Who would have won a seven-game series: The '75 Sox or the '86 Sox?

[saturdaysarebetter]

Who would have won a seven-game series between the 1975 Boston Red Sox and the 1986 Boston Red Sox?

[milladrive]

Who would have won a seven-game series between the 1975 Boston Red Sox and the 1986 Boston Red Sox?

I've always liked WhatIfSports for quick fun matchups.

https://www.whatifsports.com/mlb/default.asp

[pedrosrotatorcuff]

I would hazard a guess that the 1986 team would win on the strength of pitching, but I could be wrong.

I've always liked WhatIfSports for quick fun matchups.

https://www.whatifsports.com/mlb/default.asp

I think it's time to do a little too-in-depth simulating with WIS again...

[pedrosrotatorcuff]

So I just did some semi-in-depth sims of a best-of-7 1975 vs. 1986 series. Short version: a lot of slugfests, but the 1986 team would prevail, likely in no more than 5 games.

Long version:
I optimized, to the best of my ability, the lineups for each team, based on the batting lineup lists from Baseball Ref. In situation where positions had players sharing roughly even playing time (like the revolving door at SS for the 1986 team) I used the player with the higher/-est OPS+. Since the 1975 team had a better record (95-65 vs. 95-66), they had home-field advantage. I used a three-man rotation for each team.
Each game was simulated 25 times, and every trial had its own "series"–the first trial of each game would comprise a series, the second of each, etc., as did the overall result of each game. After a team "won" a series, it was stopped–if one team won the first "series" in 4 games, then the first trial of the 5th-7th games wouldn't count toward the overall result.

I used the average RPG to determine the overall winner of each game. Contests were pretty high-scoring, but it was close. The 1975 team clearly had the better offense, but the 1986 team's better pitching won the day, and they swept.

Lineups I used:

1986 Pos	1986 Batter	1975 Pos	1975 Batter
2B	Marty Barrett	LF	Bernie Carbo
3B	Wade Boggs	2B	Denny Doyle
1B	Bill Buckner	1B	Carl Yastrzemski
LF	Jim Rice	CF	Fred Lynn
DH	Don Baylor	DH	Jim Rice
RF	Dwight Evans	C	Carlton Fisk
CF	Tony Armas	RF	Dwight Evans
C	Rich Gedman	3B	Rico Petrocelli
SS	Rey Quinones	SS	Rick Burleson

Rotations:
1975 team: Tiant, Lee, Wise
1986 team: Clemens, Boyd, Hurst

Per-game average:
Screen Shot 2020-07-18 at 4.34.44 PM.png

"Series" results:
Screen Shot 2020-07-18 at 4.33.42 PM.png

[Macker]

Is there no allowance for trades? Spike Owen was the regular once he was acquired and was the shortstop in the '86 WS.
And in '75, I would put Rice in LF and Cecil Cooper as the DH.

[saturdaysarebetter]

Talk about a slugfest of a series. Thanks for running that pedro.

[pedrosrotatorcuff]

Just as a belated addendum to this: over the offseason, I'll be using the WhatIfSports site to run a mini-March Madness "tournament" using historical Red Sox teams to see which was truly the best. Will probably be going with the World Series + pennant-winning teams plus a few of the better ones that missed out (1904, 1978, 2003, 2008 etc).

[skeletor]

good question...on sheer talent, stats..the '86 team......on sheer emotion and sense of drive, the '75 team..

[Mongoose]

Somehow, both would have found a way to lose in seven.

[saturdaysarebetter]

Somehow, both would have found a way to lose in seven.

LOL! Ouch but funny.

[Bucketfoot]

Rice vs Rice Evans vs Evans. Cool! I donno it would be a great series.