O's Alltime Team Simulation

[Bahama O's Fan]

https://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2020/04/how-would-an-all-time-orioles-team-fare-in-simulation.html

Surprised that I didn't see any thread on this yet. It looks kinda cool. Sorry if there is one and I missed it. 

[Bahama O's Fan]

I mean, they have Houston sweeping us, but the team is interesting

[DrungoHazewood]

Curious choices.  Boog played four times as many games at first as left, but he's the LFer.  Adam Jones would have a hard time eclipsing Blair and Brady, at least in my mind.  Alomar was only here three years, which indicates this is heavily single-season driven.  Hoiles at catcher indicates it's heavily offense-driven. 

Raffy is the DH.  He played 44 games at DH as an Oriole, ever.

Blair not making the team at all is curious.  I'm not complaining about the Orioles not getting any St. Louis Browns, but the Nats get the Expos, and the Twins get Walter Johnson.  I think the O's should get Willie Keeler, Hughie Jennings, John McGraw, Joe Kelley and Sadie McMahon.

I wonder if the stats will be context and era adjusted?  If not the teams active in the deadball era and the 1920s and 30s will have some huge advantages.

I'm sure I'd have even bigger beefs with other teams, like Anthony Rizzo being the Cubs' first baseman over, say, Cap Anson.  Or Nellie Fox over Eddie Collins at second for the White Sox.  Or Magglio Ordonez starting over Joe Jackson.

[El Gordo]

Mainly, why is Blair not in CF? No problem with Boog in LF.  Alomar was the best 2B to play for the O's even if it was only 3 years. Sure would want Raffy's bat in the lineup, but if not DH would you play him over Eddie at 1B? He won the GG at DH. If you replace O'Day with Hoyt, as I would, then I'll take Gus at C.

[Aristotelian]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Curious choices.  Boog played four times as many games at first as left, but he's the LFer. 

Buck must be managing and DD gave him a roster with 4 1B's. The OF should definitely be Blair in CF with Frank and Adam Jones at the corners.

I like Alomar at 2B but Grich should be on the roster. 

I'm not sure how Boddicker makes this team. Would rather have one of the '97 relievers (Orosco, Rhodes, or Benitez) to match up. 

[DrungoHazewood]

3 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Buck must be managing and DD gave him a roster with 4 1B's. The OF should definitely be Blair in CF with Frank and Adam Jones at the corners.

I like Alomar at 2B but Grich should be on the roster. 

I'm not sure how Boddicker makes this team. Would rather have one of the '97 relievers (Orosco, Rhodes, or Benitez) to match up. 

I don't really like all time teams with players at positions they didn't really play.  Jones was a center fielder almost his entire Oriole career, so I couldn't put him in a corner.  Boddicker makes the team because he was a better pitcher than any of the relievers.  Was he the best available pitcher... I don't know.  I go with El Gordo that I'd have Wilhelm on the team.  And if Alomar can make it, why not Bedard?  His 2007 season was a good as any season Rhodes had in Baltimore, just in twice as many innings.

I know this is all for fun, but quality of team is heavily dependent on how long the team as existed. The Cubs had 70 years of history before the version of the Orioles they're picking from here.  Pretty much all the expansion teams would get obliterated by the teams that existed before 1910.  Although that's somewhat mitigated by stupid picks like Rizzo at first.

[Orioles5258]

If they did this simulation by birthplace for all 50 states Maryland would fare MUCH better. I think Maryland born players would be top 5 seeded and could actually win it all, which is incredible for a small state.

C- Jimmy Foxx

1B- Mark Teixeira

2B- Cupid Childs

SS- Cal Ripken

3B- Home Run Baker

LF- Charlie Keller

CF- Al Kaline

RF- Harold Baines 

DH- Babe Ruth

Bench- Judy Johnson, Bill Nicholson, Brady Anderson, Brian Jordan, Billy Ripken, Buck Herzog, 

SP- Lefty Grove

SP-  Vic Willis

SP- Babe Ruth 

SP- Bobbie Mathews

RP- Eddie Rommel

RP - Josh Harder

RP Moose Haas

RP- Steve Barber

RP- Gavin Floyd

RP- Jeff Nelson

RP- Denny Neagel

RP- Geoff Zahn
 

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Orioles5258

[LA2]

In reality, Boog was put in LF only because Jim Gentile was starring at first base. He's said it wasn't a good position for him and is sort of embarrassed about it.

[DrungoHazewood]

13 hours ago, LA2 said:

In reality, Boog was put in LF only because Jim Gentile was starring at first base. He's said it wasn't a good position for him and is sort of embarrassed about it.

Except that Boog was the regular LFer in '64 when Norm Seibern was the first baseman.

