Alt-1917: Start of May Status

 I'm one month in to the 1917 season, and things are going better for the Yanks than I had hoped, if not as well as they could be. They remain their streaky selves but put a longer winning streak together than their losing streaks. Let's look at the predictions that the algorithm made just as the season was about to begin:

This assumes no injuries etc., but shows the Yankees as a 90-win team, within striking distance of the top if things break well. It also imagines us as having the best offense in the league by far, with middling pitching. As far as individual performances, it has Pipp leading the league in HR again, with Baker not far behind (and tied with Ruth for possibly the last time before the latter presumably catches fire). It has Babe Adams winning 28 games! It also forecasts the White Sox becoming a mediocre team and the Athletics becoming terrible.

At this point, we're 2.5 games behind the leaders (Cleveland and Boston). The AL player of the month was Oscar Charleston, who's up around .420 right now. Pipp also got off to a hot start, and he and Charleston are 1-2 in a lot of categories and are both in the top 5 of a lot of others. Baker and Heilmann are off to pretty slow starts, though. The pitching has in fact been iffy, and we've blown a few games we probably should have won. Still, at this point it's hard to complain too much. Let's see how the next few weeks go.

For completeness, here's the NL:

In reality, it's the Pirates and Cardinals who are battling for the top spot (with the Giants) while the Cubs are languishing. As usual I'm not paying super-close attention to the NL, at least as of now. But the predictions clearly think the Rustlers' reign is going to end this year, due to a truly anemic offense. I suppose we'll see...

Biggest metro areas: 1920/1930

 

Following up on this post about city populations, I found someone who calculated the populations of metro areas pre-1950 using the 1950 definitions. 

So here are the numbers from that site for the 25 largest US metro areas in 1920 and their Alt-1915 status (so to speak):

1. New York -- 8,490,694  (Yankees, Giants, Dodgers, Peppers)
2. Chicago -- 3,521,789 (White Sox, Cubs)
3. Philadelphia -- 2,714,271 (A's, Phillies)
4. Boston -- 2,315,111 (Rustlers, Red Sox)
5. Pittsburgh -- 1,759,989 (Pirates)
6. Detroit -- 1,305,798 (Tigers)
7. St. Louis -- 1,139,877 (Browns, Cardinals)
8. San Francisco -- 1,009,467 
9. Los Angeles -- 997,830
10. Cleveland -- 972,162 (Spiders)
11. Baltimore -- 852,051 (Terrapins)
12. Buffalo -- 753,393 (Blues)
13. Minneapolis -- 704,566 (expansion?)
14. Cincinnati -- 628,999 (Reds)
15. Washington -- 571,882 (Senators)
16. Milwaukee -- 539,449 (expansion?)
17. Providence -- 536,572 
18. Kansas City -- 528,833 (Packers)
19. Worcester -- 455,135
20. New Haven -- 415,214
21. New Orleans -- 413,750
22. Albany -- 408,598
23. Wilkes-Barre -- 390,991
24. Seattle -- 389,273
25. Portland -- 372,777

Montreal and Mexico City would fit between Cincinnati and Washington, Toronto between KC and Worcester, and Havana would be #28 in the USA or #31 in North America.  These will (probably obviously) have a different definition than the US boundaries.

Here's 1930, as in the last post I'll pull out the Alt-1915 teams and stick in the other big North American cities:

• Los Angeles -- 2,327,166
• San Francisco -- 1,347,772
• Mexico City -- roughly 1,000,000
• Minneapolis -- 857,513 (expansion?)
• Montreal -- roughly 819,000
• Havana -- roughly 728,000
• Milwaukee -- 725,263 (expansion?)
• Toronto -- roughly 631,000
• Providence -- 616,495
• New Orleans -- 505,306
• Worcester -- 491,242

Of note, I think, is that Minneapolis sticks out as the most obvious expansion candidate that isn't on the west coast--better than Milwaukee, though Milwaukee is still an obvious candidate and closer to the other teams. Montreal also more than holds its own. Indeed, Montreal vs. Toronto is similar to MSP vs. Milwaukee in a lot of ways--Toronto is better integrated into the region, but Montreal is just plain appreciably bigger. Also, while I'd ben thinking that the Newark team would move as soon as there was an excuse to do so, that's no longer clear to me--the New York metro area is more than twice the size of Chicago, which has had two teams continuously for over a century. I'm now thinking that four teams in the NY metro area could be a stable configuration, at least until radio/TV kicks in. We'll see if the financial model points in some direction or not.

