Your Alt-1924 Champions

 

In the end, the Alt-1924 Yankees could not be denied. In the 1923 World Series they came in heavily favored but also heavily injured, and while their replacements did well, the Yankees missed Santop, Collins, and Charleston more than the stats might show (or maybe I'm being Watsonian here). This time, they came in with a fully-healthy roster, and handily defeated the Cardinals 4 games to 1.  

Harry Heilmann was the MVP, hitting .455 with an OPS of 1.069 -- not as high as Goose Goslin's, but in 21 rather than 16 at-bats. Hotter still was Joe Harris, who went 12 for 21 and slashed .571/.591/.619 in a losing cause. Sam Rice also had a big series for St. Louis.  As a team, the Cardinals had almost as high a batting average as the Yankees (three fewer hits in two more at-bats, and about the same number of walks), but the Yankees hit for more power (slugging at .438 vs. .356 for the Cardinals) and were able to turn those advantages into more runs (6 vs. 3.8 per game). While it wasn't necessarily a deciding factor, the Yankees defense also held, with the team giving up zero unearned runs vs. four for St. Louis. It felt like there were a few errors in big situations for the Cardinals, too.

As noted, Harris and Rice were on fire for the Cards, but few of their teammates pitched in. Cardinals pinch-hitters were 5 for 11 with a couple of walks and a couple of RBI, and helped St. Louis win Game 2. However, Hornsby hit .235, Wright hit .250, Witt hit .222, and Meusel hit .158, so Harris and Rice's efforts were rarely rewarded.  

The Yankees' lineup, on the other hand, performed well up and down. Traynor hit .375 with a home run and a triple, Collins hit .368 out of the leadoff spot, Santop rebounded from a terrible start to go 4 for 7 with two doubles and 5 RBI in the last two games, Cobb hit .333, Terry was hitting .385 when he was sidelined with an injury in Game 4, and Pipp went 3 for 5 as his replacement.  On the pitching end, Pennock pitched brilliantly to notch two wins, Vance pitched well to grab another one, and Fitzsimmons was in the right place at the right time to grab the Game 5 win. He and Luque threw the only real clunker for New York in Game 2.  For St. Louis, Padron pitched OK but was tagged with two losses. Hoyt pitched a little bit better and got St. Louis' one win. Coveleski was a disaster in his start, and Toney was also a disaster in his start. 

Are the Alt-1924 Yankees the best team in baseball history (in this timeline)?  I think it would be hard to argue otherwise. The Spiders managed to win 7 of 18 against the Yankees, more than any other team.  The Yankees swept the season series against Newark. Winning 125 games in a 162-game regular season feels like it won't be easy to repeat, though I didn't think that beating the 1923 team's 121 wins would be doable. This team has now won five consecutive AL pennants and six out of the last seven years, and done so with a very stable lineup--Charleston, Collins, Heilmann, Pipp, Santop, Cobb, and Peckinpaugh all played in the Series-clinching games in both 1920 and 1924, and Williams, Faber, and Pennock also played in both 1920 and 1924 for the Yankees. Several other players were on the World Series roster both years but only played one of them. 

As I've mentioned in other posts, what would be particularly terrifying for the fans (and owners?) of other AL teams is that the Yankees do not seem to be nearing the end of any sort of window of contention. Collins is aging, but his real-life 1925 and 1926 were just as good as his excellent real-life 1924, though his playing time decreased. The same could be said for Cobb, though he rebounded from only playing half of 1926 to going back to full-time duty in 1927. The same can also be said for Cy Williams. Heilmann can be expected to play at a high level through 1930. Terry has yet to hit his real stride, and should be productive until 1935. Traynor should be above-average until 19 32 or so. And for those who do start to drop off due to age or injury or whatever else, there are replacements ready--Cronin should only be a few years away from being our starting shortstop, Lazzeri is sitting at AAA, as are Pepper Martin and Lefty O'Doul. It may be that an expansion draft in 1928 will take some wind out of the Yankees' sails, but it's as likely as not just going to free up some logjams and let new blood come in.

On the pitching side, the story is much the same--Pennock, Rixey, Luque, and Faber probably have a few more years of effectiveness, Vance is probably good into the early 30s if he follows his historical path, Fitzsimmons is already in the rotation and is likely to be productive into the mid 30s (if not necessarily _every_ year in that span), and the Yankees notably have Lefty Grove stashed at AAA (along with Flint Rehm, who also had a decent MLB career if not one like Grove's).

