Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

I have no idea what his 1896 card looks like ... anyone know about his defensive range? But a SS with .472 obp, .401 ba, and 70 sb would be a nice addition.

i agree. i voted for him.

Oh, he also had 51 hbp (he lead the league five years in a row) and only 19 walks that year.

I don't even know how to process some of these stats from pre 1901

If you have trouble processing some of the stats how about some of the rules. Don't hate me, just having a little fun.

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/chronology/rules1.php

Some highlights: Beginning in .....

1870- The batter is given the right to call for a high or a low ball.
Think this might help your batting average a bit?

1872 - The pitcher is allowed to snap the ball during delivery, but he’s restricted to a below-the-waist motion. [8.01]

1876 - If an umpire is unable to see whether a catch has been fairly made, he may confer with spectators and players.
1876 - The National League is established.

1879 - The number of strikes in an out is officially three. [6.05] There are nine balls in a walk. [6.08A]
Bet even I could have good control with this rule.

1880 - The base on balls decreases to eight. [6.08A] The trend toward "wild" pitchers begins.
1881 - The base on balls is seven. [6.08A] Pitchers get squeezed even more. Will these hitters ever be happy?

1882 - The American League is formed.

1883 - An error is charged to the pitcher for a base on balls, wild pitch, hit batter, and balk. [10.13]
Could be tough on the old fielding percentage. Good thing you get 7 balls before a walk is issued.

1884 - Almost all restrictions on a pitcher’s motion are lifted. He may throw the ball with virtually any motion he chooses, provided that his delivery is not higher than his shoulders and he is facing the batter at the moment of wind-up. He is allowed only one step before delivery. [8.01]
So basically in addition to underhand you can also throw sidearm. Bet it was tough on all those hitters having to face underhand pitching.

1885 - 1885 One portion of the bat could be flat (one side). Think this might help you square the ball up?

A base on balls is six. [6.08A] Must have been a lot of hitters on the rules committee.

1886 - A base on balls is five. [6.08A] Maybe the hitters are paying salaries of the rules committee.

1887 - The batter is no longer allowed to request a high or low pitch.
A strike-out is called on four strikes. (This rule lasted only one season.) [6.05]
Guess the pitchers started paying some committe members themselves.

1888 - A base on balls is not counted as a hit and not charged as a time at bat. [10.16]
Not explicitly stated but implied is that before this a base on balls was a hit and part of batting average. Guess this is where that old phrase a walk is as good as a hit came from. Had to help pad the batting average a bit.

1889 - A base on balls is four, and there it remains. [6.08A]

1892 - It’s a ground-rule double instead of a home run if the ball is hit over the fence in fair territory if the fence is less than 235 feet from home plate. [6.09]
How many fields had fences less than 235 feet that would make such a rule needed? Think this might have impacted stats much? Think this might have help Hugh Duffy hit .440 and 51 doubles in 1894?

1893 - The rule allowing a flat side to a bat was rescinded and the requirement that the bat be round and wholly of hard wood was substituted.

1895 - A strike is charged to a batter for a foul tip. [6.05A]

1925 - The minimum home-run distance was set at 250 feet. Seriously, prior to this there were parks where some parks had HR fences less than 250 feet?
Not clear what a foul tip was considered prior to this.

Thanks Valen,

It's amazing how frequently the rules changed in the 1870s, '80s & '90s. They were literally making up the game as they went along. After about 1900, most of the rules changes affected how the game was scored, but before that, substantive changes in the way the game was actually played were made almost every year.

To me, a series of crucial changes occurred in 1893. Before that, I think, it's hard to make any legitimate comparisons between early baseball and baseball as we know it (and as our fathers and grandfathers knew it.) After 1893, we have the beginnings of modern baseball.

Here's what happened in 1893:

A batter credited with a sacrifice is not charged with a time at bat. [10.09]
The pitching distance is increased to sixty feet, six inches, where it remains today. (It had been fifty feet.) [1.07]
The pitcher’s box disappears (never to be seen again) and is replaced by the rubber–a slab twelve inches long and four inches wide. [1.07]
The pitcher is required to place his rear foot against the slab. [8.01]

The first of these changes is a scoring change--an important one, but still a scoring change, not necessarily affecting play.
But the next set up changes effectively create the conditions of the modern pitcher / batter confrontation: 60' 6" from the plate, a pitching rubber (no box), and the pitcher must have his rear foot on the rubber.

Before this set of rules changes, we really have a different game. Imagine facing Randy Johnson from 50 feet away--and he can move at will within a square box before he throws! The game as we know it would probably be impossible if the pitcher was that close. Many, many hitters would die--and pitchers, too, when the batter slashed a line drive through the box.

The immediate effect of this rules change, with the pitcher throwing from 10 feet further away, was an offensive explosion. Average runs per game in the NL in 1892 was 5.1. In 1893 it went up to 6.6 RPG. In 1894 it was 7.4 RPG (the high water mark). In 1895 it was 6.6 RPG, and in 1896 it was still very high--at 6.0 RPG.

