1941 Card Set and Disk Review
I started doing the prep work for my upcoming 1941 BBW replay and that means one of the first things to be done was to purchase a 1941 card set and a 1941 BBW disk. No, I don't really need both, but I do like to flip through the card set from time to time and after all, old habits are hard to break. The 1941 set is listed as a revised set (all 546 players are carded). The Master Game numbers are all included on the cards as we have come to expect from a revised set, plus a stats line is included for pitchers and hitters. It is a very good-looking set of cards.
One of the first things that gets done to get
this replay preparation started is that a spreadsheet is set up, including dumps
of the batting, pitching, and fielding stats, all pulled from Baseball-Reference.com (BBR).
Using the player names and team names from the batter’s spreadsheet tab, a new
tab was created and the Master Game ratings from the BBW disk were entered by
hand into the new tab. I suppose it is a bit obsessive, but this gives me the
ability to do sorts and perform some level of analysis based on this
accumulated data.
In my just completed 1911 BBW replay, the
fielding definitely took a hit (there were zero SS9's), but that
was an appropriate adjustment based on the fielding skills at the time. The
fielding ratings on the 1941 set are more like what you might expect from a
"modern" season.
Note: These totals may look a little odd at
times, but players that appeared at multiple positions will therefore appear
multiple times in these counts. Further, I separated my outfielders across the
three different outfield positions, so I didn’t include counts at all for the
outfielders.
Let me also say that these are not
complaints. I am just stating the facts of what I saw while I was reviewing
this set. The revised sets, with all the players included, are a definite
improvement over the original sets, at least as far as what I am looking for in
a BBW replay. Your mileage may vary.
C9 (1), C8 (17), C7 (14), C6 (19), C5 (10)
Bill Dickey
(NYY) is the only C9. Bill Harman
(PHP), in his only season in the major leagues, caught in five games (C5) and
pitched in five games (4*W).
1B5 (4), 1B4 (10), 1B3(15), 1B2 (34)
Johnny
McCarthy (NYG) got a 1B4 for making eight appearances at first base. There
are four players that played either one or two games at first base and got a
1B3 rating. Rudy York
(DET), and Nick Etten
(PHP), both 1B2's, played 150 or more games at first base in 1941.
2B9 (1), 2B8 (12), 2B7 (23), 2B6 (15), 2B5
(11)
Bobby Doerr
(BOS) is the only 2B9
3B5 (5), 3B4 (18), 3B3 (52)
There are 37 3B3 third baseman who played less than ten games played at third base, including fifteen that only made
one appearance at the position.
SS9 (6), SS8 (14), SS7 (13), SS6 (19)
Phil
Rizzuto (NYY) and Pee Wee
Reese (BKN), your World Series shortstops, are both SS8's. 1941 was
Rizzuto's rookie season, while Reese was in his second season, but his first
full season.
OF3, OF2, OF1
There are six center fielders that got an OF3
rating, with Gee Walker
(CLE) being the only left fielder to get an OF3 and Dixie
Walker (BKN) being the only right fielder to be so rated. Joe
DiMaggio (NYY) and Dom
DiMaggio (BOS) are both OF3's, but brother Vince
DiMaggio (PIT) is an OF2.
From looking at these raw counts of players
per defensive rating it should be obvious that most teams should be able to
achieve a fielding two team status, with a fielding one team status well within
reach for some of these teams. This was not true for the recent 1911 BBW
replay.
Other Findings:
Ernie
Lombardi (C8, CIN) is the only catcher with a +5 arm and Bill Dickey
(NYY), the only C9 in the set, is the only catcher with a +6 arm. The average
of the 63 catchers arm ratings (from -4 to +6), is -.24. However,
counting a catcher who makes a few appearances and gets a -4 as the equal to a
catcher who plays ~100 games and gets a positive throw rating isn't really
fair. If these arm ratings were somehow amortized across innings played, we
would likely result in a different (higher) number. Having said that, the
average of the catchers arms rating across the whole is, for all intents and
purposes, +0.
The average speed rating for all players is 9.97,
so on a range of speed ratings that go from 1 to 20 having this average out to
~10 is pretty good. There are six players with 19 speed and sixteen with 18
speed. George
Case (WAS), one of those with a speed of 19, led the league with 33 steals,
but only 25 players across both leagues hit double digits for successful
steals. There are a total of twenty-one players with three 31's for hit-and-run
purposes. There are 18 players with no 31's at all, all but one being pitchers,
Sherry
Robertson (WAS) being that one.