As for how Alt-1924 will end, the Barnstorming Tour will be starting soon and will be heading to East Asia, with games in Hawaii, Japan, Korea, China, and Hong Kong before finishing in the Philippines. Relevant to the worldbuilding discussion I've had elsewhere, I'm imagining the Philippines as a US ally that got their independence following the Spanish-American War (or its equivalent) rather than becoming a US colony, and I'm also imagining Korea maintaining their independence. I guess I still imagine Hong Kong as British?  Anyhow, that will play out, and the Caribbean League will have its usual season. I'll probably upgrade to the new version of OOTP after that... 

Alt-1924 World Series Preview!

 

The second half of the Alt-1924 season was a continuation of the first, and a coronation of the Yankees and Cardinals. The Yankees played at a torrid pace, winning their fifth consecutive AL pennant and shattering the single-season wins record in the process. The Cardinals cooled slightly in the second half but cruised to their own pennant, setting up the third Yankees-Cardinals championship series in the last seven seasons. 

Heilmann could not quite keep up with Cobb's 1921 record-setting pace, finishing at .419 and settling for the 4th-best single-season batting average of the 20th century and the third-most hits in a single season. I expect him to win the AL MVP award, but his performance might not have been the best in the MLB--Al Simmons in his first full season erupted for 262 hits (a record) and 433 total bases (another record) while hitting .400 on the dot. He became the first NL .400 hitter of the 20th century, with 11.6 WAR. He's a shoo-in for the NL MVP, which was cinched when Hornsby fell to an oblique strain in early August that cost him 8 weeks of time. This is the third year of the last four where Hornsby lost significant time due to injury, though he's at least back for the series.  

On the pitching side, Pennock led all qualifiers in ERA by over a half-run, though Streeter led MLB in strikeouts and wins. I suspect Pennock will win the Cy Young Award, but would not begrudge a win for Streeter. In the NL, there was no single pitcher with a dominant year--the Cardinals' success led them to clog the leaderboard for wins, but they only had one pitcher with a sub-3.00 ERA (Byron Harle at 2.99, and he got demoted to Indianapolis at the end of the season for some reason). 

This seems as good a segue into the World Series Preview as any!

Naively, it seems like it should be as simple as pointing to the 125 wins the Yankees had in the regular season vs. the 108 (still excellent!) the Cardinals had. The Yankees scored more runs than St. Louis and allowed fewer. The Yankees led the AL in both categories while the Cardinals were 3rd in runs against. However, I've consistently underestimated the Yanks' opponents in these previews and/or misestimated how things can go in a short series. So, let's go a bit deeper and see if I can do better (I usually can't).

The Yankees "only" won 121 games according to their Pythagorean record, but the Cardinals overachieved by 5 games, so the Yankees are still much better by that metric. New York's ERA is a full run better than the AL average, while the Cardinals are 0.2 runs better.  The Yankees scored 1.7 more runs per game than the AL average, while the Cards scored 1 run per game more than the NL average. If I did the math right (always a question) to only look at non-Yankees/Cardinals games, all those gaps get bigger by a bit, but not a lot. The Yankees actually scored more runs per game on the road than at home, and had identical stats for home/road ERA. St. Louis were league average as far as road ERA but much better at home. They also scored a bit more at home than on the road. Looking at all of this, the Yankees still look like they should be the dominant team here.  What if the NL is just a better league than the AL, so the Yankees dominated weaker competition but aren't actually better than the Cards? I'm not sure there's a way to really figure that out without interleague play. Sam Rice tore up the AL the first half of the year with the Senators, and was traded to St. Louis and did fine in the NL (but didn't tear it up). 

Moving on from there, we can look at the individuals on the teams. Heilmann had the best season by WAR (9.8), but it's hard to imagine a healthy Rogers Hornsby isn't the best player in the series. Even missing 1/3 of the season he was in 2nd place by WAR (8.5) among all the Yankees and Cardinals, and closer to 1st than to 3rd. In third by WAR is old pal Casey Stengel (7.1), with Glenn Wright about a half-win behind. After Wright is a string of Yankees, with a resurgent Peckinpaugh in 5th followed by Santop, Collins, and Cobb before reaching Sam Rice (who did most of his damage while in Washington) followed by another Yank in Pie Traynor.  

