Hall of Fame Pyramid - History 1910-1919
Apr 22, 2019 7:38:41 GMT -5
Rich - Former GM, Texas Rangers, and 2 more like this
Post by sansterre - Milwaukee Brewers on Apr 22, 2019 7:38:41 GMT -5
The teens were a strange decade. For whatever reason talent concentrated itself in the AL pretty heavily, such that the American League won eight of the ten World Series for the decade, and the two losses were considered a miracle (1914) or heavily influenced by the biggest corruption scandal in baseball history (1919). The best players were almost all in the AL; Honus Wagner is listed here as the best hitter in the NL several years, which is true, but he was generally only the 4th-6th best hitter in the league. Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker and Eddie Collins all played in the AL and were putting up 8+ WAR years every freaking year. The NL simply had no batters like that until Rogers Hornsby came along. And for that matter, everything I just said is true of pitchers. Christy Mathewson was still quite good, but the AL had Walter Johnson, Ed Walsh, Smoky Joe Wood and Stan Coveleski; aside from Pete Alexander the NL never had a truly dominant ace this decade. Judging based on World Series results is fairly arbitrary (small sample size and all), but the AL’s top teams were consistently better than the NL’s top teams (and the AL’s top players better than the NL’s).
At least, going into the 20’s, this trend was about to rectify itself.
Just kidding. In fact:
World Series results by decade:
1901-1909: 2-6 NL
1910-1919: 8-2 AL
1920-1929: 6-4 AL
1930-1939: 7-3 AL
1940-1949: 6-4 AL
1950-1959: 6-4 AL
1960-1969: 4-6 NL
1970-1979: 6-4 AL
1980-1989: 5-5
1990-1999: 6-3 AL
2000-2009: 6-4 AL
2010-2019: 5-5
2020-2029: 7-3 AL
2030-2039: 5-5
2040-2049: 2-8 NL
It isn’t until the 2040s that the NL finally turns the tables.
The Federal League
Fourteen years after Ban Johnson organized the American League to challenge for baseball supremacy, another effort was made. A gathering of owners organized a new eight team league, named the Federal League, in the hopes of competing with Major League Baseball. And in the reserve clause, the Federal League had a serious ally.
The reserve clause was a component of every MLB contract that basically said that, at the end of a player’s contract, the team could extend them again for another year if the team wished. In other words, it was impossible for a player to refuse an offer and be bid upon in free agency. In fact, free agency did not exist. A player could: 1) be extended by their current team, 2) hold out as long as they wanted, but not leave, 3) be traded or 4) be released. That was it. Given that the players had little bargaining power, salaries were artificially depressed in favor of the owners. The players at the top had a lot more leverage and could command solid salaries (in 1916 Ty Cobb received the biggest deal ever, $20,000 per year, which adjusts to a little over $450k in 2019 dollars). Nevertheless, there was an understandable degree of animosity toward the owners from the players, and the Federal League tapped into that.
Just as the American League’s existence shattered the implementation of the National League’s cap on what a single player could earn, the Federal League was able to recruit a number of stars from the MLB (just as the AL had done) by promising them more money. As a result, the MLB owners had to raise their own players’ salaries in order to retain them. The Federal League, in short, was very good for players and fairly bad for owners. The owners of the MLB handled it like true free market capitalists and, after two years, bought out half the Federal League franchises and forced it to shut down. Once the Federal League was eliminated the MLB dropped salaries back to what they had been before. This caused a lot of unrest among the players but, for the most part, they had little recourse. Everyone assumed that it would be business as usual.
It was only when several players on a great team, belonging to an unusually tight-fisted owner, were offered a chance to dramatically increase their earnings by throwing a few games that this whole storyline became the biggest scandal in baseball’s history.
