I can hardly wait for the results of this amusing little exercise to reach the mainstream media.

It's true... once John Stossel gets a hold of this information, we're all ruined.

Andy, you're such a Dyck.

Thanks, B Williams. Mrs. Dyck and I are kind of pround of that 1.812 OPS I've put up so far, and I'm glad to see that I'm finally getting some recognition among the advanced scholars of baseball.

I can hardly wait for the results of this amusing little exercise to reach the mainstream media.

It's true... once John Stossel gets a hold of this information, we're all ruined.

Not if Stossel learns that the '54 Indians were all big fans of Richard Nixon, and that Pee Wee Reese once contributed to Greenpeace.

Perusing the team batting stats, it's interesting seeing so many players getting semi/regular playing time with truly awful batting stats:

Chad Curtis .530 OPS 245 AB
Joe Girardi .505 OPS 180 AB
Rafael Santana .370 OPS 198 AB
Howard Johnson .595 OPS 261 AB
Ted Kubiak .412 OPS 116 AB
Dick Green .447 OPS 200 AB
Elrod Hendricks .458 OPS 229 AB
Roger Maris (1967 edition) .581 OPS 298 AB
Yogi berra (1961 edition) .558 OPS 235 AB
Bobby Richardson .498 OPS 340 AB
Frank Croseti 524 OPS 333 AB


The weakest hitting positions seem to be

1998 Yankees C
1984 Tigers 3B
1974 A's 2B
1970 Orioles C
1968 Tigers SS
1961 Yankees LF

I understand the constraints of the program and the simulation; you play with the players you got, in approximately the same playing time they really had (Indian phenoms excepted). But in reality, most of these guys are hitting well below the Mendoza line, and most if not all would have been canned long ago.

For example, the 1961 Yankees have .298 slugging Berra sharing time with .217 slugging Hector Lopez in left, while .608 slugging Bob Cerv rides the pine.

On the other hand, it's not so clear that these guys would be replaced. The 1968 Tigers and 1974 A's had well documented problems at SS and 2B respectively, and never found a solution. Dick Williams solution was to carry a bunch of secondbasemen and pinch hit for them all the time. The 1940 Yankees let Crosetti hit .194 for a full season while Rizzuto was tearing up the high minors for the second straight year, so it's not a given that Rizzuto would be replacing Crosetti now.

I just found it amusing that so many players were having Bill Bergen-esque seasons with the bat.

Oh, and perhaps the most unusual batting like (non Indian category):

Max Bishop 1929 A's

.200/.365/.299 69 hits/90 walks, 66 Runs/27 RBI

Updated through 9/13.



Batter of the Week
1974 Athletics - Reggie Jackson: 11-30, 6 HR, 9 R, 13 RBI, .367/.424/1.000

Pitcher of the Week
1968 Tigers - Denny McLain: 2-0, 0.54 ERA, 16.2 IP, 7 H, 13 K

Game of the Week

Great race. You're using a 154-game season, right?

Actually Teddy, 162 games. 27 opponents, 6 games against each.

Updated through 9/21, full results available here.


Batter of the Week
1909 Pirates - Fred Clarke: 8-26, 4 HR, 10 R, 12 RBI, .308/.429/.808

Pitcher of the Week
1970 Orioles - Dave McNally: 2-0, 0.00 ERA 15 IP, 4 H

Game of the Week

162 games? Does the season last into next April?

At this pace, probably. I'll try to step it up.

Good. Still some time for the M's to make up those four games.

The Giants are really playing a different game. Not only have they scored far more runs than anyone else, but they've given up the most as well. They are the Colorado Rockies of this league. Except that, they are in first place.

Updated through 9/29


I'm too lazy to pick players and game of the week, so choose for yourselves this time.

'46 Red Sox are 42-26 since the ASB. Looking good for next year!

I still want to hear a cogent explanation for that ridiculous 1954 Indians record, even with their HOF pinch hitter Ginsberg. In real life, they didn't have a winning record head-to-head against any team hat won more than 69 games. That computer needs a few whacks with a monkey wrench.

I still want to hear a cogent explanation for that ridiculous 1954 Indians record, even with their HOF pinch hitter Ginsberg. In real life, they didn't have a winning record head-to-head against any team hat won more than 69 games. That computer needs a few whacks with a monkey wrench.

I agree with the untimate sentence, but it is pretty much Dyck and Ginsberg. They win about 1 game a week with their late inning pinch hitting heroics.

Which makes me wonder why the computer didn't just keep them off the rosters, when their inane stats began to have such a distorting effect on their team's record.

