1906 replay guidelines and observations
Since not everyone is familiar with my replay setup I am providing this as a separate article to save space on the actual review.
Because my first replay of 1901 was for a 140 game schedule, I am going to be doing 140 game seasons. The reason for this is that I want to have the seasons the same length to avoid arguments such as “well player A played in 162 game seasons, but player B played in 152 game seasons. As an added bonus I will be able to finish seasons in a slightly shorter time frame, but that was not the intention.
Although it won’t be a factor in this replay, I also won’t be doing divisions. My personal opinion is that divisional play, while helpful in scheduling for the regular season, is hurtful to the overall product of the game. If you don’t win the most games in your league, then why are you representing that league in the championship? If you win 100 games and don’t finish first, don’t cry to me, win more games next season.
This season saw a major underperformance overall on individual batting average, and strikeouts for pitchers. This card set was very limited on strikeout letters, and had C and D starters that ended up getting significant playing time. Only Rube Waddell A (XY) of the A’s and Leon Ames B (XY W) of the Giants received two strikeout letters. Only Cy Young C (Y ZZ) of the Red Sox and Charles Philippe B (Y ZZ) of the Pirates received the coveted ZZ rating.
I used a four man rotation throughout the season and tried very hard not to go over games started by pitcher and games played by the position players. This was complicated by the fact that for dead ball seasons APBA has a love affair with the result of 23. This caused an enormous number of injuries and ejections, that resulted in several players that would be “starters” not being able to reach their actual number of games played, and therefore the reserves, usually very limited J-3 and J-4 players ended up playing more than their actual games played. None of them had a major impact on the season as there weren’t many “Monster Monday” cards in this set, and those were limited to every day players.
How did the number 23 play such a big role? In order to compensate for the horrible fielding of this season APBA went above and beyond in creating what I call “error numbers” (23, 18, etc.) 99.5% of this set had at least two, and about a dozen had three. It was certainly reflected in the team fielding results during the season, where only the Cubs, Pirates and Indians could boast fielding one teams and even then, only for certain lineup configurations.
There was only one league record set this replay, but for me it was a significant one. I learned the hard way about half way through the season, that despite many cards having 3 31’s on them using the hit and run was a detriment to my hitting results and I basically abandoned them. However, despite this Art Devlin of the Giants became my first player to crack the 100 stolen base mark, hitting the mark exactly with a 7th inning steal in the final game of the Giants season.
1906 Replay guidelines
You mentioned the use of the hit and run, but what about the sacrifice? With these early 20th century teams I almost feel obligated to sacrifice more than normal!
Hi Russ,
I mentioned the hit and run charts specifically because of how they should be a vital part of deadball play, but really can’t be used at all, which is a detriment to the results.
On the other hand, I was actually using the bunt too much during this replay, partially as a result of the failed hit and run results, but I absolutely use the bunt frequently, especially with the 8 and 9 place hitters, which are usually an extremely light hitting catcher or middle infielder followed by the pitcher. I am hoping that in my new replay I can find a better balance.
In fact I find myself using it in my league play, and have had some decent results because of it.
(a) All bonuses are added. That’s literally the definition of a bonus. There is no need to say something is an “added bonus.”
(b) Who are these people who are going to say that so and so set a record in more games than in your 1901 replay? Who cares? You are going to let your 1901 140 game replay be the determining factor for everything going forward? Are you going to let black guys play in 1947 or not because they weren’t in 1901?
Play any way that makes you happy, but, jeez, what a bad rationale.
Hello Jason,
I put this information out there because on every replay review I post someone new always comes back with the same questions and I end up having to post the same information over and over.
I don’t mind providing it, but when I start posting my replay review over the course of the week I though it might be helpful for them to have the information up front for them.