So Jennings big year in 1896 was in the context of a period of unprecedented offensive dominance, brought on by the hitters getting a sudden edge over the pitchers due to a major rules change that pushed the mound back and limited the pitcher's range of motion.

The pitchers eventually caught up, and before you know it we're in the dead-ball era, with an average of 3.4 RPG in MLB in 1908. So, Jennings was riding an unusual offensive tide 1896, his record is still part of what I tend to think of as authentic baseball--that is, baseball after the crucial rules changes of 1893.

1884 - Almost all restrictions on a pitcher’s motion are lifted. He may throw the ball with virtually any motion he chooses, provided that his delivery is not higher than his shoulders

This is one of those changes I found most interesting. That means no full overhand. So far in my limited research I have been unable to identify what year the rules changed removing all limitations on pitching mechanics. To me prior to being able to throw fully overhand the game cannot be truly compared to today and mixing the cards/players is very bogus.

Still, I know many are going to want more and more cards from that pre 1900 era because offensive stats for top players were so inflated. Top pitchers were also inflated. Prior to the distance being fixed at 60 feet and everyone throwing underhand goes a long way in explaining the massive numbers of innings some turned in. To say it is like comparing apples to oranges is to misunderstand the nature of apples and oranges.

So my hope is that at some point Strat give us the ability to selectively carve up the pool by designating cutoffs. Perhaps in the future we could get a sufficient number of cards from those early years to have entire 12 team leagues based on cards from before 1900. Or better yet be able to specify any year we want. Create a subset of cards pre-1904 or post 1902. I personally might create a set of post 1925 cards so they all came from teams with parks that met this 250 minimum fence distance. Even better if we could specify a range of years, sat this set is cards from 1865 to 1914 or 1928 and higher. Such a feature would allow strat to add as many cards from pre 1900 no matter how bogus some of us consider that to be while still allowing those of who consider them to be a joke or more accurately little league level competitioin to be able to limit our shuffled leagues to seasons that do not use what we consider bogus eras. As a side note If we could jury pick years throughout the set to include and exclude it would also become possible to exclude steroid era for those who feel they can identify a set of years that it was comprised of.

Valen wrote:

1884 - Almost all restrictions on a pitcher’s motion are lifted. He may throw the ball with virtually any motion he chooses, provided that his delivery is not higher than his shoulders

This is one of those changes I found most interesting. That means no full overhand. So far in my limited research I have been unable to identify what year the rules changed removing all limitations on pitching mechanics. To me prior to being able to throw fully overhand the game cannot be truly compared to today and mixing the cards/players is very bogus.

I agree that this is a very significant rule change. I wonder if overhand pitching just became an accomplished fact that leagues and umpires were forced to accept, and they never actually changed the rules.

I may wrong for saying this, but a lot of 1870s and early 1880s baseball sorta reminds me of slow pitch softball--starting with the underhand pitching. In a lot of slow pitch games I've been involved with, there's no umpire and you swing at a pitch when you think you can hit it. If you miss it, the pitch is a strike, otherwise--no harm, no foul. Eight balls and a single umpire, isn't much different from slow pitch, where balls aren't even called. The gloves of that early era not much more than leather hand-coverings, and catchers had no masks or shin-guards. So catchers are probably standing pretty far back from the plate, like we used to do in slow pitch. Pitchers can't exactly be winging 95 mph underhand fastballs in on their bare-nekkid catchers. Well, basically this sort of baseball only thinly resembles the "real" baseball that to my mind more or less began around 1901 and has carried on in a process of slow evolution ever since. Still, having those mid-to-late 1890s cards does help small-ball teams compete with the slugging HR teams, so I'm not entirely opposed to mixing the various eras. I just wouldn't want to see the cards go back much before about 1893. And I agree with the idea of being able to select for specific eras. That is, of course, already possible in the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s decade leagues--but not for earlier eras.

Hughie made 66 errors in 1896. Unless there is huge normalization of that it will be problematic to start him anywhere but DH. Does not seem fair to normalize his errors and give him a rating as if he had a modern glove in the field and not adjust his BA and other numbers down as if the fielders on the other team had modern gloves.

He is or was last time I checked top vote getter though so not much question he will be among the new cards.

So predictions: How much does his error rating get adjusted? What do you think it will be?
Better yet, anyone have the 1896 season and can tell us what the ratings for that card were?

Wouldn't it have been cool if Strat had provided card images with ratings and prices for all players in the poll?

As you pointed out this is what is wrong with using old players, they adjusted Honus Wagner's error rating from 49 I believe to 24 while not changing the batting stats. Surprised everyone isn't clamoring for John McGraws 1899 season, there will be a lot of singles on the Hughie card, imagine, card should look a lot like Luke Applings card wth HBP instead of walks