The dynamic duo has created 139 runs and consumed only 58 outs. An average number would be what, 10? Remove 129 runs scored from the Indians total and they are probably below .500. Maybe more, as most of those RC's came in high leverage situations.

And when you think about it, the irony is rather rich. The whole point of a 162-game simulation was supposedly to counter the alleged "small sample size" distortions of postseason results, and in its place we get a 162-game season being completely distorted by the projected "feats" of players who in real life spent the entire season accumulating splinters in their butts!

The dynamic duo has created 139 runs and consumed only 58 outs. An average number would be what, 10? Remove 129 runs scored from the Indians total and they are probably below .500. Maybe more, as most of those RC's came in high leverage situations.

And of course in real life that 1954 Indians team would have finished well below .500 against this level of competition, as indeed they did play below .500 (22-26) against the only three over-.500 teams they actually faced in the 1954 season. That 111-43 record of theirs is the greatest mirage in baseball history.

And when you think about it, the irony is rather rich. The whole point of a 162-game simulation was supposedly to counter the alleged "small sample size" distortions of postseason results, and in its place we get a 162-game season being completely distorted by the projected "feats" of players who in real life spent the entire season accumulating splinters in their butts!

I wouldn't make too much of it. I believe SG said he was eliminating Dyck, Ginsberg, and other potential troublemakers from the other sims. This particular sim is more for entertainment than for any definative determination of the greatest.

What is interesting, is why these two and selected others but not others? The 1978 Yankees had Mickey Klutts who went 2-2 with a double. He hasn't batted yet in the sim. The 1984 Tigers had Mike Laga go 6-11 with a walk. He hasn't batted yet either. But Nelson Simmons who went 13-30 for the real Tigers, is 30-74 in the sim.

And to think we were all worried about Shane Spencer. With the sim season almost over, he currently has exactly the same number of AB's he accumulated in 1998 (albeit with a few more walks).

One possibility: Klutts, Laga and Simmons, and Spencer all play for teams using the DH. Ginsberg and Dyck may be getting more pinch hit opportunities as a result.

No idea why Simmons is playing and Laga isn't, but maybe the computer likes Simmons' switch-hittiness.

Isn't the '54 Indians pitching among the best in history? Maybe the sim just proves that good pitching beats good hitting. More likely, if it takes a smoothed career version of the pitchers, the '54 Indians are getting an ahistorical benefit from having Feller and Newhouser on the staff, two HOF pitchers past their best.

Isn't the '54 Indians pitching among the best in history? Maybe the sim just proves that good pitching beats good hitting. More likely, if it takes a smoothed career version of the pitchers, the '54 Indians are getting an ahistorical benefit from having Feller and Newhouser on the staff, two HOF pitchers past their best.

Except it's not the pitching that is propelling them. They have allowed an average number of runs, but have scored the 4th most.

It really is nothing more than Dyck and Ginsberg. Every update there's at least one game where the Indians are down by a couple in the 9th and then have Dyck get a PH single, followed by Ginsberg with a PH triple, followed by a sac fly. I don't know if SG can break it down, but I'd be willing to bet that this team scores far more runs in the 9th than any other team/inning.

And then there was the time while visiting the '78 Yankees that DH Ginsberg hit 9 triples in the series.

Without the distortion of those two, the Indians probably lose an additional game every week and their record would be close to 54-79 than the other way 'round.

And then there was the time while visiting the '78 Yankees that DH Ginsberg hit 9 triples in the series.

'98 Yankees. And he hit only 7, as the Indians won 6-5, 7-5, and 9-2. Ginsberg scored or drove in 9 of the Indians 22 runs. Dyck went 1 for 1, driving in Ginsberg (who led off with a triple) for the winning run in the 10th inning of game 1.

I can just picture the 1954 Indians trying to score more than 2 runs a game off the 1998 Yankees, at least outside the friendly confines of Simulation Stadium. I'm sure that the likes of Jim Hegan, Bill Glynn, George Strickland, and Dave Philley, starters with OPS+ marks of 79, 84, 72 and 78, respectively, would strike absolute terror into El Duque & Co.

Without the distortion of those two, the Indians probably lose an additional game every week and their record would be close to 54-79 than the other way 'round.

If they were lucky they might win 65 or 70 over the course of 162 games.

Updated through 10/6. Just three more weeks to go. Full results available here.



