Negro League Overview - Relievers

This is an ongoing multi-part series on the new ATB Negro Leaguers that will be available in our next draft.  See here for the other parts.

This off-season I instituted several adjustments to the ATB baseline era.  This will improve our statistical results in so much that it will feel more like a modern day baseball era, as opposed to a cross between the 1880s and 1930s as we previously simmed under.

Before moving onto the pitching results, we should spend a minute grounding ourselves as to the true differences we’ll encounter.  First and most importantly, hit rates have diminished considerably.  Pitchers in the 79-resims gave up 9.3 hits per nine innings, a historically high figure.  This has been toned down to 8.7 going forward, and consequently the league WHIP reduced from 1.42 to 1.33.

Interestingly, home runs had been a bit too scarce and they have increased from 0.7 HR per nine innings to 1.0.  Doubles have also increased, while triples decreased.  All in all, our league ERA has gone from 3.88 to 4.01.

Onto the pitchers.

Despite his 158 pound frame, Mervin Ryan featured a hard-sinking fastball and when coupled with an elusive knuckleball, the red haired right hander enjoyed a long 17 year career.  Four our purposes we have reliable statistics for “Red” for the years 1919 through 1932 and while he certainly had great years as a starter, it’s his ability as an ATB reliever I am most interested in.

In 1922-1923 Ryan tossed over 127 innings giving up just 81 hits and two walks.  He simmed extremely well, so well in fact that he sported the second best WHIP of any pitcher in the 500-resims, behind only Dennis Eckersley.

That is not to say there aren’t potential hazards.  His home run rate is nearly double nearly all the other top flight relievers and his playing time was minuscule (35 IP per season) which likely means he was used as a specialist.  Still, in over 13,000 innings he averaged a promising line: 35 IP, 25 H, 4 BB, 13 K.

Only one other reliever appears to be good enough to earn a spot for late inning bullpen work.    Little is known about Porter Charleston (we can’t even confirm he was truly a left-hander) other than the fact he amassed about 325 innings in his career between the Negro Major and Independent leagues.  In 1931 and 1932 he was at his best, starting 14 games and allowing just 6.6 hits per nine innings.  With so few starts, Charleston is only eligible as an ATB reliever and the 500-resim AI took advantage to the tune of a 132 inning average per season.  He recorded a 3.20 ERA and 1.06 in 51,000 total innings.

All other relievers are destined for middle relief, and while useful, don’t warrant a full post.  Here are there simmed statistics.