Career stats adjusted for military service

[itjclarke]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

Hey, Ian.

It's hard to project how a player would have done when missing time like Pete Alexander did because, as you mentioned, he was traded to the Cubs. His win totals were all over the place. In 1919 he went only 16-11 even though he led the league with a 1.72 ERA. That, and he only started 27 games instead of his usual 40 +. What's really interesting about his run in that decade was his string of seasons leading the league in ERA. In 1915, '16 and '17, he led the NL in ERA all three years, averaging out to an incredible 1.54 ERA. Now, this is still dead ball era, but that's impressive. When he was traded to the Cubs, he didn't miss a beat. In 1918, in only 3 starts, he had a 1.73 ERA. The next two seasons, he again led the NL in ERA with a 1.84 ERA across those two seasons. If he'd not missed pretty much the entire 1918 season, he had a great chance at leading the National League for six straight seasons, with an ERA below 2.00 every year. I don't care what era you're pitching in, that's remarkable.

You have to figure he missed 40 starts in 1918, and another 16 or 17 starts in 1919. And while he was with the Cubs, he had a .610 winning percentage (though he had more success early on, winning 27 in 1920 with a .659 winning pct). But if you figure he's healthy for those 56 starts he missed, and has roughly the same winning pct, he wins 34 games by my estimates. Now, there's no way of knowing if he'd have pitched as long as he did on the back end, but I have a feeling he would have. In his late 30s and early 40s, he was still quite an effective pitcher. So yes, I do think he'd have made up those 27 wins to get to 400. As it stands, 373 wins is a hell of a career. Oddly enough, though, Alexander seems to be somewhat of a forgotten man in the first few decades of the twentieth century.

I certainly hope that baseball finds a way to start attracting younger fans again, and that those fans are educated about the game's history. Greats like Alexander, and Mordecai Brown, and Eddie Plank should be remembered and revered.

I just looked at his wiki page and according to that GC was sold by the Phillies because they feared he'd be drafted. Wow! How patriotic of them!

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by itjclarke

I just looked at his wiki page and according to that GC was sold by the Phillies because they feared he'd be drafted. Wow! How patriotic of them!

That sounds like a move the Brewer front office would do. I don't care what was going on, there's no way I would get rid of a pitcher who had thrown a combined 36 shutouts in the last three seasons. They'd have to pry him from my cold, dead hands.

He threw almost 5,200 innings in his career. Strange how these older pitchers were able to throw all these innings, and yet they never would have needed Tommy John surgery, if it were available in their time.

[CxG Voodoo Doll]

This is so cool. It's like a "what if" moment in an athletes career.

What if...

Sosa/McGwire/Bonds/A - Rod etc never used Ped's?

What if...

Mantle was never addicted to alcohol?

Cool thread. Interesting stuff.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by CxG Voodoo Doll

This is so cool. It's like a "what if" moment in an athletes career.

What if...

Sosa/McGwire/Bonds/A - Rod etc never used Ped's?

What if...

Mantle was never addicted to alcohol?

Cool thread. Interesting stuff.

Thank you

Baseball fans have been playing the "what if" game ever since the game was first played. What if Candy Cummings hadn't started throwing that curveball in the 1870s? What if somebody like Branch Rickey had come along ten years earlier, and the color barrier was broken before Jackie Robinson? What if fans had a chance to see Josh Gibson, and Cool Papa Bell, and Satch while he was in his prime? What if the Dodgers hadn't moved to the west coast? It's fun to play the game, because fans can daydream about what might have been. I can dream about the Brewers being able to replay the 1982 World Series and actually having Rollie Fingers. He'd won the Cy Young and MVP the season before. Yet he was unable to play in the '82 series at all because of injuries. In a series that went to seven games, having him available could have meant the difference between winning and losing. Fingers had saved 29 games with a 2.60 ERA.

But while all that is pure fantasy, what we're doing here is an amalgamation of fantasy and fact. We know that if it weren't for war, these men we are talking about would have been playing baseball. All of them. And while they could have played better than, or worse than the numbers we are arriving at, and the possibility exists that they may have retired earlier if they don't miss years to military commitment, I feel that these adjustments create career numbers that are believable. Ted Williams missed more than 4.5 years of his career. We saw how good he was at the end of his career. Outside of the 1959 season when Williams battled through a neck injury suffered in the preseason, he was still a great ballplayer. In 1957, at the age of 38, he hit .388 to lead the American League. The next season, he again led the league with a .328 season. And, in 1960, his final season, with the neck injury a thing of the past, he bounced back to hit .316 with 29 HR and 72 RBI in 113 games-at age 41.

Is there anybody that couldn't see Ted Williams smashing close to another 200 home runs with almost 5 more seasons in his prime? Not this baseball fan