Breakdown Year by Year:
1910: 249/318/326, 3.83 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.3 home runs, 2.6 steals, 7.7 K’s
Pennant Winners: Philadelphia Athletics (102-48), Chicago Cubs (104-50)
World Series: Philadelphia Athletics defeat Chicago Cubs 4 - 1
Best Hitters: Ty Cobb (DET), Sherry Magee (PHI)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson (WAS), Christy Mathewson, 6 (NYG)
1911: 266/336/357, 4.51 runs/g/tm, the average game had 0.4 home runs, 2.8 steals, 8.0 K’s
Pennant Winners: Philadelphia Athletics (101-50), New York Giants (99-54)
World Series: Philadelphia Athletics defeat New York Giants 4-2
Best Hitters: Ty Cobb, 2 (DET), Honus Wagner, 9 (PIT)
Best Pitchers: Ed Walsh (CHA), Pete Alexander, (PHI)
1912: 269/337/359, 4.53 runs/g/tm, the average game had 0.4 home runs, 2.8 steals, 7.9 K’s
Pennant Winners: Boston Red Sox (105-47), New York Giants (103-48)
World Series: Boston Red Sox defeat New York Giants 4-3-1
Best Hitters: Tris Speaker (BOS), Honus Wagner, 10 (PIT)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 2 (WAS), Christy Mathewson, 7 (NYG)
1913: 259/325/345, 4.04 runs/g/tm, the average game had 0.4 home runs, 2.6 steals, 7.5 K’s
Pennant Winners: Philadelphia Athletics (96-57), New York Giants (101-51)
World Series: Philadelphia Athletics defeat New York Giants 4-1
Best Hitters: Eddie Collins (PHA), Gavvy Cravath (PHI)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 3 (WAS), Pete Alexander, 2 (PHI)
1914: 254/321/337, 3.86 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.4 home runs, 2.4 steals, 7.9 K’s
Pennant Winners: Philadelphia Athletics (99-53), Boston Braves (94-59)
World Series: Boston Braves sweep Philadelphia Athletics 4-0
Best Hitters: Tris Speaker, 2 (BOS), George Burns (NYG)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 4 (WAS), Pete Alexander, 3 (PHI)
1915: 250/318/332, 3.81 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.3 home runs, 2.2 steals and 7.5 K’s
Pennant Winners: Boston Red Sox (101-50), Philadelphia Phillies (90-62)
World Series: Boston Red Sox defeat Philadelphia Phillies 4-1
Best Hitters: Ty Cobb, 3 (DET), Gavvy Cravath (PHI)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 5 (WAS), Pete Alexander, 4 (PHI)
1916: 248/312/326, 3.56 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.3 home runs, 2.2 steals and 7.6 K’s
Pennant Winners: Boston Red Sox (91-63), Brooklyn Robins (94-60)
World Series: Boston Red Sox defeat Brooklyn Robins 4-1
Best Hitters: Tris Speaker, 3 (CLE), Art Fletcher (NYG)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 6 (WAS), Pete Alexander, 5 (PHI)
1917: 249/311/324, 3.59 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.3 home runs, 1.9 steals and 7.0 K’s
Pennant Winners: Chicago White Sox (100-54), New York Giants (98-56)
World Series: Chicago White Sox defeat New York Giants 4-2
Best Hitters: Ty Cobb, 4 (DET), Rogers Hornsby (STL)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 7 (WAS), Pete Alexander, 6 (PHI)
1918: 254/317/325, 3.63 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.2 home runs, 2.0 steals and 5.8 K’s
Pennant Winners: Boston Red Sox (75-51), Chicago Cubs (84-45)
World Series: Boston Red Sox defeat Chicago Cubs 4-2
Best Hitters: George Sisler (SLB), Rogers Hornsby, 2 (STL)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 8 (WAS), Hippo Vaughn (CHN)
1919: 263/322/348, 3.88 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.4 home runs, 1.9 steals, 6.1 K’s
Pennant Winners: Chicago White Sox (88-52), Cincinnati Reds (96-44)
World Series: Cincinnati Reds defeat Chicago White Sox 5-3
Best Hitters: Babe Ruth (BOS), Rogers Hornsby, 3 (STL)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 9 (WAS), Hippo Vaughn, 2 (CHN)
Team of the Decade:
C: Chief Myers
1B: Ed Konetchy, STL/BSN
2B: Eddie Collins, PHA/CHA
SS: Art Fletcher, NYG
3B: Frank Baker, PHA/NYA
OF: Joe Jackson, CLE/CHA
CF: Ty Cobb, DET
OF: Tris Speaker, BOS/CLE
SP: Walter Johnson, WAS
SP: Pete Alexander, PHI/CHN
SP: Eddie Cicotte, BOS/CHA
SP: Hippo Vaughn, NYA/CHN
SP: Rube Marquard, NYG/BRK
Boston Doves / Braves: 0.450 win percentage, 1 Pennant, 1 Championship
Best Team: Without a doubt the “Miracle Braves” of 1914, who went 94-59 and swept the A’s in the World Series.