Batter of the Week(s)
1929 Athletics - Jimmie Foxx: 27-59, 8 HR, 27 R, 23 RBI, .458/.573/.949

Pitcher of the Week(s)
1912 Red Sox - Hugh Bedient: 4-0, 1.59 ERA, 4 G, 3 GS, 2 CG, 1 SHO

Game of the Week

Updated through 10/14. Just two more weeks to go.


Batter of the Week
1929 Philadelphia Athletics - Jimmie Foxx: 15-33, 8 HR, 13 R, 17 RBI, .455/.538/1.212

Pitcher of the Week
1905 Giants - Joe McGinnity: 2-0, 1.76 ERA

Game of the Week

Well this is bound to get Andy a little hot under the collar. Dyck and Ginsberg figured in every Indians win this week.

Not really hot, just amused, and not quite able to figure out what they didn't just throw out the stats of non-factors like those two before the simulation was even begun.

Of course this whole exercise just shows for the millionth time that (a) there's absolutely no "objective" way to determine the "best" team of all time, and (b) if there were, it sure wouldn't involved feeding Jim Dyck's stats into a 2006 computer. Maybe a 2066 version or something.

Just out of curiosity, is there even one person out there who actually thinks that the 1954 Indians would be even remotely competitive to the 1975 Reds? That pitching staff of the Indians that year was outstanding, but just take a look at the actual lineups of the teams that they beat that year if you want to get a dose of reality thrown in your face. I'm talking about the Red Sox, the Tigers, the Senators, the Orioles, and the A's. The 75 Reds could have won playing King and His Court against the full nine man lineups of any of those teams.

Don't worry Andy. We'll deal with the Ginsberg/Dyck problem in the next run.

Don't worry Andy. We'll deal with the Ginsberg/Dyck problem in the next run.

And don't get me wrong, SG, I really am far more amused than "outraged" at the spectacle of that unbelievably overrated team even being put into the mix, let alone seeing them 25 games ahead of the 1955 Dodgers! It will be interesting to see how you work out the kinks.

Regarding post 424.
Does anyone know the all-time single-season best record for one team against sub-.500 opponents? It's gotta be that 89-21 Indians team. It appears they beat the Yankees at their own game that season—pound the weak opponents and play 500 against the good teams. The Yanks that year were 77-33 against the sub-.500 teams. The 1998 Yanks were 76-22 against the bad teams. The 1906 Cubs were 85-24. The 1927 Yanks were 68-22. I just looked at the five or 10 obvious candidates, but those are the best I've found.

1939 Yankees are .500?

Ludicrous!

Does anyone know the all-time single-season best record for one team against sub-.500 opponents? It's gotta be that 89-21 Indians team. It appears they beat the Yankees at their own game that season—pound the weak opponents and play 500 against the good teams. The Yanks that year were 77-33 against the sub-.500 teams. The 1998 Yanks were 76-22 against the bad teams. The 1906 Cubs were 85-24. The 1927 Yanks were 68-22. I just looked at the five or 10 obvious candidates, but those are the best I've found.

And if you do the math, the records of those other teams you just mentioned against all the other teams (including postseason) were:

1998 Yanks 49-27
1906 Cubs 35-16
1927 Yanks 46-21
1954 Indians 22-26

Taking into consideration the balance and overall strength of those four leagues, that gives you a pretty good sense of the relative strengths of those teams. That 111-43 record says a lot more about the pathetic state of 1954 American League than it does about any historic status of the 1954 Indians.

I really am far more amused than "outraged" at the spectacle of that unbelievably overrated team even being put into the mix,

Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos

Updated through 10/22. Just one more week to go. Full results available here. The top two teams from each division (eliminating 1954 Cleveland) will then meet in two seven game series.



Batter of the Week
1953 Yankees - Mickey Mantle: 12-28, 4 HR, 11 R, 13 RBI, .429/.514/.857

Pitcher of the Week
1905 Giants - Dummy Taylor: 3-0, 3.93 ERA, 4 G, 2 GS, 1 CG

Game of the Week

The top two teams from each division (eliminating 1954 Cleveland) will then meet in two seven game series.

Cool. After disqualifying the Dyckbergs, all the other teams in the running, with the exception of my Giants, are reasonable choices. How the jints will end up with over 1000 runs when no one else will break 900 is beyond me.

Oh, no! You're disqualifying my favorite team??!!! But they won 111 games! Can we substitute the 1934 Los Angeles Angels?---They won 137!

And the first season is finally done. The 1942 Cardinals, 1905 Giants, 1998 Yankees, and 1998 Braves will meet in two seven game series to determine... nothing. BTW, if anyone sees any anomolous performances that I need to deal with besides Ginsberg/Dyck let me know.

