Scott Fennessy’s 1903 NL Review

Dominated by two teams, the NL was more of a hitter’s league as the averages are beginning to rise as pitchers did not get so many A ratings as in the past. The Giants and Pirates battled until the final series of the year.

Final National League Standings

Pittsburgh Pirates      95-45

New York Giants        92-48

Chicago Cubs              78-62

Cincinnati Reds          76-64

Boston Braves            58-82

Brooklyn Dodgers      58-82

Philadelphia Phillies  54-86

St. Louis Cardinals      48-92

Pittsburgh Pirates (95-45)

Slow out of the gate, the Buccos were in third place as late as June, but in a hard fought series with the Cubs moved into second and slowly ground away at the Giants lead. Ginger Beaumont had another fine season and was rewarded with his first batting title by hitting .346. He also stole 46 bases and beat out teammate and team captain Fred Clarke by merely one point for the title.

Speaking of Clarke, the captain had an amazing season. Hitting .345 with 44 doubles, 15 triples and 11 homers, and 28 stolen bases on his path to his first MVP award. Honus Wagner had another monster second half and was hard to pitch around being sandwiched between Beaumont and Clarke. Hitting .328 with 20 triples and 48 stolen bases, and hit all three of his homers in the second half gave the Pirates a trio that could not be stopped.

Jimmy Sebring hit .275 with 46 stolen bases and 5 homers. The bench on this team performed well, lead by Fred Carisch who mashed the ball in limited playing time. Hitting .324 with 6 homers, and Gene Curtis hit .571 in a mostly pinch hitting role.

Pitching was as good as the hitting. Sam Leever and Charles Phillippe were basically “Co-Aces”. Leever went 34-13 with a 2.56 ERA and .85 WHIP, and Phillippe was even harder to beat, despite Leever being an A and Phillippe being a B. The “Deacon” went 35-11 with a 2.34 ERA and a .82 WHIP. Armed with a ZZ rating he was unstoppable. Allowing just 25 walks in 396.1 innings made his own life easier by making hitters get to first on their own.

Ed Doheny went 9-5 with 4 saves. Ed started in the bullpen, but I had not noticed that rookie Lafayette Winham (16-16) was a J-4 so I had to swap spots to fix the error. Not to worry, this did not alter the season results as you will see why in a moment.

New York Giants (92-48)

The Giants got off to a hot start, and held off the Cubs for the first part of the season, then held the Pirates in check until about August, then held right behind them until their season ending 3 game set. That probably should not have happened. The same day I noticed the Winham error I went through every rotation to make sure I did not overlook anyone else. I did. Ambrose Puttmann of the Yankees, and Leon Ames of the Giants. I had to move a B KYW down to a D starter. Based on the way the season finished out the Giants would have been lucky to hold off the Cubs and perhaps the Reds too.

Despite the downgrade of the rotation this was still a formidable team, as they can really hit. The team batting average was .273. Billy Lauder should have gotten more playing time from me, but still hit .333 in a small sample. First baseman Dan McGann had another fine season, hitting .304 with 34 doubles and 55 steals while playing gold glove defense. Catcher John Warner had his best season ever, hitting .285 with 16 triples. George Browne had another solid year with a .281 AVG, 85 RBI and 34 steals.

Sam Mertes and Roger Bresnahan were MVP candidates. Mertes hit .298 with 40 steals, but disappointed me in the power category, despite getting strong card only had 7 homers. Bresnahan was a force all year long. Hitting .341 with 5 homers and 111 RBI. How may catchers can boast they stole 50 bases? McGraw instilled a “anyway possible” approach to OBP. 4 hitters had double digits in hit by pitch, with a team total of 77. Scary as this sounds, none of them was close to the league leader.

Pitching was vital to keeping up with the Pirates dangerous duo, and Mathewson and McGinnity were MORE than able to do the job. Christy was an absolute beast. Going 34-12 with 296 K’s, 2.41 ERA, .80 WHIP, oh and at the plate was no easy out either, hitting .275 with 2 homers and 2 steals.

Joe was great as usual, with a 32.13 record, 2.77 ERA, .89 WHIP and 6 shutouts nobody was able to match up with him. The afore mentioned Ames when in the rotation was a game changer. A BKYW was a thrill ride every time out. Had I not noticed his J rating he would have crushed Waddell’s record with ease. As it was he finished at 18-12 with 1 save, had 281 strikeouts, and averaged 9.25 K’s per game. Additionally he set the record for most strikeouts in a game with 18.

Chicago Cubs (78-62)

A good run by the cubbies this year. Early on it looked like they may defy the odds and keep up with the Giants, but reality set in and they slowly came down to third. I was more disappointed in their losing a doubleheader sweep to the Dodgers on the final day of the year and missed 80 wins than the overall results.

What did them in was the bottom of the order underperformed, and the pitching staff was a bit spotty at times. Johnny Evers finished with a .277 average and 48 steals. Frank Chance got some MVP votes by hitting .317 with 85 RBI, and tied John McGraw’s single season record of 95 steals (I’m sure John will have that congratulatory letter in the mail someday). He also was hit 16 times, and drew 73 walks en route to a league leading OBP of .418. Jimmy Slagle was also a big fan of the base on balls, drawing 77 to lead the league. Jimmy hit .271 and played fine defensively. Third baseman Jim Casey was not much in the power department, but did hit .277.

Johnny Evers started off well, but slumped mightily finishing at .253. Johnny Kling disappointed yet again with just a .242 average. Despite a first column 6 and an everyday job all season he hit just 22 doubles and no homers again. The dice did not favor him at all.