A little more background. Boston was dog crap from 1910-1912 (53, 44 and 52 wins) but perked up to the tune of 69-82 in 1913. But nobody was prepared for Boston to go gangbusters in 1914, unseat the Giants on top of the National League and win a World Series. There’s a reason they were the “Miracle Braves”; it was the first winning season since 1902 when the team went 73-64. And it’s not like they dominated wire to wire; they were in last place as of July 4th, fifteen games out of first. They went 68-19 the rest of the way. Making it even more of a miracle, 1914 was the only year between 1910 and 1918 where the NL won the World Series. The Braves weren’t overwhelmingly good that year, but they were good enough and everything split their way. They had two more solid years after before receding into the waters of horribleness.
Boston Red Sox: 0.579 win percentage, 4 Pennants, 4 Championships
Best Team: The Sox had a lot of great teams in this decade, but 1912 leaps to mind: 105-47, won the AL by 14 games and beat John McGraw’s Giants in the World Series.
In 1909 the Red Sox went 88-63 with a solid team and several quality young players, including 19 year-old Smoky Joe Wood, 25 year-old Eddie Cicotte, 22 year-old Ray Collins and 21 year-old Tris Speaker, who put up 6.3 WAR on the season. You could be forgiven for being optimistic about their future. But 1910 and 1911, while winning seasons, were a little underwhelming. 1912 was when it all clicked; Speaker put up 10 WAR, Wood another 7.6 and all the role players had strong years. Then it went off the rails, at least for a moment. Wood broke his thumb in 1913, suffered appendicitis in 1914 and by 1915 had lost the stuff that made him so dominant. The redoubtable Red Sox still managed to win the AL in 1915, led by Speaker, a great fielding outfield and a solid stable of pitchers, including a 20 year-old lefty phenom named George Herman Ruth.
In 1916 the unthinkable happened; Speaker refused to have his salary cut in half after the collapse of the Federal League and was traded to Cleveland for two players and $55k in cash (about three times the salary of the top player in the league). Yet the Red Sox repeated in ‘16, led by great fielding and a great rotation, which in turn was led by Babe Ruth, and again in 1918. Ruth’s dominance with the bat was already established and in 1918 they had him split time between the outfield and rotation, getting 382 PAs and pitching 166 innings. In 1919 the balance shifted even more toward batting, as Ruth broke the record for home runs in a season, hitting 29 (this record did not stand long). As good as he was as a player Ruth caused no end of headaches with management, violating his curfew with regularity. Despite quality play from Ruth the Red Sox slipped badly into a losing record in 1919. Sensing the need to rebuild and wanting to make good, the Red Sox sold Ruth to the Yankees in the offseason for $100k. This may seem ridiculous (and it certainly didn’t work out for the Red Sox), but $100k was more than the highest payroll the league at the time; it’d be like someone trading one of the best players in the league nowadays for $300 million straight up. This trade (and the decline of the team core) brought an end to a great decade for the Red Sox; they would not be good again until the late 1930’s.