Final results and boxscores available here.




*Disqualified due to the unrealistic batting lines of Joe Ginsberg(.496/.672/1.344 in 106 games) and Jim Dyck(.812/.867/.826 in 94 games)

Batter of the Week
1927 Yankees - Lou Gehrig: 8-25, 5 HR, 7 R, 8 RBI, .320/.393/1.000

Pitcher of the Week
1912 Red Sox - Smokey Joe Wood: 2-0, 0.50 ERA, 2 GS, 2 CG, 18 IP, 15 K

Game of the Week

Boooo! Boooo!

/end Mariner fan rant

are we going to run another one of these? I doubt the 39 Yanks would finish .512 again.

are we going to run another one of these? I doubt the 39 Yanks would finish .512 again.

I doubt a lot more than that about the final results, but at this point the only thing I want to express is my gratitude to SG for all the thought and work that went into the project. And it is nice to know that the computer didn't blow it and put the 98 Braves over the 98 Yanks!

SG, the runs scored and allowed by the 1905 Giants really stand out. Their offense that year really was outstanding; they led the league in OBP and SLG. But was their offense really 250 runs better than the '39 Yankees? 150 better than the '27 Yankees? Their pitching wasn't quite as dominant, but can a pitching staff which had Mathewson and McGinnity plus some pretty good backups and finished second in the league in ERA be 100 runs worse than all but two teams? I'm just wondering if some quirk in the system led to these results.

are we going to run another one of these?

If we equals me, yeah, I'm planning to run one more with the Primate-submitted managerial profiles, then a set of 1000 automated sims.

And it is nice to know that the computer didn't blow it and put the 98 Braves over the 98 Yanks!

Hear hear, and thanks Andy.

I'm just wondering if some quirk in the system led to these results.

Mefisto, I think it's a problem with how Diamond Mind handles smaller pitching staffs. I tried to build in off days in the schedule to even that out, but I'm sure a lot of the '05 Giants' pitchers came in to games when they were considered "tired" by the Diamond Mind engine, and that their performance suffered because of it. I'm not really sure of any way to work around that.

I also appreciate the work SG did as well - however the problem some mentioned before this was started is still there. Without any attempt to adjust based on competition, the pre-1960 teams are going to have more top teams, and the '27 Yankees have to be considered the best. Especially since Babe Ruth is god in DMB.

Mefisto, I think it's a problem with how Diamond Mind handles smaller pitching staffs. I tried to build in off days in the schedule to even that out, but I'm sure a lot of the '05 Giants' pitchers came in to games when they were considered "tired" by the Diamond Mind engine, and that their performance suffered because of it. I'm not really sure of any way to work around that.

I thought that was probably the issue. Thanks.

Hooray Beer Jints!

I don't think they are really one of the top 4 in this sim, but since they got in on their own merits more or less (no 1.400 OPS from Moonlight Graham here), I'll take it.

SG, you may want to look at Pat Seerey on the '48 Indians. In real life he hit 1 HR and drove in 6 in 23 AB. In the sim he hit 44 and drove in 115. I'm not sure how valuable he really was with a .207/.308/.440 line, but 44 HR is 44 HR.

Even though I won't get to see Edgar Martinez hit against Big Six, I'm still looking forward to the playoffs, SG.

are we going to run another one of these? I doubt the 39 Yanks would finish .512 again.

Well they scored over 200 runs less than in RL and 130 more. Plus they were 7 games under their Pythag in this league. Dimaggio was the only regular with over an .800 OPS when in RL they had 6 (5 of them roughly .900 or better). Just a bad season in every way. Really Red Ruffing was the only bright spot and even he wasn't tremendously better than in RL.

One outcome that seems particularly peculiar about the standings is that 556 run differential in favor of the pre-1960 league taken as a whole, which to put it charitably flies in the face of common sense.

And yes, I know that the sim is supposed to lead us into a world where common sense is put in its properly subordinate place, but is the computer really trying to tell us that collectively the best pre-1960 teams were better than those since then? That baseball, as opposed to every other known athletic sport, has somehow managed to regress? And that the vast expansion of the worldwide talent pool since 1960 has been negated by the replacement of sandlot pickup games by the lures of electronic distractions?

But then maybe it's just that we don't milk enough cows nowadays.

And yes, I know that the sim is supposed to lead us into a world where common sense is put in its properly subordinate place, but is the computer really trying to tell us that collectively the best pre-1960 teams were better than those since then? That baseball, as opposed to every other known athletic sport, has somehow managed to regress? And that the vast expansion of the worldwide talent pool since 1960 has been negated by the replacement of sandlot pickup games by the lures of electronic distractions?