Seibern is from an extinct class of player.  First baseman with 12-homer power but 100 walks.  They traded for him in an old-fashioned challenge trade.  30-year-old 1B Seibern for 30-year-old 1B Jim Gentile and $25k.  I can't remember the last time I saw one of those.  I guess Schoop-for-Villar kind of fits the mold.

[LA2]

2 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Except that Boog was the regular LFer in '64 when Norm Seibern was the first baseman.

Seibern is from an extinct class of player.  First baseman with 12-homer power but 100 walks.  They traded for him in an old-fashioned challenge trade.  30-year-old 1B Seibern for 30-year-old 1B Jim Gentile and $25k.  I can't remember the last time I saw one of those.  I guess Schoop-for-Villar kind of fits the mold.

Yes, Boog was talking about the 1962 and '63 seasons, during which he was a regular player and they had to find someplace to play him. I suppose he would have broken in as a DH in more recent times.

[LA2]

4 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Except that Boog was the regular LFer in '64 when Norm Seibern was the first baseman.

Seibern is from an extinct class of player.  First baseman with 12-homer power but 100 walks.  They traded for him in an old-fashioned challenge trade.  30-year-old 1B Seibern for 30-year-old 1B Jim Gentile and $25k.  I can't remember the last time I saw one of those.  I guess Schoop-for-Villar kind of fits the mold.

Siebern, another player who converted from the outfield to first base, but who was a better outfielder (except for a very famous World Series he made), was one of my favorite O's when I first became a fan in 1965, although by then he was already fading. He had an extremely patient demeanor and it showed up in his walk totals, as you mentioned (106 with the O's in '64 led the league, 110 in '62 with the A's placed second). Unlike Villar, he was exceedingly slow. I used to worry whenever watching him try to take an extra base on a hit, especially when rounding third. It was like watching Brooks trying to score, but with a lot less head waggling and grimacing and (I remember in one game against KC) a lot more sweat streaming down his vein-bulged straining neck.

Norm didn't hit a lot of homers with the O's, but had a fairly good number (19, 18, 25, 16) in the four seasons leading up to the trade--not up to Gentile's totals, of course, but Diamond Jim was also in clear decline after his thunderous '61 O's season (41 homers, 146 RBIs). In fact, Norm's OPS+ was slightly better than Gentile's in the two seasons leading up to the trade (150 to 147).

Long ago, I published a poem about Norm Seibern. I got some of the facts wrong in it (I was a kid then), but it's in a book that got some recognition. The poem itself should have been out much earlier in baseball anthologies, but I didn't know how to hobnob and peddle writing then and more importantly suffered from an insane degree of lack of confidence, probably because my father was obsessed with making me into a physician and I always had to hide my poetry books and writing from him. (Sorry for the TMI.) I should find Seibern's address and mail the poem to him. It will be interesting to see whether it delights him or he gets peeved about the factual errors. The biggest distortion is I have him going straight from the Yankees after the WS error to the O's rather than to the A's, where he actually had his best seasons.

I remember admiring Seibern's smoothness at first base. He had almost no errors in his last few seasons (I'd say that error totals are meaningful at that position). Near the end of his career the Giants and Red Sox used him that way, as a lousy pinchhitter/good late-inning defensive replacement.

Career: .272/.369/.423/.792, 117+.

Fielding pct. at first base: .992.

162-game average: 15 homers and 86 walks.

[DrungoHazewood]

8 minutes ago, LA2 said:

Near the end of his career the Giants and Red Sox used him that way, as a lousy pinchhitter/good late-inning defensive replacement.

Another extinct class of player, the first base defensive replacement.  Back before relievers took over the roster you have teams carry Mike Squires or Dave Stapleton all year just to play first in the 8th and 9th innings of games they were ahead.

We should have a whole thread on extinct baseball player types.  I think that would be fun, everyone else probably thinks I'm a little nuts.

[osfan83]

4 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Another extinct class of player, the first base defensive replacement.  Back before relievers took over the roster you have teams carry Mike Squires or Dave Stapleton all year just to play first in the 8th and 9th innings of games they were ahead.

We should have a whole thread on extinct baseball player types.  I think that would be fun, everyone else probably thinks I'm a little nuts.

American League pinch runner?

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, osfan83 said:

American League pinch runner?