Brooklyn Superbas / Dodgers / Robins: 0.469 win percentage, 1 Pennant, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1916, when everything clicked for one season, allowing them to go 94-60 and win the NL, if lose in the World Series to the Red Sox.
Brooklyn was quite terrible to start the decade but by 1914 they had a solid team built around Zach Wheat, Ed Reulbach and Jeff Pfeffer. They had two average years before catching fire in 1916. In 1917 the team fell apart and didn’t have a winning record for the rest of the decade.
Chicago Cubs: 0.553 win percentage, 2 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1910, when they went 104-50 and lost in the World Series. 1918 was almost as good.
1910 was the last ride of the dominant Cubs roster of the mid-late 1900s. From then on the team slowly regressed, still winning, but unable to keep pace with the Giants who were generally better at replacing their losses. In 1915 they had their first losing season in over a decade and by 1916 they were outright bad. Their only bright spot was the Hippo Vaughn, a strikeout pitcher (4.5-5.5 K/9 doesn’t seem good now, but 3.5 per 9 was normal back then) who had bounced around the league for years and, with the Cubs at age 26 in 1914 he started to learn control. Even as the Cubs floundered, Vaughn became increasingly dominant. By 1917 they were average again and in 1918 they had a surprisingly dominant year. That the same roster in 1919 added Pete Alexander but could only finish third suggests that 1918 may have been somewhat of a fluke. Nevertheless, in aggregate they were quite good over the decade.
Chicago White Sox: 0.536 win percentage, 2 Pennants, 1 Championship
Best Team: Probably 1917, when they went 100-54 and won the World Series. 1915 and 1919 were both quite good, but 1917 was probably better.
The White Sox from 1910 through 1914 had been decent, if slightly below average. They had some solid players in Jack Fournier and Eddie Cicotte and some quality prospects in Red Faber and Reb Russell but were stalled around 500. Then The Federal League happened. Suddenly every star player became more expensive and many teams couldn’t, or didn’t want to, keep up. Cleveland wanted to sell off Shoeless Joe Jackson; Chicago sent a mountain of money and prospects for him. Connie Mack decided to sell off his entire roster in Philadelphia, and sent Eddie Collins to Chicago for $50,000. If you’re not familiar with deadball era players I’ll add some flavor text; Jackson was the best corner outfielder in either league and Eddie Collins was the best second baseman either league had ever seen.
Chicago transformed into a powerhouse, winning 93+ games four of the next five years (adjusted for season length). But under the surface the team was deeply divided. On one side you had the well-bred college educated players like Red Faber and Eddie Collins (an Ivy League graduate). On the other side you had a rough, blue-collar group led by Chick Gandil. The two sides sniped at each other all season long and Collins, who made almost twice what any other player made, found himself alienated from most of the team. Wound up in this clubhouse division was anger at White Sox owner Charlie Comiskey over his perceived tight fist with player salaries.
There isn’t a lot of objective evidence for the claim that Comiskey was cheap. The White Sox had the third highest payroll in the league and five of the sixteen highest paid players in the AL, not consistent with a cheap owner. But this does not mean that the lower-paid players did not have complaint against Comiskey or the reserve clause. Ultimately, whether or not the accusation was valid is irrelevant; a lot of the less-paid players on the team were unhappy and looking for more money. In 1919 the team won the American League and went into the World Series as 5 to 1 favorites over the Cincinnati Reds (remember how the AL always won the Series this decade? Odds-makers noticed.)
Chick Gandil brought a number of players to his hotel room and explained the proposal he’d received from an interested wagerer; that if the White Sox would throw the World Series each player involved in the fix would be well compensated. Making things more ideal for a fix was that Red Faber, whose integrity was not in question, had the flu and could not pitch the beginning of the series. The players were each promised varying amounts of cash, but in every case it generally was many multiples of their annual salary. They agreed to go through with it.