I wonder if it's because pre-1960's baseball as a whole was worse that leads a computer simulation to give opposite results. In the modern game, talent is much more evenly distributed, thus making the best teams of today look inferior to their counterparts of 80 years ago. I think the 1986 Mets were one of the greatest teams of all time, but statistically, they don't have a Mike Donlin or an Al Simmons much less a Ruth, Gehrig, or Williams.

Looking at how dominant the best players were (66 HR for Ruth, 113 XBH for Gehrig, 1214 OPS for Williams) while batting against supposedly far superior pitchers than they ever faced in a real season, leads me to believe that a major weakness of the sim is its inability to see past the gaudy stats posted by the great players of the past against inferior competition. Ruth hit 60 HY in 1927, 66 in the sim. But in 1927, all the best pitchers in the AL were on the Yankees. He rarely if ever faced a pitcher like Mathewson, Brown, Wood, Feller, Ford, Maclain, Guidry, or Gooden, not to mention all the other good to very good pitchers who pitched the lion's share of innings in the sim.

It doesn't make sense that the best hitters would equal or exceed their actual stats hitting aganst far superior pitchers, but they did. And most of the best hitters (statistically) were in the pre-1960 division. If this was a one season anomoly, then no biggie. But if it's a genuine weakness of the sim, then it's not a good vehicle for determining cross era greatness.

And most of the best hitters (statistically) were in the pre-1960 division.

I just looked at the top 10 hitters in each division, based on their real life OPS in the season in question.

The top 10 in the pre-1960 division averaged an OPS of 1095, ranging from a high of 1258 (Ruth) to a low of 978 (Campy). In the sim, these guys averaged an OPS of 1019, with a high of 1232 (Ruth) to a low of 779 (Campy). The group lost 7% of OPS on average. Campy and DiMaggio both grossly underperformed (dropped 200 points).

The top 10 hitters in the post-1960 division averaged 1005 in real life, ranging from a high of 1135 (Mantle) to a low of 961 (Powell). There isn't a whole lot of difference between the extremes in both divisions, but the pre-1960's had a lot more in the 1000-1100 range. There were only two guys post 1960 to exceed 1000 (Belle was the other). Thus the average was 90 points lower. in the sim, this group averaged 908, a 10% drop, ranging from 1073 (Mantle) to 766 (Edgar). Edgar was the only one to grossly underperform, though Bernie Williams, Albert Belle, and Roger Maris all dropped about 150 points.

Based on this small sample, it looks like there was no great era bias against the post 1960 division, the best hitters declined nearly the same. But since the pre 1960 hitters started much higher, they finished much higher.

The reason they started higher I think has less to do with environment and more to do with unequal talent distribution. In the pre 1960 years, it was rare for the best hitter to not be on the team in question. But in the post 1960 years, that was frequently the case, and in some years (1989 and 1978 for example, and in 1984 the top Tiger was 10th), the team did not have a player in the top 10. The post 1960 OPS would have been helped tremendously by the inclusion of Yaz 1970 (1044), Martinez 1995 (1107), and McGwire 1998 (1222). Pre 1960 they were, (metaphorically speaking).

Based on this small sample, it looks like there was no great era bias against the post 1960 division, the best hitters declined nearly the same. But since the pre 1960 hitters started much higher, they finished much higher.

The reason they started higher I think has less to do with environment and more to do with unequal talent distribution.

Those were two very good back-to-backs, ML. Since my feeble brain would be completely incapable of improving the sim, we'll probably just have to wait for the trial and error adjustments to wipe out some of the strange results---and here I mean beyond Babe Ginsberg and Ty Dyck.

As to your point about talent distribution, I'd agree but take it a bit further. The premise for my unshakable belief in the vast superiority of today's game over the pre-1960 (and really even pre-1970) version is the enormous expansion of the worldwide talent pool. And of course the presence of so much talent throughout the game will inevitably make it harder for outliers to demonstrate their true talent level with outlier numbers. Which is why I particularly detest what Barry Bonds did, because it robs us of the means to put his numbers into any objective historical perspective. If Bonds had been clean, and those numbers of his had been legitimate (which they most certainly were not), I don't think there'd be any question he could be called the best hitter ever. Because the level of competition was so much higher.

