As mentioned in the first post opening up the results for pitchers, I decided to unveil starter results in 5 phases, one for each slot in the rotation. The rotation slots were determined by my original real life rankings. However, I manually overrode many of the pitchers for the 5th slot, replacing them with key starters owners have drafted over the years. For instance, Lady Baldwin shouldn’t do well in ATB according to my rankings, and was outside of the Top 45 starters heading into the resims. I manually made him a #5 to see how he did.
Speaking of which, 1885 Lady Baldwin comes in as the best 5th starter in the simulation. In truth, Baldwin is likely the #2 or #3 overall starter, clearly behind Pedro Martinez but very close to Greg Maddux. Baldwin averaged 12 wins with a 3.08 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 189 IP, 177 H, 45 BB, 230 K.
Behind Baldwin is, amazingly, 1888 Pete Conway, 1888 Ben Sanders, and 1888 Cannonball Titomb. Hmm, something doesn’t sit well with that does it? I double checked all the DMB input and there are no errors, but DMB sure does love 1888 for pitchers. Anyway, the trio each had ERA’s around 3.50 with Conway leading in WHIP and Titcomb in strikeouts.
Seven others had ERA’s under 4.00 and of the Top 11, only two came from 1920 or later. This is not to say players from future generations did worse, rather, it depicts how the 1800s and early 1900s players do not show up on our draft boards as great pitchers. I am sure there are at least a dozen other viable starters from this time period we just haven’t encountered yet.
As an aside, interestingly, the ERA’s we’ve seen in the sim averages are much better than the ERA’s we encounter in our actual ATB seasons. As far as I can tell, this is entirely due to my methodology of making defense a key factor in the draft rankings. In my draft, I sacrificed offense for some defense, and the result has been weaker batting and better pitching almost across the entire board.
Still, another theory I can’t corroborate without a lot of additional work is that a 15 team league is not as pitching diluted as a 20+ team league. I would suspect the more players we add to a league, the pitchers decline is skill at the same rate as the batters and it would even out in the end, but maybe not.
Either way, I am confident in the rankings of each pitcher, if not the actual resulting ERA’s – those may not translate to ATB XIII.
01) 189 IP, 3.08 ERA, 1.18 WHIP-Lady Baldwin-1885
02) 189 IP, 3.40 ERA, 1.23 WHIP-Pete Conway-1888
03) 188 IP, 3.52 ERA, 1.27 WHIP-Ben Sanders-1888
04) 180 IP, 3.52 ERA, 1.33 WHIP-Cannonball Titcomb-1888
05) 175 IP, 3.71 ERA, 1.31 WHIP-Scott Stratton-1890
06) 182 IP, 3.54 ERA, 1.23 WHIP-Al Orth-1901
07) 179 IP, 3.64 ERA, 1.25 WHIP-Babe Adams-1919
08) 174 IP, 3.89 ERA, 1.26 WHIP-Jesse Tannehill-1902
09) 180 IP, 3.76 ERA, 1.33 WHIP-Dizzy Dean-1934
10) 174 IP, 3.80 ERA, 1.28 WHIP-Tex Hughson-1946
11) 177 IP, 3.95 ERA, 1.39 WHIP-Jack Chesbro-1904
12) 165 IP, 4.39 ERA, 1.52 WHIP-Tim Lincecum-2009
13) 165 IP, 4.15 ERA, 1.43 WHIP-Johnny Podres-1957
14) 169 IP, 4.02 ERA, 1.37 WHIP-Noodles Hahn-1904
15) 157 IP, 4.50 ERA, 1.50 WHIP-Andy Pettitte-2005
Best by Position
LR - 44 IP,, 3.79 ERA, 1.36 WHIP-Fergie Jenkins-1970
SU - 153 IP, 2.67 ERA, 0.99 WHIP-Joe Neale-1890
CL - 72 IP,, 2.37 ERA, 1.18 WHIP-Jonathan Papelbon-2006
S5 - 189 IP, 3.08 ERA, 1.18 WHIP-Lady Baldwin-1885
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