AM (#2743498)

I wonder if they turned on the AIM features of League Manager? Much as I love APBA - I just won my first league championship in the APBA league I've been a member of since 1994 - I'm not certain that its the best computer SIM to use in this instance. You'd have to be careful which card sets to use, as not all would necessarily be era-adjusted.

11. SandyRiver Posted: April 14, 2008 at 11:02 AM (#2743524)

I don't know which is more bizarre: The thought that the 1938 team was better than its 1927, 1932, 1936 or 1939 counterparts, or the thought that any of them could have seriously competed with the 1998 team. I guess that "talent pool" is a foreign a concept to these folks as foreigners (and blacks) were to the pre-war talent pool itself.

Valid points, but I saw this as a "strictly for fun" exercise, with suspension of reality a prerequisite. Even so, I was surprised to see nothing from Mantle 1956 on the leaderboards.

12. Hello Rusty Kuntz, Goodbye Rusty Cars Posted: April 14, 2008 at 11:16 AM (#2743538)

Three- one to change the bulb and two to talk about how great the old one was.

13. Charter Member of the Jesus Melendez Fanclub Posted: April 14, 2008 at 11:26 AM (#2743544)

How did SG's (I think) experiment go?

I'll let you know, if it ever finishes.

14. Slinger Francisco Barrios (Dr. Memory) Posted: April 14, 2008 at 12:21 PM (#2743593)

The less said about the 1932 Miller Huggins, the better.

15. Greg Maddux School of Reflexive Profanity Posted: April 14, 2008 at 12:31 PM (#2743602)

Timeline-adjusted second-order Pythagorean winning percentages:

1998    .591
1939    .578
1927    .568
1937    .565
1938    .555
1999    .553
1941    .539
1977    .538
1996    .537
1936    .534
1978    .530
1947    .529
1950    .527
1961    .522
1923    .521
1932    .520
2000    .519
1949    .51509
1951    .51506
1953    .5090
1956    .5085
1943    .508
1958    .507
1928    .506
1952    .502
1962    .493

16. Dan Evensen Posted: April 14, 2008 at 12:37 PM (#2743606)

They should have used the original single-column (1951-ish) 1927 Yankees GTP set, complete with Gehrig's 7 power numbers.

17. Halofan Posted: April 14, 2008 at 12:43 PM (#2743612)

I wouldn't brag about being 50 years late to a Strat-O-Matic game...

18. snapper Posted: April 14, 2008 at 01:11 PM (#2743637)

I don't know which is more bizarre: The thought that the 1938 team was better than its 1927, 1932, 1936 or 1939 counterparts, or the thought that any of them could have seriously competed with the 1998 team. I guess that "talent pool" is a foreign a concept to these folks as foreigners (and blacks) were to the pre-war talent pool itself.

How do we balance the "talent pool" issue versus the ubiquitous presence of baseball in early 20th century America.

I would assume the reason the Domican Republic produces so many ball players is that every boy plays a lot of baseball (no real competing sports), and it is one of the few means of advancement in a primarily agricultural/manual labor economy.

Those same conditions held true in the U.S. prior to WW II. The only pro-sports of note were baseball and boxing. Pretty much every kid played baseball, and for most it was the only career option besides the farm or the factory.

I wouldn't be suprised if the pre-WW II white population produced more good ballplayers the the current U.S. population of all backgrounds. If the 10M people in the Dominican Republic can produce 100 MLB players today, why couldn't the 100M white Americans in 1920 produce 400 equivalently skilled players (for 16 teams).

All this is of course controlling for nutrition, training methods etc.

I wouldn't be suprised that, if the baseball players of the 1920s-40s were magically cloned today and raised with modern nutrition and training, they could compete with today's major leaguers.

19. Bob Dernier Cri

Posted: April 14, 2008 at 01:47 PM (#2743664)

20. bunyon Posted: April 14, 2008 at 01:51 PM (#2743668)

For those interested, I've just completed a similar study for the Phillies.

Surprisingly, the 1980 team won.

21. RMc is the Commissioner of Baseball Posted: April 14, 2008 at 05:28 PM (#2743893)

For those interested, I've just completed a similar study for the (Devil) Rays.

Nobody won.

22. Jolly Old St. Neck Wound, Marching Through Georgia

Posted: April 14, 2008 at 05:39 PM (#2743903)

In the case of the Yankees, you have to balance the talent pool issue against the 1920s/30s Yankees' ability to acquire the absolutely dominant talent of their day. Yes, the general competition is vastly better now. But unless the human race itself has evolved greater athletic perfection within two or three generations, it's completely reasonable to think that Babe Ruth is still the greatest RF ever (of any ethnicity) and Lou Gehrig the greatest first baseman. Joe DiMaggio is still among the handful of greatest CF, and some of those other guys weren't too bad either. So if you concentrated those greats onto the same club, as the Yankees tended to do, you might very well still have a team that, loaded onto a time machine, would wax most 2000s teams.

I think there's a reasonable chance that the best of those old Yankees teams could fare pretty well against today's also rans, but the comparison wasn't to the also rans, but to the 1998 Yankees, who lapped the field (22 GA of Boston) by even more than any of their pre-WWII counterparts. And bad as the Devil Rays might have been, I doubt if they were as bad as the 1927 Browns (1-21 against the Yanks) or those depleted A's teams of the late 30's. The talent is far better distributed throughout the Majors today than is was back then, and still that 1998 team dominated on the same level as those other teams.

And of course while Ruth and Gehrig shared much of their primes together, Dimaggio and Gehrig only played together for two years before the effects of Gehrig's ALS began to set in.

23. Superunknown Gary Geiger Counter Posted: April 15, 2008 at 09:29 AM (#2744573)

I guess that "talent pool" is a foreign a concept to these folks as foreigners (and blacks) were to the pre-war talent pool itself.

I imagine that APBA doesn't adjust for era.

24. RB in NYC (Now with Resolutions!) Posted: April 15, 2008 at 09:38 AM (#2744577)

Nobody won.

That's an insult to the memory of the 2004 Rays! 70 wins, baby!

(Actually, that was some bizarre team. Their starters included Tino Martinez, Rey Sanchez, Robert Fick and Paul Abbott, but also had Julio Lugo, Carl Crawford and Scott Kazmir.)

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USA Today: Gardner: Crowning the greatest New York Yankees team ever

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