It's April 5th, 1920, at least inside my OOTP game. Opening Day games will be played from Boston to St. Louis, with the Yankees opening at home with Red Faber on the mound against his old White Sox team. The algorithm thinks the Red Sox will edge out the Yankees to take the pennant by a game (in the absence of injuries/trades/bad luck/etc.), while it sees the Phillies running away with the NL for a rematch of 1919 (and 1917--best two out of three?). It also foresees huge seasons from Joe Jackson (.388), Ty Cobb (.395), several pitchers (4 30-game winners and another 2 29-game winners‽), and most of all Babe Ruth (.374/41/143, and an OPS > 1.200!). Those 41 home runs would set a new record, needless to say.
Spring Training went without incident. I might have used some of the main players more than I needed--5 of the 6 players with the most spring AB were Yankees. But nobody got hurt, and I should be able to manage playing time going forward so nobody gets too tired. I let the AI deal with releasing players and ended up with a roster that was more or less what I would have picked, at least for the Yankees themselves. I'd talked myself into having Bullet Rogan in the show, but the AI put him in Toronto. That's fine, it's not a slam dunk and I figured I'd take that advice. It also put Russell and Barnes in Toronto, though, and I pulled them up to New York in exchange for demoting Schorr and Beresky. The AI also kept Nunamaker as the backup catcher, and in the end I can't disagree--he had a good spring and I'd have to release him rather than demote him. Gilhooley and Blackwell were two other question marks that the AI kept in New York and I agree with. Of course, both are outfielders and exacerbate the logjam the Yankees have--besides Gilhooley and Blackwell, the team has Cobb, Charleston, and Heilmann, who clearly need to get as many ABs as possible. There's also Cy Williams, who is basically the 4th outfielder despite being 2nd in the AL in home runs last year.
When I asked the AI to set up the initial lineups and depth charts, and it tried to solve the problem by putting Heilmann at first base--not unreasonable since that's where he played historically in 1919-1920 before moving to the outfield. But he's a terrible fielder at first base, and Pipp is still very productive (and historically had a very good 1920). And if I'm not going to play Pipp at first base there's Terry in the wings, who's coming off of a Triple Crown winning year in Toronto. So he's obviously been promoted. Historically, Baker missed all of 1920 to take care of his sick family, but I expect him to play a full season. If not, I tried to hedge against it by playing Dobie Moore at 3B a lot to make him an acceptable fielder there. Sammy Hale is also on the big team, so I think I've got the infield backups covered.
Pitching-wise, the algorithm thinks we'll be in the main pack of teams, about 0.4 runs per game worse than Boston (and Washington). It expects both Faber and Brown (a rookie!) to win 30 games for us, which needless to say, I don't expect. I'm starting the season with a rotation of Faber, Hendrix (our new acquisition!), Brown, and Barnes. All but Hendrix were 20-game winners in real life 1920. I'm certain the rotation will see some shuffling around, however. In particular, Dutch Ruether in the bullpen had a great 1920, and Pennock, Caldwell, and Mogridge could also slide into the rotation pretty easily.
Looking down at the farm, I have no real sense of whether the Maple Leafs are better than last year's pennant winners or not--the Yankees have called up their best two hitters (Terry and Gilhooley) and their best pitcher (Brown, though he was also hurt during the stretch drive). On the other hand, Toronto now has Bullet Rogan and Goose Goslin, and will hopefully have a full year of Bernardo Baro. Dazzy Vance should also be moving toward being MLB-ready. The Pelicans weren't very good last year, and I also don't have a good sense of how they'll do this year. Lefty O'Doul looks like he'll be the regular 1B, which should be fun. The AI put Tommy Thomas and Sloppy Thurston down there, which seems too low, but I guess we'll see and I can always promote them.
Looking at where 1920's top performers are are relative to where they were in real life: Babe Ruth is, obviously, still in Boston rather than New York. Tris Speaker is also still in Boston. Shoeless Joe is still blissfully in Cleveland rather than finishing his career in Chicago in star-crossed fashion. St. Louis' two big stars, George Sisler and Rogers Hornsby, are on the same teams they were in reality. While we don't have Ruth, the Yankees do have several of the other stars of 1920 that they didn't otherwise have--Eddie Collins, Cy Williams, and Oscar Charleston, in particular. Newark, of all places, benefits from having Edd Roush and Ross Youngs, though they're still slated by the algorithm for a last-place finish.
Turning to pitchers, Pete Alexander is still on the Phillies rather than the Cubs. Jim Bagby and Stan Covelesky are on the Tigers' AAA team and the Packers, respectively, rather than Cleveland. The Yankees look to potentially be the big losers here though--Shawkey's on the Browns, Mays is still on the Red Sox, Jack Quinn is retired, and Babe Adams (who wasn't on the Yankees in real life but was on my Yankees) is also retired. We do have Ruether and Brown, and Rube Curry and Pennock a bit lower down the list, but it's not clear that makes up for it...