And in this sense I'm not sure what the distinction is between "environment" and "unequal talent distribution." To me the defining mark of the pre-1960 era environment is precisely the lack of talent distribution, caused by the fact that there just wasn't that much true talent to go around. Which is why any sim that doesn't figure out a way to make adjustments is more or less bound to replicate the skewered results we can see in the standings above.

But as I've said, I have every confidence that SG will be able to make the adjustments, and if he does, I have a hunch that even those mighty 1905 Giants might get taken down a peg.

As to your point about talent distribution, I'd agree but take it a bit further. The premise for my unshakable belief in the vast superiority of today's game over the pre-1960 (and really even pre-1970) version is the enormous expansion of the worldwide talent pool. And of course the presence of so much talent throughout the game will inevitably make it harder for outliers to demonstrate their true talent level with outlier numbers.

Yes, and that is something that will be difficult to account for without adding way too much subjectivity to the experiment.

As to the talent distribution, far more of the greatest players made the sim from the pre 1960 ears than the post. Here's an admittedly hastily put together list of the greatest players from both eras, and whether they saw action in the sim or not:

Pre

Ruth - yes
Gehrig - yes
wagner - yes
Cobb - No
Hornsby - no
Foxx - yes
Williams - yes
DiMaggio - yes
Musial - yes
speaker - yes
collins - yes
Berra - yes
Jackie Robinson - yes
mantle - yes
greenberg - no
Mays - no
Campy - yes
Ott - no
Mathews - no
Cochrane - yes

14 of 20, and most of them had average to above average years (by their own standards), with the exception of Jackie Robinson.

Now post 1960:

Mays - no
Aaron - no
F. Robinson - yes
Morgan - yes
Bonds - no
Schmidt - no
Rickey - yes
Brett - no
Rose - yes
Yaz - no
Bench - yes
Ripken - no
reggie - yes
Boggs - no
Killebrew - no
McCovey - no
A Rod - no
Griffey - no
Clemente - no
Murray - no

Only 6 of 20 made it, and only Morgan put in an elite season.

How about if you make up All Star teams from the two divisions? Pre 1960 would look something like this:

Berra
Gehrig
Collins
Wagner
Baker
Williams
Speaker
Ruth

Campy
Jackie
Lou Boudreau
Mantle
Simmons
Foxx
Snider

Matty
Grove
Smokey Joe Wood
Brown
Feller

Plank
Ford
Lemon
Wynn
McGinnity

The only non-HOF'er is a guy who had one of the greatest pitching seasons of all time.

Post

Bench
Galarraga
Morgan
Trammell
Thome
Belle
mantle
maris

Freehan
Rose
Bret Boone
Bernie Williams
Rickey
Reggie
Jeter

Maddux
Hunter
Guidry
McLain
Glavine

Gooden
Eck
Rivera
Willie Hernandez
Palmer

That looks to me to be no contest without some huge subjective era adjustment. One team has no room for Stan Musial and Mickey Cochrane, the other starts Andres Galarraga and Alan trammell.

Gooden
Eck
Rivera
Willie Hernandez
Palmer

Probably should replace Hernandez with Goose, not that it make that much of a difference

And in this sense I'm not sure what the distinction is between "environment" and "unequal talent distribution."

What I am referring to would be the "hitting environments" or league wide run environments. If you were comparing a group of teams from the 20's to a group from the 60's, the better hitting numbers would be greatly attributed to the run environments in which they played. But in the sim, both divisions had teams from both high and low scoring eras, so my point was that the better hitting numbers posted by the elite players from the pre division was less attributable to the run environments and more to the fact that more of the elite hitters from the pre era made the sim.

I'm running a few more runs now to see if the era disparity is as stark as it was in this run. Once that's done I'll see if it's going to be a recurring issue.

And in this sense I'm not sure what the distinction is between "environment" and "unequal talent distribution."

What I am referring to would be the "hitting environments" or league wide run environments. If you were comparing a group of teams from the 20's to a group from the 60's, the better hitting numbers would be greatly attributed to the run environments in which they played. But in the sim, both divisions had teams from both high and low scoring eras, so my point was that the better hitting numbers posted by the elite players from the pre division was less attributable to the run environments and more to the fact that more of the elite hitters from the pre era made the sim.

Got it. Makes sense. I don't envy SG's task in trying to adjust for all this, but of course even though I think it's a neat exercise, I don't see any real way to measure quality of play over generations with any sort of mathematical formula. Any simulation which comes out with the 1905 Giants being equal to the 1998 Yankees needs more than just a little tinkering. Baseball skills aren't the same as football or basketball skills, but the thought that the best teams from 1905 and 1998 are roughly equal is just so absurd that I honestly don't know how to respond.