Now game fixing in the deadball era was . . . well, let’s not say common. But it happened. Players frequently felt underpaid and enterprising gamblers could make it worth their while to contribute to a loss. It was all generally subtle (not always; Hal Chase was widely known by everyone in the league for throwing games) but only in the regular season. A fix on the world’s biggest stage was something new.
The gamblers promised the players massive amounts of money should the fix go through, but once the players (there were seven or eight involved) started throwing the series the backers started dropping the amount offered. It turned out that the gamblers were no more generous than the owners when it came to dealing with players’ inferior bargaining power. In the end the White Sox successfully lost the series, but in doing so drew many suspicious eyes. The players were each paid $5,000 with $35k going to Gandil for being the organizer. This may seem like peanuts, but Ty Cobb was being paid only $20k per season and Joe Jackson was only making $6k per season. And the gamblers had enticed the players with promises of far more.
The matter was eventually brought before a jury which found the players not guilty. The new commissioner of baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis (great name right?), wanting to make a statement banned all eight players from ever playing in the major leagues again. Fair or not, this dramatic gesture more or less put an end to game fixing going forward. It also prematurely ended the career of Joe Jackson, at the age of 32 coming off a 7.4 WAR season. Questions of Jackson’s innocence remain, and will be discussed at more length in his section of the Hall.
Cincinnati Reds: 0.479 win percentage, 1 Pennant, 1 Championship
Best Team: Easily 1919, when they went 96-44, won the National League by 9 games and then won the World Series . . . with a little help.
Cincinnati was fairly bad most of the decade, never having a winning season until 1917. In ‘17 and ‘18 they were decent and in ‘19 everything came together. The team offense was solid, anchored by 3B Heinie Groh and OF Edd Roush. Those two are not remembered often; each fell just short of Honorable Mention, but each put up numerous 5-6 WAR seasons in the 1916-1921 stretch for Cincinnati. The Reds had an excellent offense in 1918 (led the league in runs) but had the worst pitching, allowing the most walks with the second least strikeouts. In 1919 the Reds gained a new manager in Pat Moran, coming off four strong seasons with the Phillies. Moran looked at the roster, assessed the problem, and made some moves, adding high-patience great-glove Morrie Rath and no-arm all-control Slim Sallee. Then, deciding that his team’s fielders were up to it, he pushed the team’s tendencies in the direction that many successful managers would, especially John McGraw. Specifically, he told his pitchers to not try as hard for strikeouts and focus more on not giving up walks, letting opposing batters put the ball in play. And he made sure his hitters did their part to work the count and get free passes to first base. In 1919 the Reds went from 6th in walks taken to 1st and from dead last in walks surrendered to 4th. The defense did their part, leading the league in opponent BABIP, and the Reds went on to dominate the league en route to the pennant.
Cleveland Naps/Indians: 0.498 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: The 1919 Indians went 84-55 and finished 3.5 games behind the White Sox.
The Naps opened the decade just above average, carried by the aging Nap Lajoie and new prospect Joe Jackson. In 1914 the wheels came off and the 39 year-old Lajoie finally surrendered to age. He was traded and the team was renamed the Indians, but in 1915 the team remained terrible. At the intersection of losing and the problems caused by the Federal League the Indians traded away Joe Jackson to the White Sox for cash and prospects. That offseason the ownership of the team was bought out by someone with deeper pockets. And the new ownership moved aggressively, taking advantage of the issues in Boston by trading for Tris Speaker. With Speaker on board and adding two young pitchers (Jim Bagby and Stan Coveleski) the Indians went 500 in 1916, then boasted strong winning seasons for the rest of the decade. While they finished just behind the White Sox in 1919, they would be well positioned going into the 1920s.
Detroit Tigers: 0.529 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1915 when they went 100-54 but finished 2.5 games behind the Red Sox.
