Final Standings
W L .PCT
Cubs 107-33 .764
Pirates 102-38 .729
Giants 88-52 .629
Phillies 75-65 .536
Reds 51-89 .364
Dodgers 50-90 .357
Braves 42-98 .300
Cardinals 42-98 .300
National League Most Valuable Player
Frank Chance (Second Award)
Chicago Cubs
.350 AVG 1 HR 88 RBI 64 SB
National League Pitcher of the Year
Vic Willis
Pittsburgh Pirates
30-5 2.18 ERA .87 WHIP 6 SH
Chicago Cubs
Underperformers
Jimmy Sheckard .249 39 RBI 37 SB vs. Actual .262 1 HR 45 RBI 30 SB
Joe Tinker .216 49 RBI 31 SB vs. Actual .233 1 HR 64 RBI 30 SB
Ed Reulbach 15-9 2.07 ERA vs. Actual 19-4 1.65 ERA
Overperformers
Frank Chance .350 1 HR 88 RBI 64 SB vs. Actual .319 3 HR 71 RBI 57 SB
Thankfully for Chicago, most players played at about their actual numbers. That and the fact that they had almost no injuries during the season meant they could keep their very thin and quite honestly weak bench players out of the lineup.
Frank Chance was as dominant as any dead ball player I have had. Had Johnny Kling (.319 3 HR 106 RBI) not missed a quarter of the year he probably would have won the MVP himself. Harry Steinfeldt (.315 3 HR 115 RBI) was also a major player and MVP candidate. Frank Schulte (.287 7 HR 74 RBI 31 SB) was extremely valuable down the stretch.
The rotation was blessed with two A&C starters, but While Mordecai Brown (27-4 2.17 ERA) was close to his real numbers, when Ed Reulbach was on the mound it felt as if every start was like the beginning of a Rocky Balboa fight, where he is getting pounded in the corner by Apollo Creed. And despite that he still had a solid season.
John Taylor (23-10 1.87 ERA) and John Pfiester (27-3 1.99 ERA) were outstanding in the back end of the rotation. When Reulbach missed a long stretch during July and August Carl Lundgren (10-2 1 SV 2.29 ERA) became far more important than expected. Orval Overall (3-2 3.10 ERA) did not really pitch very well at times.
Pittsburgh Pirates
Overperformers
Claude Ritchey .302 93 RBI 12 SB vs. Actual .269 1 HR 62 RBI 10 SB
Ed Phelps .307 5 HR 35 RBI vs. Actual .247 1 HR 17 RBI
Ginger Beaumont .305 5 HR 50 RBI vs. Actual .265 2 HR 32 RBI
Underperformers
NONE
Much like Cleveland I thought that EVERY player would be on the overperformers listing, but because their team was so strong, they didn’t need anyone else. I also found it interesting that NOBODY underperformed their card. This is how you stay in the race until the final days of the season.
Honus Wagner (.343 70 RBI 74 SB) was denied the batting title, but still remains the heart of this team. When Beaumont and Fred Clarke (.290 2 HR 51 RBI 29 SB) were in the top two spots of the lineup they were nearly invincible.
The bench was not used very often, and was either all or nothing when in the lineup. Otis Clymer hit .348 in very limited use, but Bill Hallman (.202) Tommy Sheehan (.176) George Gibson (.172) and Henry Pietz (.138) really struggled.
Like most dead ball teams, Pittsburgh relied heavily on pitching to win. Their rotation of Vic Willis (30-5 2.18 ERA) who was an easy choice for Pitcher of the Year, Alan Leifield (24-5 2.06 ERA) Sam Leever (21-10 1.99 ERA) and Charles Phillippe (15-9 2.80 ERA) made life very difficult for hitters.
The rest of the pitching staff was actually better than expected. Mike Lynch (7-5) struggled at times, but was unhittable in others. Homer Hillebrand (1-3 2.83 ERA) James Brady (2-0 2.00 ERA) James Maxwell (1-0 1.00 ERA) and Henry McIlveen (1-1 1.48 ERA) were very good in limited use in the final weeks of the season.
