Baldwin, Titcomb wrecked; Dunlap emerges as star

With the potential of league altering changes as a result tinkering with the 1800s player set I decided it was only fair to run and publish some tests.  I cannot imagine having the #2 pick overall only to choose, for example, a version of Ross Barnes that is terrible.

To do this equitably, I only chose players from last season that had regular playing time, replaced them with the new and improved version, and ran 20 sims.   This is not a 100 resim type of  exercise that would baseline players in a neutral environment.  It is a resim of last season, ripe with differing park factors, great or bad defense, and an unbalanced schedule.  This exercise merely gives you a means to compare last seasons 20 sim results to a new data point, nothing more.

Many changes are off the charts, others will go unnoticed.  Overall though, folks that were displeased the 1800s player set was ever created will undoubtedly rejoice as expectations will now be tempered across the board.  More than twice as many players saw a decreases in OPS or ERA rather than an increase (26 vs 12, with 4 unchanged).

Notes:
- Keep in mind I updated the entire 1800s set, not just the players listed below.
- 20 sims is not nearly enough to prove anything.  It's about 1/5th the at bats (or innings) generally considered necessary to peg a players true average stat line.  Use your judgement

Batters
Fred Dunlap is now a star.  I feel a bit vindicated here, since Dunlap has always ended up very high on my draft board but the DMB game engine always disagreed with me.  With Vg/111 defense and a .900+ OPS at second base, Dunlap is now a legit Top-10 pick.    However, keep in mind what I said earlier regarding ballparks - last season Dunlap did play in an extreme hitters park so these totals are assuredly inflated.

Cupid Childs, Ed Delahanty, Roger Connor, Ross Barnes, and George Wright all improved.  Of interest among these few is the fact Childs increase his ability to hit singles making him a .300 batter and Delahanty had marginal improvements just about everywhere.

As mentioned, not everyone fared so well. Ed McKean took the biggest hit dropping from a .696 OPS to .551.  I hadn't heard of him either, so not sure it matters.  What does matter is some of the following names: Mike Tiernan, George Hall, Hughie Jennings, Fred Carroll, Candy Nelson, King Kelly (no!!!!!), Pete Browning, and Ed Swartwood all saw drops in results that are enough to impact the draft.  Most lost 20-30 OPS points but Hall and Tiernan lost over 50.

All other batters stayed relatively the same.  Big Names such as Hugh Duffy, John McGraw, Dan Brouthers, and Willie Keeler appear not to be impacted.   Of those big names - Keeler and Jennings each lost about 15 points in batting average and their OBP's took a corresponding hit.

Pitchers
Toss those draft boards away!  It's time to start anew as Cannonball Titcomb and Lady Baldwin have been wrecked.  I say good riddance, they never should have been great in the first place.  Baldwin went from a 3.44 ERA/1.27 WHIP to 5.03/1.61.  Titcomb even worse - 3.54/1.29 to 5.37/1.73.  Elsewhere, Pete Conway and Charlie Buffinton appeared to be set for rotation slots this season but each struggled, especially Conway who ended up with an ERA north of 5.00.

Just about every one else struggled too.  Tim Keefe, Scott Stratton, Henry Boyle, Silver King, and Charlie Sweeney still are draftable, but experience 15-35% increases to their ERA's.

There were few bright spots.  Bert Dorr and Kid Nichols had reputable ERA's around 4.25 but the big news is Ben Sanders and Joe Neale.  Both we already considered upper tier pitchers, and both improved especially Neale.  Neal's WHIP went from 1.15 to 0.94.

Overall, these changes are an obvious positive.  First and foremost, we strive for accuracy.  The more accurate the data, the better the league.  Secondly, intuitively we all knew the 1800s players were better than we expected.  We lived with it because it was fun to have new greats to draft in the first few rounds, but nobody really believed Lady Baldwin was that good.  Turns out he's not, and that's ok.

Here's a file with the differences outlined by player.