The 1911 New York Giants stole 347 bases, the
two leagues league combining for 3404 successful stolen bases. The 1941 AL had
471 stolen bases, with the NL checking in with 411 stolen bases … I will have
to cure my itchy BBW trigger finger to ensure I keep my steals within reason
for this replay.
The average arm rating for non-pitchers
(unless that pitcher played a non-pitcher position) comes out to 31.2.
Arm ratings range from 20-40, so having this average out to ~31 is pretty good.
Joe
DiMaggio (NYY) is the only 39 in the set, with Bill Dickey
(NYY) and Pete
Reiser (BKN) coming in next with 38. There are three with 37, eleven with
36, with catchers and shortstop having the most of these higher ratings, and of
course, a few outfielders thrown in for good measure. 33-year-old Jimmie Foxx
(1B5, BOS) has a 36 arm … that seems high to me … frankly, they both seem high
to me, but we will just go with it.
I did find several things that are likely
actual errors:
Larry
French (CHC, BKN) shows as being a switch-hitter on the disk with a swing
adjustment of SA-0, but BBR shows him as being a right-handed hitter (SA-2?).
Archie
McKain (DET, STB) shows as being a left-handed hitter on the disk with a
swing adjustment of SA-4, but BBR shows him as a switch-hitter (SA-0?).
George
Susce (CLE) appeared in one game in 1941 and was given a J1 injury rating
instead of a J4.
As far as disk/card errors go, no, I am not
doing any qualitative analysis to determine if there are any other errors built
into the set. These are things that are likely just simple typo's or perhaps
some sort of historical error that never got corrected along the way.
Tie Games in 1941
These games do not appear in either the APBA
provided schedule nor in the ATMgr provided schedule, but I like to track them
and account for them manually. I didn't expect there to be quite as many as
this (13), but that is what it adds up to.
05/02 PIT @ NYG (7-7, 13 Innings)
05/23 BOS @ NYY (9-9, 9 Innings)
05/29 NYY @ WAS (2-2, 5 innings)
06/18 NYG @ PIT (2-2, 11 Innings)
07/06 BSN @ BKN (3-3, 7 Innings, Game 2)
07/17 CHC @ PHI (2-2, 6 Innings)
07/29 BKN @ STL (7-7, 12 Innings)
08/12 SLB @ CHW (6-6, 14 Innings, Game 2)
08/14 CLE @ SLB (3-3, 10 Innings)
08/25 WAS @ SLB (3-3, 10 Innings, Game 2)
09/01 BSN @ BKN (2-2, 6 Innings, Game 2)
09/16 NYG @ STL (1-1, 10 Innings)
09/21 CHW @ DET (1-1, 14 Innings, Game 2)
Mis-Matched Names
The final part of this exercise, since I am
comparing BBR information versus APBA information anyway, is to cull out the
list of names that do not "match." Sometimes a nickname is used,
sometimes a proper name, but the two sources don’t necessarily provide an exact
match. And further, because I will use ATMgr to automatically load
my lineups for every game, I will eventually have to step through this process
again to ensure the names between APBA and ATMgr are in sync as well.
Last Comment
While perusing the internet, looking
(unsuccessfully) for a downloadable PDF version of the 1942 Sporting News
Baseball Guide, I stumbled across this website: Charlton's Baseball
Chronology - labeling themselves as
"A DAY BY DAY HISTORY OF THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE GAME OF BASEBALL
FROM 1791 TO 2018."
This site provides day-to-day news updates
(well, maybe almost day-to-day updates), but there is plenty of baseball and
occasionally non-baseball tidbits crammed in there. Just in poking through the
1941 season I saw information on trades and releases, highlights and lowlights,
injuries, notable events, pennant races, and the death of Lou Gehrig
was duly noted as well. I was originally looking for day-to-day information on
the Joe
DiMaggio 56 game hitting streak, and it also included plenty of information
of Ted
Williams' trek towards .400.
Also, given the historical timeframe, noted
is Hank
Greenberg getting a draft notice (he wouldn't be the only player to get
one) and then reporting in May for active duty with the Army, thereby missing
the remainder of the season. The United States wasn't in the war yet, but what
was going on in Europe at the time was certainly part of the news of the day.
For those playing a full season replay this site is worth a look and likely worth saving as a link in your browser favorites. I wish I had found this for the five replays I have already completed, but somehow, I just missed it along the way. Highly recommended.
Comments
Post a Comment