Weak Sisters:
One of my past posts, concerned the issue of lack of competitive balance in eras past (1900-1930). Here was the thrust of my argument.
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10. Another important factor in attracting the fans to come out is to have attractive, competitive teams, featuring good players.
Around the turn of the century, BB lacked competitive balance. In the AL, the Browns, Senators, Highlanders, were the weak sisters in the league, upon whom the others beat up on. It was hard for those teams to compete for fans.
In the NL, the Phillies, Braves, Dodgers, Reds, Cards were the weak sisters. The Cubs, Giants, Pirates, were the strong teams.
And that lack of competitive balance contributed to low attendance. Plus the lack of stars to go all the way around. There were no good stadiums until the Pirates built Forbes Field in '09. First modern steel/concrete park.
To summarize: A fan in 1905 Pittsburgh/Detroit had little money to go to a game, which were only held in afternoons, where he'd sit on wooden stands, which held around 15,000 fans, enjoyed primitive concessions facilities, had to fight rush hour traffic to get home.
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Jeffrey made response to my above argument:
Weak sisters? Anyone heard of Tampa Bay, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Montreal, Kansas City, Texas for the most part. Strong teams? Anyone heard of the Yanks, Braves, Twins, Oakland, Boston?
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In order to bolster my arguing points, I'd like to submit the following data.
An example of the lack of competitive balance in a league is demonstated by the following data.
Code:
1927 New York Yankees------------------1929 Philadelphia Athletics
St. Louis Browns------21-1----.955-----Boston Red Sox--------18-4---.818
Boston Red Sox--------18-4----.818-----Detroit Tigers--------18-4---.818
Chicago White Sox-----17-5----.773-----Washington Senators---16-4---.800
Philadelphia A's------14-8----.636-----Cleveland Indians-----14-7---.667
Detroit Tigers--------14-8----.636-----New York Yankees------14-8---.636
Washington Senators---14-8----.636-----Chicago White Sox-----13-9---.591
Cleveland Indians-----12-10---.545-----St. Louis Browns------11-10--.524
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So, this is an example of the lack of competitive balance, which rendered it difficult for the bottom weak sisters to draw on their fan base.
One of the reasons why I always resist singing the praises of the High & Mighty 1927 New York Yankees, is because as one can see at a glance, they were able to roll up the score on a league which had a team which couldn't defend themselves that yr. So the Yanks were able to appear like gods, and finish 19 games ahead due to the extreme weakness of the Brownies, BoSox and White Sox, not because they were gods. So much for hype.
Curiously, 2 yrs. later, the Brownies were the hardest team for the mighty A's to beat up, but they also beat the snot out of the 3 weak sisters in the league.
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1927 Yankees Pitchers/1929 Athletics Pitchers:
Now that we've all agreed that a pitcher's W-L record is so team-dependent, as to be devoid of all meaning in showing a pitcher's value, I think the next stat to go into the rubbish bin, would have to be his team's W-L record without him.
Example: Pitchers on teams which win over 100 games, obviously have some other good pitchers. 1927 Yanks & the 1929 Athletics had:
Code:
1927 NY Yankees pitchers-------------1929 Philadelphia Athletics pitchers
Waite Hoyt,-----22-7, 146 ERA+-------Lefty Grove, 20-6, 151 ERA+
Urban Shocker,--18-6, 136 ERA+-------George Earnshaw, 24-8, 129 ERA+
Wilcy Moore,----19-7, 169 ERA+-------Rube Walberg, 18-11, 118 ERA+
Herb Pennock,---19-8, 128 ERA+-------Ed Rommel, 12-2, 149 ERA+
Dutch Ruether,--13-6, 113 ERA+-------Bill Shores, 11-6, 118 ERA+
George Pipgras--10-3, 94 ERA+-------Jack Quinn, 11-9, 107 ERA+
Myles Thomas-----7-4, 79 ERA+-------Howard Ehmke, 7-2, 129 ERA+
Bob Shawkey------2-3, 133 ERA+
Their hitting got them runs, but great pitching/defense suppressed the other teams runs-producing potential. So it wasn't all done with offense alone. But team W-L minus pitchers record, makes it appear their team won their games for them, which is a very insideous half-truth. It was mutually beneficial.
Of what real value can it have, since it so utterly favors pitchers on weak teams (Young, Johnson, Alexander, Carlton, Vance), while it makes pitchers on strong teams (Matty, Brown, Ford, Grove, Pennock, Hoyt, Shawkey) appear good only due to team strength. Team WPCT minus the pitcher's W-L PCT. gotta go, guys.
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Originally Posted by Originally Posted by BaseballHistoryNut
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