Yea, pretty much.  bb-ref combines pinch hitter/pinch runner as a position.  So this is a query for G > 1.25 * PA, and 15+ PH/PR appearances, AL, since 1970:

                                                                          
Rk            Player  G PA Year Age  Tm Lg AB  R  H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO
1     Jose Tartabull 24 14 1970  31 OAK AL 13  5  3  2  0  0   2  0   0  2
2        Allan Lewis 25  9 1970  28 OAK AL  8  8  2  0  0  1   1  0   0  0
3         Chico Ruiz 31 24 1971  32 CAL AL 19  4  5  0  0  0   0  2   0  7
4        Allan Lewis 24 10 1972  30 OAK AL 10  5  2  1  0  0   2  0   0  1
5        Wayne Comer 27 10 1972  28 DET AL  9  1  1  0  0  0   1  0   0  1
6     Blue Moon Odom 21  1 1973  28 OAK AL  1  5  0  0  0  0   0  0   0  0
7        Allan Lewis 35  0 1973  31 OAK AL  0 16  0  0  0  0   0  0   0  0
8    Herb Washington 92  0 1974  22 OAK AL  0 29  0  0  0  0   0  0   0  0
9       Rodney Scott 48 18 1975  21 KCR AL 15 13  1  0  0  0   0  1   0  3
10    Matt Alexander 63 11 1975  28 OAK AL 10 16  1  0  0  0   0  1   0  1
11       Don Hopkins 82  8 1975  23 OAK AL  6 25  1  0  0  0   0  2   0  0
12    Matt Alexander 61 30 1976  29 OAK AL 30 16  1  0  0  0   0  0   0  5
13       Larry Lintz 68  4 1976  26 OAK AL  1 21  0  0  0  0   0  2   0  0
14      Eddie Miller 17  7 1977  20 TEX AL  6  7  2  0  0  0   1  1   0  1
15   Orlando Ramirez 25 13 1977  25 CAL AL 13  6  1  0  0  0   0  0   0  3
16    Matt Alexander 90 47 1977  30 OAK AL 42 24 10  1  0  0   2  4   0  6
17   Darrell Woodard 33 10 1978  21 OAK AL  9 10  0  0  0  0   0  1   0  1
18       Ted Wilborn 22 14 1979  20 TOR AL 12  3  0  0  0  0   0  1   0  7
19        Joe Cannon 70 51 1980  26 TOR AL 50 16  4  0  0  0   4  0   0 14
20         Kim Allen 19  3 1981  28 SEA AL  3  1  0  0  0  0   0  0   0  2
21     Casey Parsons 36 28 1981  27 SEA AL 22  6  5  1  0  1   5  1   0  4
22      Dennis Werth 41 19 1982  29 KCR AL 15  5  2  0  0  0   2  4   0  2
23          Ed Jurak 26 14 1985  27 BOS AL 13  4  3  0  0  0   0  1   0  3
24        Manuel Lee 64 43 1985  20 TOR AL 40  9  8  0  0  0   0  2   0  9
25     Rodney McCray 32  7 1990  26 CHW AL  6  8  0  0  0  0   0  1   0  4
26         Alex Diaz 22  9 1992  23 MIL AL  9  5  1  0  0  0   1  0   0  0
27      Jarvis Brown 35 18 1992  25 MIN AL 15  8  1  0  0  0   0  2   0  4
28    Charles Gipson 94 72 2001  28 SEA AL 64 16 14  2  2  0   5  4   0 20
29   Gerald Williams 33 19 2002  35 NYY AL 17  6  0  0  0  0   0  2   0  4
30       Luis Ugueto 62 25 2002  23 SEA AL 23 19  5  0  0  1   1  2   0  8
31    Charles Gipson 18 12 2003  30 NYY AL 10  3  2  0  0  0   2  1   0  2
32        Adam Stern 36 16 2005  25 BOS AL 15  4  2  0  0  1   2  0   0  4
33     Jason Ellison 63 48 2007  29 SEA AL 46  9 13  0  0  0   0  1   0 12
34     Terrance Gore 17  3 2016  25 KCR AL  3  6  0  0  0  0   0  0   0  1

 

[DrungoHazewood]

Place hitters have been extinct since Babe Ruth.  I can't quite wrap my head around how Willie Keeler batted.  In Burt Solomon's book Where they Ain't it's described as "he choked almost halfway up and chopped and thrust and poked at the ball."  He's said to have swung a 28 ounce bat. 

With pitchers sometimes throwing close to 500 innings in his era, they must not have thrown hard often, so I think Keeler literally took a kind of swinging bunt at the ball most of the time, and could place it around the diamond effectively where he wanted.  Today swinging bunts are themselves essentially extinct.  Keeler and a few others probably did it half or 3/4ths of the time. 

Certainly no one has batted that way in my lifetime.  He had some doubles and triples and the occasional homer.  So I'm thinking that with less than two strikes he'd sometimes pull the hands together and swing hard.  But he also had 8-9 full or nearly full seasons where he struck out less than 10 times.