What can be compared fairly, though again not mathematically with any precision, is not which is the "greatest" team, but which team (or dynasty, if you will) accomplished the most within the context of its own era. (The 1936-39 Yankees vs the 1996-2000 version, or the 1906 Cubs vs the 2001 Mariners, to take two examples.) This is what makes for interesting arguments, because there are so many variables to consider. But to place a deadball era team on the same level of "greatness" with a modern team, in the sense that you try to seriously argue that it would be competitive with a good modern team over 162 games---that's just plain silly. So silly that underneath it all I doubt if anyone here really believes it, not even the most contrary of our pet contrarians.

Got it. Makes sense. I don't envy SG's task in trying to adjust for all this, but of course even though I think it's a neat exercise, I don't see any real way to measure quality of play over generations with any sort of mathematical formula. Any simulation which comes out with the 1905 Giants being equal to the 1998 Yankees needs more than just a little tinkering. Baseball skills aren't the same as football or basketball skills, but the thought that the best teams from 1905 and 1998 are roughly equal is just so absurd that I honestly don't know how to respond.

I think that's a little harsh.

The more I think about it, I'm less sure that any adjustment needs to be made, at least as far as adjusting for the fact that the pre integrations teams contain a much larger percentage of its eras greatest players. There's nothing incongruous with the notion that while pre integration baseball as a whole was inferior to modern game but the greatest teams from that era are as good or better than today's. I'm not saying that's necessarily true, but neither is it absurd. If the 1927 Yankees contained 50% of the best players in the 1927 AL and the 1998 Yankees contained only 10% of the best 1998 AL players, why couldn't the 1927 Yankees be a better team even though the 1927 AL was inferior to the 1998 version.

One thing that should be looked at is the stats of the players themselves. Due to the talent disparity, pre-integration players probably look a little better than they were. Ruth and gehrig rarely had to face the best pitchers in the AL in 1927 because many of them were teammates. Conversely, the Yankee pitchers didn't have to face Ruth and Gehrig. I assume the sim looks at a player's stats and adjusts them for hitting environment and ballpark, but not for the fact that the player did not face the best pitcher/hitters that season.

Ruth and Gehrig in 1927 played in a league which averaged 4.92 runs per game. That's probably what the sim looks at (if it does at all). But the 7 pitching staffs they faced allowed 5.07 runs per game.

I have no idea how to adjust for that.

If the 1927 Yankees contained 50% of the best players in the 1927 AL and the 1998 Yankees contained only 10% of the best 1998 AL players, why couldn't the 1927 Yankees be a better team even though the 1927 AL was inferior to the 1998 version.

Well, for one thing, wouldn't a team with that much (50%) talent be expected to play more than 1% better (.714 vs .704) against their league than a team with only 10% of their league's talent? I know you just pulled those 50% and 10% figures off the top of your head, but if they're even close to accurate, wouldn't you think that either the 1927 team would have won even more games, or the 1998 team quite a bit fewer?

I'm not saying that it's impossible that the 1927 Yanks couldn't have given the 1998 team a good fight in any given game, or even over a 7-game series, but at least two things make me doubt that they could be seriously competitive over the course of a season.

First, those pitching numbers that the 1927 team put up were against opponents with little or no depth to their batting orders. As we all know, Ruth alone outhomered every other AL team that year, and Gehrig outhomered 4 out of 7. The 1927 Yankee starters could waltz through nearly all of those other lineups without breaking much of a sweat, throwing 82 complete games compared to 22 for the 1998 team. How well could that 1927 staff have stood up to 13 opponents that averaged well over 4 times as many home runs per game as their 1927 counterparts did? How much extra pressure would have been brought to bear upon them? How would that have affected their innings pitched? And where could they have replaced those innings?

And second, can you imagine a league stripped of its entire non-white talent? You'd still have a bigger population base to draw from, but do a little mental exercise and try to picture an all-white 1998 American League condensed into 8 teams and you'll see my point. You'd still have tons of talent (Thome, Nomar, Will Clark, Palmeiro, most of the best pitchers, etc.), but you'd be missing the top five finishers in most every major offensive category. How can you possibly imagine that this sort of superstar talent could ever be replaced by the larger percentage of white farm boys and stickball players who took up the game back then, few of whom had the sort of hothouse training that top prospects all over the world routinely get today?