Pitching-wise, it seems like it's all Yankees. Nine pitchers for the Yankees or Cardinals had ERA+ better than 110, with three of them on the Cardinals and healthy, and five of them on the Yankees and healthy. Pennock and Mendez lead the way, with ERA+ over 200. Pennock, Fitzsimmons, and Luque top the leaderboards for Win Probability Added, though the list by pitching WAR is much more mixed. I plan to have Fitzsimmons in the pen during the World Series as the stopper/closer.

Only three players from the 1918 champions remain on the Cardinals: Hornsby, Witt, and Hoyt.  The Yankees still have 11 players from that first meeting on their roster. The 1920 Cardinals had five players in common with the 1924 version. 

OK, so. Prediction time, I guess?  I'm definitely gunshy from previous predictions, especially last year. This year's Yankees are healthy, though, and have seemed practically unstoppable. This is no pushover St. Louis team, but it's just hard for me to think that they can win it all. Yankees in 5. 

All-Star Break, Alt-1924

 

I just played out the All-Star Game, which was a fun, see-saw affair. The AL and NL traded off getting 2- and 3-run innings a few times, with the AL taking leads and the NL coming back to tie. In the end, Faber threw a clean 8th, Bob Pepper coughed up a run in the top of the 9th, and Pennock struck out the side in the bottom of the 9th (after a leadoff double) for the save. Santop was the MVP after an early home run, but it could have gone to Fournier or Rice (or Streeter, who pitched 3 good innings to start off the game for the AL).

Before getting into the main point of the post, I'll note that I've been thinking about the Newark Peppers situation that I went on about at length in the last couple of posts. I think where I'm at is that Newark c. 1925 was one of the largest cities in the USA, vibrant and growing, and affluent. Louisville was growing, sort of, but mostly by annexations. It was smaller than Newark and wasn't part of a gigantic metro area. A few decades hence the decision might be different, but I don't see a new owner, even if there were to be one, abandoning Newark for Louisville or Indianapolis. Toronto or MSP?  Maybe. But I feel like I've already talked myself out of that.

As far as the current state of affairs, the Yankees and Cardinals look like they are locks for another World Series matchup. The Yanks got off to an impossibly hot 40-10 start, and while they've cooled off very slightly they're still on a 123-win pace and have a 13-game lead over the Spiders. The Cardinals are not _quite_ that hot ("only" a 115-win pace) but have a slightly bigger lead--14 games over Philadelphia. The Yankees lead the AL in basically everything other than extra-base hits (6th), pitching strikeouts (3rd), and home runs allowed (a terrible, terrible 9th). They even lead in the defensive categories. The Cardinals aren't quite so dominant, sitting in 1st in the hitting categories but 3rd or 4th in more pitching categories than they are in 1st. Still, it's shaping up to be a battle of juggernauts. 

On an individual basis, Heilmann is gunning for Cobb's single-season batting average record. He sits at .426 right now, and is projected to fall just short of 250 hits. Heilmann is easily the AL leader in WAR. Even with Ruth's return, Heilmann might find himself winning a second straight MVP if he keeps up the pace.  Hornsby is having an even better season. While he's "only" (there's that "only" again) hitting .386, he's projected to hit 36 home runs and have jaw-dropping 13.6 WAR. That would be the single-season record if he can do it. Al Simmons is also having an amazing year for Baltimore, flirting with .400 and projected to get even more hits than Heilmann--262, which would also be an all-time record.

As for the Yankees, obviously it's hard to find any fault. Vance isn't having nearly as good a season as 1923, but it doing fine. Luque and Pennock have stepped up and Faber's been great. Charleston has mostly been struggling, but his defense keeps him playing nearly every day. Cobb and Heilmann have improved their defense to the point that I don't replace them in late innings, and they're hitting like crazy. So the third outfield spot has kind of been rotating between Charleston (mostly), Williams, and Goslin. Traynor was hurt for a while and I brought up Lazzeri, but sent him back down when Traynor came back. Toronto has a nice cushion in the IL, even though there's no standout performer in the roles that Terry, Goslin, and Arlett have filled there. The pitching has been great.  New Orleans is in 2nd place in the Southern League, and it's not crazy to think they could win the pennant. Joe Strong has been the two-way star there, with additional some strong pitching. 