Detroit in the teens is the poster child for how one player can’t take a team to the championship by himself. In this decade Ty Cobb put up 84.3 WAR (which is to say, averaged 8.4 WAR per season over a decade). In that decade alone he had almost two thousand hits (1948) and over five hundred extra base hits (521, 313 doubles, 161 triples and 47 home runs). Detroit remained very good, with seven winning seasons through the decade but they were unable to ever win the league. One thing not helping Detroit was the increased strength of the top teams in the American League. Starting the decade the Athletics (built around Eddie Collins, Frank Baker and excellent pitching) and the Red Sox (built around Tris Speaker, Eddie Cicotte and Joe Wood) became routinely unstoppable, winning the first seven pennants between them. And by 1917, though the A’s had sold off their talent completely, the Red Sox were still good (thanks in part to Babe Ruth) and the White Sox had built their dominant teams off the financial struggles of others. Detroit routinely had one of the top two offenses in the league but their pitching was rarely even average. And it is possible that having the highest paid player in the league reduced their ability to compete (Cobb was about 25% of their payroll by the end of the decade).
New York Giants: 0.598 win percentage, 4 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: Almost certainly 1912, when they went 103-48 but lost to the murderous 1912 Red Sox.
The Giants had an excellent decade by every measure except championships. In a 162-game season they’d have averaged about 97 wins a year; they had a single losing season and finished in the top two in eight different seasons. This run of success (as you’ll recall the Giants were dominant in the 1900s as well) was an incredible achievement by John McGraw. By 1919 every single strong player from the prior decade had retired and yet his team kept winning. The Giants had few stars (Christy Matthewson being the lone exception); they merely had a deep roster of very capable players who integrated well into the team concept. Art Fletcher (Honorable Mention!) is the great example. Best-gloved shortstop in the league for five years combined with a league average bat. At short that’s a 5 WAR player, and he was the best the Giants had for the second half of the decade. Unremarkable, but effective. Few other times in history can you look at so many pennant winners and struggle to recognize a single name on their roster. And yet. Without a doubt consistently the best team of the decade.
New York Highlanders / Yankees: 0.473 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: It’s close but probably the 1919 team that went 80-59, finishing 3rd behind the White Sox and Indians.
The Highlanders had generally struggled since their inception, losing money and winning few games. In 1915 (under pressure from the Federal League - I know you keep hearing this but I’m telling you, for a cost-controlled league where almost every team had payrolls below a million dollars (inflation-adjusted), a rival league showing up and forcing owners to pay more or lose players was a serious strain on a lot of teams and was the single biggest driver of change in the decade) the owners sold to brewery magnate Jacob Ruppert who intended to spend freely to enhance his team’s success.
While the team had been poor (from 1911-1917 they finished no higher than fourth) the team was working to both add quality veterans and find good young players. By 1919 they had built a solid core. Roger Peckinpaugh (acquired young in 1913, but 28 in 1919) was a consistent 4+ WAR shortstop. Del Pratt was equally solid at second (31, acquired from the Browns in 1918). Frank “Home Run” Baker was 33 and slowing down but he too was consistently excellent at third. Carl Mays (acquired in 1919 from the Red Sox) provided quality in the rotation. By the end of 1919 the Yankees (as they were now known) had a strong enough core to finish third, but they would need something more to get over the hump. That offseason they traded for Babe Ruth. The next time the Yankees finished with less than 80 wins was 1959, which is to say, 1919 was the first year of a forty-year streak of winning seasons. When it began the Yankees were just another forgettable team in the American League. And when it ended they were the most dominant team in the history of the sport.
Philadelphia Athletics: 0.478 win percentage, 4 Pennants, 3 Championships
Best Team: Almost certainly 1910, when they went 102-48 and won the World Series in five games.
The stat line above says it all; they won the league four times and the championship three times but finished with a below average record for the decade. 1910-1914 their worst season was 90-62 in 1912, the only year they didn’t win the AL. From 1915-1919 they finished eighth every single year. What the heck happened in the middle of the decade that changed the team’s fortunes so decisively?