New York Giants
Overperformers
Art Devlin .326 2 HR 54 RBI 100 SB vs. Actual .299 2 HR 65 RBI 54 SB
Billy Gilbert .255 14 RBI 8 SB vs. Actual .231 27 RBI 22 SB
Underperformers
Bill Dahlen .217 57 RBI 24 SB vs. Actual .240 1 HR 49 RBI 16 SB
Dan McGann .215 59 RBI 38 SB vs. Actual .237 37 RBI 30 SB
Leon Ames 4-7 4.45 ERA vs. Actual 12-10 2.66 ERA
New York seemed to be underpowered during the course of the season, but looking at the numbers at the end of the season it’s more a cause of the Giants not completing the formula for winning in the NL this season. That formula was: Beat up on the 5 weak sisters in the league, and be competitive against the Cubs and Pirates. Unfortunately for the Giants, they struggled against Pittsburgh, and were inconsistent against Chicago.
Art Devlin had a monster month in September, fueled by an 18 game hitting streak. He was the one player in the league that overcame the now useless hit and run charts and became the first player in my replay history to get 100 stolen bases.
James Seymour (.281 8 HR 114 RBI) narrowly missed leading the league in RBI. Sammy Strang (.286 2 HR 104 RBI), Roger Bresnahan (.273 75 RBI 45 SB) and George Browne (.268 42 RBI 44 SB) were important to the team’s success.
The bench was not very good, but Mike Donlin (.337 17 RBI) provided his usual keen batting eye. Unfortunately, nobody else really did much in their limited playing time.
The Giants staff was solid again, as Joe McGinnity (25-12 2.28 ERA) George Wiltse (17-9 2.70 ERA), Christy Mathewson (21-13 2.10 ERA) and Luther Taylor (19-9 3.05 ERA) just ended up on the short end of the stick. As seen above Leon “Red” Ames didn’t help the cause at all and Christy’s little brother Henry (who happened to be even taller) was useless in one start and four relief appearances with a 9.45 ERA.
Philadelphia Phillies
Overperformers
Roy Thomas .281 53 RBI 33 SB vs. Actual .254 16 RBI 22 SB
Underperformers
Michael Doolan .191 2 HR 56 RBI vs. Actual .230 1 HR 55 RBI
William Gleason .193 54 RBI 16 SB vs. Actual .227 34 RBI 17 AB
The Phillies were in a tough position. They weren’t good enough to compete, but they were much better than the lower division. The offense was carried by the top of the lineup. Sherry Magee (.279 4 HR 83 SB), Thomas, and John Titus (.279 80 RBI) were solid. Bill Bransfield (.266 3 HR 94 RBI) struggled down the stretch, and Red Dooin (.266 1 HR) was one of the few at the bottom of the lineup that could hit.
The bench was not very good, but did have Leopold Sentell (.280 1 HR 12 RBI 7 SB) and Joe Ward (.279) in small sample sizes.
The pitching staff was good, but overmatched much of the time. Tully Sparks (17-16 2.26 ERA), Bill Duggleby (14-16 3.06 ERA), Lew Richie 12-12 (2.90 ERA) and last season’s first baseman Johnny Lush (23-12 2.67 ERA) was the ace of the staff this year. The bullpen was actually very good for a collection of C’s and D’s with a 3.19 ERA as a group.
Cincinnati Reds
Overperformers
Miller Huggins .313 36 RBI 47 SB vs. Actual .292 26 RBI 41 SB
Fritz Odwell.318 26 RBI 9 SB vs. Actual .223 21 RBI 11 SB
Underperformers
Jim Delahanty .193 47 RBI vs. Actual .280 1 HR 39 RBI
George Schlei .169 3 HR 32 RBI vs. Actual .245 4 HR 54 RBI
Cincinnati clearly was struggling to build a roster. Other than Miller Huggins none of the regulars provided any help to the pitching staff. While the bench wasn’t much better, it did offer Fritz Odwell’s unbelievably strong production in the second half of the season and Harry Mowrey’s .284 performance in the final three weeks of the season.
Because the already weak hitting didn’t match their actual numbers, the pitching suffered for it, which is too bad, because George Ewing (11-19 2.89 ERA) deserved much better. Jake Weimer’s 13-20 3.68 ERA was a big departure from his days in Chicago. Bob Wicker (8-17 4.52 ERA) and Charles Fraser (9-18 3.59) struggled in the rotation as well. Only Charlie Chech (3-1 2.66 ERA) was good in a bullpen with an ERA over 5.00.