So the story lines at this point for the second half look like individual milestones (Eddie Collins is only 12 hits from 3000, and whether Heilmann and Simmons (or others?) can hit .400, and whether anybody can get to 30 wins), and the Yankees and Cardinals trying to stay healthy. 

The Newark Peppers at a Crossroads, Part II

In the last post I mused about Harry Sinclair, the Newark Peppers, and the in-game choice that's looming. I thought through, and I think I established to my own satisfaction anyhow, that the most consistent headcanon has Harry Sinclair as the owner of the Alt-1924 Peppers, and that those Peppers are one of the 2-3 least successful teams in all of MLB over the past decade. Whether there's a scandal like Teapot Dome that's embroiling Sinclair in Alt-1924 is TBD, but if there were one, he'd have to sell. Whether new team owners would move the Peppers is TBD, but it doesn't seem outlandish at this point. The rest of this post will touch on where they might land, and maybe start to work on some of those TBDs.

I think there are basically six realistic cities for an Alt-1924 team to move to: Toronto, Montreal, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and Louisville. An Omaha paper musing about a third major league included Columbus and Providence as possibilities, but I don't think either one is realistic here. I plan a whole post on this from the standpoint of the upcoming expansion (which maybe will be for 1928?) so I won't go into detail here, but I'll note that the expansion looms over this choice. At the moment I'm thinking the first four cities will get the expansion teams (and given the choice, would prefer expantion teams to the Peppers), leaving Indianapolis and Louisville open. 

These two cities seem pretty closely matched. Indianapolis is a little bigger and will stay bigger over the coming decades. On the other hand, they only had major league baseball sporadically in this timeline: 1878, 1884, 1887-1889, and the 1914 FL campaign. Louisville, on the other hand, had a team in the AA that jumped to the NL and was in continuous operation 1882-1899 before getting nefariously contracted, as well as an NL team 1876-1877. So the history of major league baseball in Louisville is much deeper, if also somewhat further in the past. Louisville also has a new stadium, Parkway Field, that's ready for a major league park. Indianapolis didn't build Bush Stadium (which had various other names in the interim) until 1931. Using the same sort of logic as the last post, there's no particular reason to think that Parkway field didn't go into use in 1923 (or whatever it was), and indeed it's being used by the Alt-1924 minor league Louisville Colonels.   Nor is there any reason to think that Bush Stadium was already built, though I suppose a snap decision to build it to host a major league team in 1925 certainly could be made. The AAA ABCs are drawing better than the AAA Colonels, though that's mostly going to be a function of team quality.

In terms of whether these were "major league cities" in the 20s, Louisville had an early NFL team before that league settled down, Indianapolis did not. On the other hand, Indianapolis was almost always represented in the Negro Leagues while Louisville was much more on and off. On the other other hand, that's occurring in the future (and in Alt-1924's case, a future that's different from theirs). 

I think all in all, a move to Louisville makes more sense in-game than Indianapolis. But does it make more sense than remaining in Newark? And even if it does, would the scandal that affected Sinclair have happened?  I need to think about those some more. For now, I'm going to finish this and post. There's a mid-season update to write!

The Newark Peppers at a Crossroads

 

It's July 6th in Alt-1924. About a week ago in our timeline, Harry Sinclair was indicted for his role in the Teapot Dome scandal, which had been brewing for two years. After a long and sordid process, Sinclair served a 6-month prison sentence in 1929. He was an avid sports investor, owning horse farms and an interest in the Indianapolis Hoosiers. In 1915 he purchased the Hoosiers outright and moved them to Newark, ending that investment when the Federal League folded in 1915. 

In Alt-1924, the relocation of the Hoosiers to become the Newark Peppers is one of the main points of departure (though see below) and in the world building (such as it is) was one of the things that led the AL and NL to settle with the FL and absorb 4 teams. Sinclair, who responded to the real-life end of the Peppers by trying to buy the Cardinals, would presumably enjoy his new status as a major-league team owner and would still be owner on July 6th, Alt-1924. By all accounts he enjoyed owning the real-life Peppers even as they lost money. 