If you guessed the Federal League, good job, it means you’ve been paying attention.
In the front half of the decade the A’s were loaded with future Hall of Famers, specifically Eddie Collins and Frank Baker. To support them the A’s had a fantastic rotation, led by Chief Bender, Jack Coombs and Eddie Plank. I cannot oversell Eddie Collins; he, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker were the three most valuable hitters for the decade. Looking at their roster you could be forgiven for thinking that the A’s would be winning forever. But in 1914 the Federal League came out, the market demanded that players’ salaries go up and team manager / GM / part owner Connie Mack (extremely competent but also scrupulously cheap and dependent on the A's income for his own) decided that he had no interest in competing in a league with skyrocketing salaries. So he sold off every damned good player he had (for money mostly) and the A’s were pure garbage for the next decade, not having a winning season until 1925. In terms of changing the balance of power in the league, Connie Mack’s decision to sell off his team in the offseason before 1915 probably changed the league as much as the Babe Ruth trade did.
Philadelphia Phillies: 0.515 win percentage, 1 Pennant, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1915, when they went 90-62 and won the NL, losing the World Series to the Red Sox in 5.
The Phillies were a pretty average team for most of the decade, but it wasn’t for lack of star power. In 1911 they signed 24 year-old Pete “Grover Cleveland” Alexander, the best pitcher of the decade if, you know, Walter Johnson suddenly never existed. In 1912 they added 31 year-old Gavvy Cravath, a slow batter who couldn’t hit for average and had bounced around the minors and majors for years. In the Phillies’ small stadium, the Baker Bowl, Cravath’s preference to put the ball in the air instead of the ground started working for him. Starting in 1913 he led the NL in home runs three straight years with 19, 19 and 24. All of it came together in 1915 when both players had dominant years and the rest of the team came together behind them. They won the pennant that year, but not the championship. In the years after the team remained strong, finishing second in both 1916 and 1917.
In 1918, with the US entering World War I, Philadelphia sold Alexander to the Cubs for two prospects and $55k, figuring that he’d be drafted shortly. He was, and lost most of 1918 to military service. But then he was back in 1919 and still dominating while the Phillies’ went down the tubes, finishing 6th in 1918 and 8th in 1919. Their next winning season would be 1932.
Pittsburgh Pirates: 0.495 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1912, when they went 93-58, yet still finished ten games behind the Giants. Unfortunate for the Pirates that their best year of the decade happened to be the same year as the Giants’ best year (which was better). And in turn, it was unfortunate for the Giants that in 1912 the Red Sox were having their best year, which was also better. Alas.
The Pirates had been getting by on surrounding the best player in the NL (that would be Honus Wagner) with a decent crew. The Pirates were good at the beginning of the decade, finishing 3rd, 3rd, 2nd and 4th. By 1914 Wagner was 41 and not able to carry the team anymore. The Pirates struggled from ‘14 to ‘17, finishing 8th once. But by 1918 the team was restocked and the decade closed with the Pirates back up to 500 and well-positioned for the next decade.
St. Louis Browns: 0.401 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1916, when they went 79-75, finishing 5th, twelve games out of first.
Not going to spend a lot of time here. The Browns sucked. On the upside, in 1915 they brought on 22 year-old George Sisler whose Hall of Fame career would provide the Browns a jolt. I mean, not a crazy jolt. They’re still the Browns. Not to oversell, but the Browns have five whole winning seasons coming to them in the 20’s!
St. Louis Cardinals: 0.440 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1914, when they went 81-72, finishing 3rd, 13 games out of first.
St. Louis was *not* a good baseball city for the first two decades of the century. Luckily the Cardinals landed 19 year-old Rogers Hornsby in 1915 who, starting in 1916, put up seasons of 4.9, 9.9, 5.4 and 6.7 WAR. The 20s would be the last decade where the Cardinals were bad.