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking the 1927 Yankees at all in terms of what they accomplished that year. How can you top 110-44 and a 4 game sweep? But although I wouldn't even try to guess where that 1927 team might have finished if you just dropped them into the uniforms of the 1998 team and said "Go to it, boys!" I don't think I'd be wrong to imagine that they'd fall well short of those 114 wins. Or that the 1998 Yankees might well have won 125 or more games if placed back in 1927 against the other 7 teams of that all-white American League.

Now how you make mathematical adjustments for all this, that's someone else's conundrum, although I seriously doubt that it can be done. But a lack of precise measuring tools shouldn't be an excuse for casual radical skepticism about the broader truth. This is not our grandfather's baseball game---it's much, much better.

*Disqualified due to the unrealistic batting lines of Joe Ginsberg(.496/.672/1.344 in 106 games) and Jim Dyck(.812/.867/.826 in 94 games)

That sounds like circumstantial evidence for steroid use. ;-)

*Disqualified due to the unrealistic batting lines of Joe Ginsberg(.496/.672/1.344 in 106 games) and Jim Dyck(.812/.867/.826 in 94 games)

That sounds like circumstantial evidence for steroid use. ;-)

Say, how did that * get in there? Shoo! Shoo! Don't be giving people no ideas!

Hello... hello... hello...
is there anybody in here?

My bad. Work issues have kept me pretty tied up. I'm going to try and set this up sometime this week.

Here are the pitching matchups for the first round's first four games.

Game 1
1905 Giants at 1942 Cardinals: Christy Mathewson vs. Mort Cooper
1998 Braves at 1998 Yankees: Greg Maddux vs. David Wells

Game 2
1905 Giants at 1942 Cardinals: Joe McGinnity vs. Johnny Beazley
1998 Braves at 1998 Yankees: Tom Glavine vs. David Cone

Game 3
1942 Cardinals at 1905 Giants: Max Lanier vs. Red Ames
1998 Yankees at 1998 Braves: Orlando Hernandez vs. Denny Neagle

Game 4
1942 Cardinals at 1905 Giants: Ernie White vs. Christy Mathewson
1998 Yankees at 1998 Braves: Andy Pettitte vs. Kevin Millwood

The Game 1s are in the books.

I'm going to have to second guess Torre's decision to bench 7 of his starters, including Jeter for Luis Sojo, in the first game of the playoffs. What, did everyone test positive for DMB steroids or something?

You know the Yanks, they just want to give the Braves a break, since it's the only bleeping way that the Braves could ever win. But then since SG in Atlanta is pulling the strings here, I can sympathize. All that remains is for Cox to be allowed to place Joe Ginsburg on the roster just in time to hit a game winning triple off Todd Erdos.

Andy, you do know I'm a Yankee fan, right?

I'm not sure what happened there, I set the lineups and rotation beforehand, then just picked autoplay. Pettitte wasn't even supposed to start, it was supposed to be Wells. I can replay that one.

Diamond Mind also appears to have benched Stan Musial and Enos Slaughter in the Cardinals-Giants game.

I'm not sure Diamond Mind has had all that great a simulation here. The regular season totals look pretty reasonable, but on a game-by-game basis, there are a lot more eceentricities than I expected. Is this pretty much considered the best state-of-the-art game you can buy?

Nevertheless, I appreciate your running the exercise, SG.

I'm not sure what happened there, I set the lineups and rotation beforehand, then just picked autoplay. Pettitte wasn't even supposed to start, it was supposed to be Wells. I can replay that one.

And why didn't Matty, Donlin, and McGann start in game 1?

I just now read #478. Maybe both teams playing without their top 2 hitters somehow balances, but I don't think that's what we want.

Andy, you do know I'm a Yankee fan, right?

Actually I'd forgotten that, but that last post of mine was tongue in cheek.

I can replay that one.

Great, and while you're at it, can you replay today's DS game? You can start anyone except Mussina.

Tim McCarver would have been weeping with Jeter not coming into the game until the ninth inning. Michael Kay might have had a stroke reading that Yankee lineup. And I also like the Braves going with Gerald Williams at DH in the cleanup spot.

This simulation has apparently been hit harder by rainouts than the actual World Series was.

1 post per month for the last 4 months. I guess this project is officially dead.

Count the simulated ringzzzz

It's just hit a slow patch.

Juan Rivera never should have stolen that Diamond Mind simulator.

*cough*

I remember being excited about this project.

We all were, Dan, we all were.

Sorry, I was in the bathroom, what'd I miss?

(blows cobwebs out of face)

*cough cough*
This was a good idea...

Has it been 3 years already?

2003 Marlins won. Everybody go home.

[turns out the lights]