Skip to main content

Week 3 Summary


Week 3 is in the books and the season have just gotten cranked up. This week saw a full schedule of games for both leagues so while there are still six total teams that haven’t reached the ten-game played mark yet, suffice it say that league play is full speed ahead at this point.

Jimmy Collins, Player-Manager 1901 Boston Americans
There have been quite a few roster adjustments already and most teams have commenced with making lineups manipulations as well to try and improve performance. Most of the roster adjustments are around the fact that some teams are still scrambling to assemble a roster following the raids on National League players from American League teams this past winter. All teams are carrying a very thin bench as well, so any injury, even for a few days, is problematic as well.

Chicago (AL) and Pittsburgh has set the standard so far and both have early leads in each of their leagues. Both teams feature solid pitching and good hitting and both teams have had schedules that featured games against lesser opponents, all keys to getting off to a fast start. It is still early though and I still expect plenty of jockeying for position in the standings as the season progresses.

I am going to hold off for another week before listing leaders, but I am keeping an eye on my stats already. I really pushed stolen base attempts this past week and made up some of the delta from the previous week, but will need to continue to push on that. Likewise for sacrifice hits - I pushed it, but I think the difference is sacrifice attempts often don’t end up as sacrifice hits - they can end up a strike or a ball, foul tips, fielder's choices, or even the occasional pop-up/double play … it seems like ~50% of my sacrifice attempts end up as something other than a sacrifice. I need to ensure I am getting a sacrifice hit in every game.


My total hits and league batting averages are up, but my runs scored are down. My sacrifice flies are through the roof though - teams always seem to be able to get runners to third, but not always able to otherwise score them. Even though I bumped up the error numbers from 2 to 2.5 per card my number of errors up, but still way behind. Therefore league ERA's are still a little on the high side yet.

It's still early and I am sure the numbers will come around as games progress (I keep telling myself). With the poorer defenses I am seeing resultants I don’t think I have ever seen before. I also acknowledge that perhaps the scouting in those days wasn't as thorough as it is now, so I often take chances on the base paths that I might never otherwise do, especially in circumstances where one run can really make the difference.


Huntington Avenue Grounds, Boston  MA



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Preparation, Part 2

I didn't intend to wait this long before starting my 1901 replay, but I was interrupted by a couple of house projects and work-related issues. Most of that is behind me, plus winter is here, so I am finally ready to light the fires on this replay. Now that part one ( link ) of the replay set-up is complete it is on to step two: reviewing the player transactions and making additional card adjustments in the area of errors. Baseball-Reference.com (BBR) includes listings of major league debuts, major league finales, as well as a list of player movement that occurred before, during, and after the season. The ATMgr player transaction file comes with its own list of player transactions during the season, most of which overlap with what BBR has. The three BBR listings were dumped into a spreadsheet, their formats massaged so they could be lumped into a single file, and then additional tweaking was completed so the BBR file could be merged in with the ATMgr file. Now it was t...

Week 5 Summary

Week 5 is in the books and league play is in full swing in both leagues. The Midwestern NL teams have just started their first swing through the east and the AL east coast teams will be making their first trip west this coming week. All the teams are still jockeying for players and injuries are having an impact as well. You can start to be able to identify the haves and the have-not's in both leagues, the difference being the teams that have multiple good pitchers. 1901 Cincinnati Reds In the AL, Boston sits atop the pack after just completing four wins in a row versus Baltimore, last week's leader. Boston has shown good pitching and good hitting up and down the lineup, and mostly, they have been able to avoid disasters along the way. Chicago and Detroit both beat up on Milwaukee and Cleveland pretty good their first go-round, although the games were much closer the second time. Baltimore is currently reeling but should level off, while the remainder all suffer from i...