So, I think the (sort-of philosophical) questions that I'm Doylistically facing are:

1. Is there a Teapot Dome scandal in Alt-1924? Is Harry Sinclair involved? Did he just get indicted? 
2. Is Harry Sinclair even the owner of the Peppers?
3. Regardless any of that, does it matter if Sinclair did get indicted and he owns the Peppers?
4. Regardless of any of that, does it make sense that the Peppers would move, which is kind of the only consequence I should be caring about or can keep track of?

To tackle #2 first--the rationale for saying no to any/all of these is that there have clearly been a lot of really important changes to make Alt-1924 different from our 1924 in one blazingly-bright important way: Black ballplayers take the field along white teammates in American League and National League games (as well as minor league ones). So, whatever happened to enable that (and I have some vague ideas but no concrete canon), and also whatever happened to enable me to pretend WWI didn't happen (or didn't involve the USA), and to wave away the Mexican Revolution and Prohibition and make Haiti more prosperous and...  Well, with whatever happened to do those things, why would we expect Harry Sinclair to even exist let alone own the Peppers let alone be indicted in the Teapot Dome Scandal let alone think that scandal existed?

And I think the answer to that, in part, is that however my canon has been evolving based on various implications I've realized, Harry Sinclair has always been part of canon. As noted in the first sentence of the second paragraph, I considered Sinclair's move of the Hoosiers to Newark to be an important (baseball) event in this timeline. I put Sinclair Oil ads on the walls in Newark's home stadium and in other stadia through the Northeast.  If I'm going to write Harry Sinclair out of the story, there's no particular reason to have real-life players in this simulation like Ty Cobb or Oscar Charleston.

Backing up to #1, it's less clear. The Teapot Dome Scandal was presumably a confluence of a bunch of things, and while Sinclair is clearly a part of canon, Warren G. Harding and his administration needn't be. This is especially true given that at least in my unwritten headcanon Lincoln served out his full second term, the Philippines are independent, etc. So, Sinclair could still be a well-regarded businessman enjoying his middle-age years by owning a (terrible) major-league baseball team. So maybe that makes sense. I'm trying to keep in mind that I want to do what's most fun for me and I'm also hoping to make things as happy for the people in this timeline as I can. :)

For #3, does it matter?  Yeah, I think given the norms and expectations of the era, he's going to have to sell the team. 

So, with the recognition that #1 is still unsettled let's tackle #4. The Peppers and their former-Fed cohort are halfway through their tenth season in the majors. Let's see how they've done so far:

• Baltimore: 669-871 .434 total, best record 81-81, best finish 6th, 3.22 million total attendance, $1.8M total balance, 6th-best current minor league system
• Buffalo: 694-844 .451 total, best record 83-79, best finish 4th, 3.99 million total attendance, $2.8M total balance, 14th-best current minor league system
• Kansas City: 687-854 .446 total, best record 91-71, best finish 3rd, 3.77 million total attendance, $2.5M total balance, 17th-best current minor league system
• Newark: 665-873 .432 total, best record 80-82, best finish 6th, 3.69 million total attendance, $2.2M total balance, 16th-best current minor league system

By these measures Buffalo looks like the most successful of the teams, though I'd actually give it to KC for their multiple finishes above .500 and 3rd place finishes--they're dragged down by some atrocious years c. 1916-1918.  Whether Newark or Baltimore is worse isn't clear. Their overall records and best records are basically a tie, and Newark has out-drawn and out-earned Baltimore. Baltimore is in much, much better shape in terms of its minor league system and looking forward, though. Having said that, their pitching situation looks dire. Going one level (or two) deeper, Baltimore's AAA team has won a PCL pennant and finished 2nd in the PCL last year, and their AA team won last year's Southern League and AA championships, and both teams lead their leagues this year. Newark's minor league teams have never finished higher than 3rd. 

Baltimore isn't going to move. Ned Hanlon is the owner (using similar logic as Sinclair, he's in canon), he lived until 1937, he had done multiple things since 1909 to keep professional baseball in Baltimore. It's tempting to compare some of the less-successful non-FL teams in this period as well and speculate about their futures (the Browns fare worse in all of the categories above than any of the ex-FL teams), but that's another post.  This is a post about the Peppers and what they might do.

"Relocate the team" is certainly a reasonable idea for what they might do.  As for where, I think that should be a second post since I think this one has gone on plenty long by now...