It's also interesting to me to see that many of the largest unserved cities are in the Northeast and are really non-starters for ever having MLB--places like Providence or New Haven. I expect I'll make stadiums for them anyhow, and maybe they'd be suitable for a random weekday game or series for one of the Boston teams just for a change of pace...

On the edge of '17

 The Caribbean Winter League has concluded (congrats to the champion Jacksonville Red Caps and to league MVP Rogers Horsnby), and all the players have had time off to recuperate (or in Hornsby's case to stare out the window and wait for spring). Now they've all gathered in their training camps, with the first games about to start. 

OOTP, for whatever reason, has some limitations with how it runs its spring training.  Rather than teams defining a spring training home, there's a common stadium used for all. And rather than playing any interleague games, only games against in-league teams are scheduled. I could go in and hand-derive a schedule or see if there's one to download, but last year I just ran with it and I probably will again this year. But these are minor quibbles.

Once again, rather than having the Yankees (and thus, any of the AL teams) have a single ST home, I'm taking them on tour. Last year started in Havana and worked its way through Tampa, New Orleans, Hot Springs, Louisville, and Indianapolis. This year we're going to start in California and work our way east. I'm planning the five weeks of ST to be spent in two cities per week: SF and LA; Tucson and Waco; Galveston and Memphis; Birmingham and Atlanta; Richmond and Atlantic City. All of these except Birmingham are originals, all but Richmond are done (and Richmond is close). 

I've tried to improve the Yankees over the course of the winter, at least a bit. I took advantage of my crystal ball and traded away Roxy Walters for Herb Pennock, which hopefully will help my pitching. I had to re-sign Cannonball Redding after the AI dropped him (I took over that particular AI duty afterward). I focused on drafting actual known MLB players, which included Pat Collins (who'll make up for trading away Walters) and Dutch Reuther. I also signed Lefty O'Doul, though that's looking a bit down the road (and of course he'll be a hitter not a pitcher). 

The real-life 1917 Yankees won at a .464 clip, which would give them 75 wins in a 162-game season. I'm reasonably confident we'll outplay that team. Their offense was 12% worse than average, not helped by an abysmal season at 2B by Fritz Maisel (who we traded to Brooklyn last year). Our 2B situation isn't great, but hopefully it's better than the OPS of 50 that Maisel gave that team. Our outfield should be substantially better, with Heilmann and Charleston in place of Tim Hendryx (who was actually pretty good that year) and Hugh High (riding the bench for us). 

Their pitching was about league average, and that's still our problem spot. Two of the OTL Yankees rotation aren't on my ATL Yankees at all: Bob Shawkey (good year) and Nick Collup (bad year). I'll have Alan Russell (good year) in the rotation rather than the pen. I'm hoping ST can sort out/help develop Dazzy Vance some more, but he looked terrible in Pensacola. Dick Redding started off well but had a few clunkers. Babe Adams is one of the pillars of the rotation right now, and in real-life 1917 he was in a random minor league. In fact, we're heading toward uncharted (for me) waters--real life WW1 took a bunch of people away from the game, but I'm playing with the development engine so they should keep playing. Whether the absences are seen as injuries or what, I don't know. 

Looking around the league: The OTL White Sox handily won the pennant over Boston. Here, Chicago is looking for their 3rd straight pennant. Their pitching looks to be mostly what it was in real life. They're missing Chick Gandil (not a big deal) and Joe Jackson (very big deal), but they'll clearly be the team to beat again. They added Pops Lloyd at shortstop and Fred Anderson, who won 20 games for Buffalo in 1916 but neither seems like a long-term solution. On the other hand, they're rich and don't show signs of getting less so. The Red Sox' pitching OTL was their main strength, and that looks to be completely intact in ATL. They also look like they're moving Babe Ruth to be their everyday first baseman in addition to taking a pitching turn, so they're going to be pretty formidable as well. They also still have Tris Speaker. 

So, the Yankees may need a miracle to get anywhere near first place. But hopefully we can at least finish above .500 and/or take advantage of what might come our way...