Brooklyn Dodgers
Overperformers
NONE
Underperformers
Charles Alperman .209 2 HR 54 RBI 30 SB vs. Actual .252 3 HR 46 RBI 13 SB
Harry Lumley (.298 4 HR 77 RBI 46 SB) had a solid season, but didn’t reach his actual numbers. Lumley was part of a duo of big bats that Brooklyn boasted. The other was Tim Jordan. Before Mark McGwire came along “Big City Tim” was the only rookie to lead the league in homers. Jordan repeated that performance with a .265 15 HR 79 RBI season. These two were the only regulars that provided anything resembling a good season.
Emil Batch (.251) and John McCarthy (.343) provided a spark for the team off the bench in what were basically half season performances.
Combined with a weak offense, the pitching had to work hard to stay out of the cellar. Elmer Stricklett (13-22 3.73 ERA) and Bill Scanlan (13-19 3.33 ERA) kept the losing streaks to a manageable number but only Charles McFarland, whom I have roasted a million times for his usually poor seasons actually pitched much better than his 1-7 3.55 ERA would indicate. Factor in that he was only a C starter this was actually a great season. The rest of the bullpen wasn’t very dependable and their ERA of close to 6.00 would show why.
St. Louis Cardinals
Overperformers
William Marshall .277 22 RBI 9 SB vs. Actual .227 17 RBI 8 SB
Underperformers
Justin Bennett .213 60 RBI 28 SB vs. Actual .262 1 HR 34 RBI 20 SB
Shad Barry .232 50 RBI 18 SB vs. Actual .269 1 HR 45 RBI 17 SB
George McBride .095 17 RBI 2 SB vs. Actual .169 13 RBI 5 SB
I didn’t think it was possible that anyone could actually have a worse year than Lee Tannehill of the White Sox. I was wrong. George McBride put those awful numbers up in a 90 game stretch, so it’s not like he was a pinch hitter, or only played a few games. Combined with his platoon partner Forrest Crawford (.189 11 RBI) the Cardinals have serious problems at the shortstop position.
St. Louis had the largest roster in the set with 37 cards, and you had to use almost all of them because they had only 3 players reach the 100 plus mark in games played. Combined with their weak .220 team batting average pitching was pretty much their only hope to win. Jake Beckley (.254) Mike Grady (.269) and Al Burch (.279) were the main offensive threats. John Himes hit .273 in 40 games.
The Cardinals pitching staff was also the largest in the set this season. I was forced to use them all. While nobody drastically underperformed, nobody did well, and certainly nobody stood out. Charlie Brown (9-18 4.11 ERA) performed at times like an ace, but other times he pitched like his cartoon counterpart. Fred Beebe (9-16 3.68 ERA), Ed Karger (6-17 4.48 ERA) and Carl Druhot (6-12 4.32 ERA) were the main starters.
Of the many other hurlers used during the season only Charles Rhodes (2-3 3.07 ERA) pitched well, and the others all had ERA’s over 4.00.
Boston Braves
Overperformers
NONE
Underperformers
Most of the team
Another truly awful Braves season comes to an end. This is a team that couldn’t do much of anything well, and somehow managed to be significantly worse than Washington defensively, committing an MLB high 236 errors. They hit just .209 as a team and had an ERA of 4.80.
There were very few bright spots on the team, but manager/first basemen Fred Tenney (.263 58 RBI 28 SB) and Johnny Bates (.260 8 HR 62 RBI) provided the real punch in the lineup. Beyond those two, only Pat Dolan (.240) hit above .225.
The pitching was already overmatched to begin with, but with the bats as a whole not helping had it rough. This was easily the smallest pitching staff in baseball with just seven pitchers. Irv Young (11-24 3.53 ERA) had a good year considering the team behind him, and Vivian Lindaman (15-19 2.78 ERA) had to pitch like Cy Young to have numbers that good. Jeff Pfeffer (13-22 4.56 ERA) may not have had a good year on the mound, but did lead the league for having the most letter F’s in a player’s name.
Gus Dorner (3-30 8.11 ERA) had what is easily the worst individual year for a starting pitcher ever. There was nothing I could do to help as he and the remaining pitchers left to choose from were all D’s.