Jake Weimer exceled again on the hill. Going 30-12 with 5 shutouts and a 2.54 ERA was always the man that would end a slide. John Taylor and Bob Wicker finished with bad second halves and the bullpen sunk any late game hopes.

Cincinnati Reds (76-64)

I thought they may catch the Cubs in September, and I was nearly right. They had solid hitting as evidenced by a .272 team BA. Joe Kelly was forced to do a lot more than he should early on as the hitting struggled and there were injury issues. He finished at .292 with 4 homers and 36 steals. First baseman Jake Beckley struggled for half the year, but came on strong at the end. He finished the year on a 12 game hit streak and hit .273 with 7 homers.

Jim Seymour once again was amazing at the plate. He hit .338 with 17 HR, drove in 94 runs and stole 33 bases and was very nearly the MVP. Mike Donlin hit .313 with 83 RBI and 28 steals, and Harry Steinfeldt, who finally played more than 100 games hit .280 with 9 homers and 83 RBI. Dan Kerwin (.376) and Leo Fohl (.333) were terrific off the bench.

Frank Hahn was 25-17 with a 3.03 ERA and John Sutthoff was 25-17 with a 2.65 ERA. Bill Phillips was solid from the bullpen, picking up a couple of saves and a 1.12 ERA. The rest of the staff kept the team from being more successful, as many sported ERA’s near 5.00.

Boston Braves (52-82)

Boston only had 16 players for it’s entire roster. Considering how poor some of the cards were I am impressed they finished as well as they did. Outfielder Duff Cooley quietly snuck a couple of MVP votes onto his resume after finishing very strong, hitting .315 with 45 steals. Player-manager Fred Tenney hit .305 with 40 steals. Pat Carney hit .255; unfortunately the rest of the team struggled to hit more than .230.

While the hitting was kind of suspect, the pitching was pretty good, considering they only had 2 B’s and 3 C’s. That’s right they only had 5 pitchers the whole season. Vic Willis was much better than his 14-23 record would initially reflect. His era was 3.26 and his WHIP 1.02. John Malarkey started off hot and came back to reality, but still went 20-20. Walt Williams was 8-5 with a 3.79 ERA. For a C starter in a league full of A’s it was a solid year.

Brooklyn Dodgers (52-82)

This was a pretty weak team, but not completely out manned. Jimmy Sheckard hit .275 with 10 homers and 71 stolen bases. Jack Doyle was a huge surprise, and outperformed his card a bit by hitting .324 and stole 48 bases. Hugh Hearne was a late season call up and hit .273 with 66 RBI and 3 homers with 27 steals. Bill Dahlen underperformed badly and hit just .193. Otherwise most of the hitters struggled badly.

Pitching was really non-existant. Oscar Jones picked up 19 wins, but had a 4.86 ERA and a horrible 1.58 WHIP. Virgil Garvin was reliable enough with an 18-18 record and 3.25 ERA. Other than Henry Schmidt who went 15-18 with a 3.75 ERA the pitchers had ERA’s well over 5.00.

Philadelphia Phillies (54-86)

If the Phillies had a little more pitching they could have gone a lot higher. Underperformers also hurt the cause, but several players had good years. Roy Thomas had almost zero power, but was a great at working the pitcher, and drew 68 walks. He also hit .286, and despite only having one zero and he managed one homer and in addition to playing gold glove center field stole 42 bases.

Shad Barry struggled early and lost his starting job, but eventually won it back and hit .283 with 14 stolen bases in just under 100 games. John Titus had his second solid season hitting .291 with 80 RBI. Harry Wolverton, normaly a DL candidate stayed healthy most of the year and hit .277.

Harry Gleason hit .279, and Bill Keister was a big disappointment. He did not have a “bad” year, but really underperformed. Part of that was my fault, as I saw his card and thought he was a J-4 and he missed almost the first month on the bench. I moved him and he started off very hot, but cooled down badly and moved him down in the lineup where he found his groove at the end of the year. He still hit .269 with 10 triples and 16 doubles, and had 18 steals in half a season. Reserve catcher Red Dooin hit .429 in a mostly pinch hit role.

Tully Sparks led the staff with a 20-17 record and 3.14 ERA. Fred Burchell lost 23, but still had a 3.30 ERA and 1.12 WHIP. His issue was just giving up hits at key moments. Fred Mitchell was 6-5 with a 2.88 ERA once inserted into the rotation. Bill Duggleby was very hittable most of the year, going 10-26 with a 4.85 ERA, but every dog has his day, and in a game against the Cardinals set the record for a C pitcher with 6.2 no hit innings against the Dodgers. The rest of the staff was putrid, all with ERA’s over 6.00.

St. Louis Cardinals (48-92)

This may be the worst Cardinal team ever. They struggled almost every way possible. Bad fielding, a team batting average of .218 and ERA of 4.36. Player-manager Pat Donovan hit .316 with 42 steals, but most of the rest struggled mightily. Homer Smoot underperformed badly, hitting .256, but did hit 6 home runs. September call up Leon DeMontreville hit .257 and stole 17 bases, and provided some spark at the top of the order. Second baseman John Farrell hit .256. The bench was useless. John Dunleavy hit .249, everyone else hit under .100.

Pitching was not much better, Mordecai Brown was his usual solid self, but with no hitting struggled to a 14-18 record, despite a 2.56 ERA and .97 WHIP, which is probably the best any B starter could hope for. 8 pitchers had ERA’s over 5, 3 more had ERA’s over 6, and 3 more over 7. Yikes!