Washington Senators: 0.506 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1912, when they went 91-61, finishing 2nd, 14 games behind the Red Sox.
Washington wasn’t the worst team of the decade, or close to it. Much of that was Walter Johnson; Johnson’s record for the decade was 265-143 for a 500 team. It is one of the abiding tragedies that Johnson played his whole career for what ultimately was a bad team. Had Johnson caught on with the Giants or something he’d be spoken of like the second coming. As it is he’s considered one of the best pitchers ever.
Franchises that Dominated the Most this Decade:
1) Boston Red Sox
2) New York Giants
3) Philadelphia Athletics
4) Chicago White Sox
5) Chicago Cubs
Franchises that Dominated the Least this Decade:
1) St. Louis Browns
2) St. Louis Cardinals
3) New York Highlanders / Yankees
4) Brooklyn Superbas/Dodgers/Robins
5) Washington Senators
Franchises that Sucked the Most this Decade:
1) St. Louis Browns
2) Philadelphia Athletics
3) St. Louis Cardinals
4) Boston Doves/Braves
5) Brooklyn Superbas/Dodgers/Robins
Franchises that Sucked the Least this Decade:
1) New York Giants
2) Boston Red Sox
3) Chicago Cubs
4) Chicago White Sox
5) Detroit Tigers
Phew, that was a lot of history. Let’s take a breather, and then, on to Honorable Mention Center Fielders!
At least, going into the 20’s, this trend was about to rectify itself.
Just kidding. In fact:
World Series results by decade:
1901-1909: 2-6 NL
1910-1919: 8-2 AL
1920-1929: 6-4 AL
1930-1939: 7-3 AL
1940-1949: 6-4 AL
1950-1959: 6-4 AL
1960-1969: 4-6 NL
1970-1979: 6-4 AL
1980-1989: 5-5
1990-1999: 6-3 AL
2000-2009: 6-4 AL
2010-2019: 5-5
2020-2029: 7-3 AL
2030-2039: 5-5
2040-2049: 2-8 NL
It isn’t until the 2040s that the NL finally turns the tables.
The Federal League
Fourteen years after Ban Johnson organized the American League to challenge for baseball supremacy, another effort was made. A gathering of owners organized a new eight team league, named the Federal League, in the hopes of competing with Major League Baseball. And in the reserve clause, the Federal League had a serious ally.
The reserve clause was a component of every MLB contract that basically said that, at the end of a player’s contract, the team could extend them again for another year if the team wished. In other words, it was impossible for a player to refuse an offer and be bid upon in free agency. In fact, free agency did not exist. A player could: 1) be extended by their current team, 2) hold out as long as they wanted, but not leave, 3) be traded or 4) be released. That was it. Given that the players had little bargaining power, salaries were artificially depressed in favor of the owners. The players at the top had a lot more leverage and could command solid salaries (in 1916 Ty Cobb received the biggest deal ever, $20,000 per year, which adjusts to a little over $450k in 2019 dollars). Nevertheless, there was an understandable degree of animosity toward the owners from the players, and the Federal League tapped into that.
Just as the American League’s existence shattered the implementation of the National League’s cap on what a single player could earn, the Federal League was able to recruit a number of stars from the MLB (just as the AL had done) by promising them more money. As a result, the MLB owners had to raise their own players’ salaries in order to retain them. The Federal League, in short, was very good for players and fairly bad for owners. The owners of the MLB handled it like true free market capitalists and, after two years, bought out half the Federal League franchises and forced it to shut down. Once the Federal League was eliminated the MLB dropped salaries back to what they had been before. This caused a lot of unrest among the players but, for the most part, they had little recourse. Everyone assumed that it would be business as usual.
It was only when several players on a great team, belonging to an unusually tight-fisted owner, were offered a chance to dramatically increase their earnings by throwing a few games that this whole storyline became the biggest scandal in baseball’s history.
Breakdown Year by Year:
1910: 249/318/326, 3.83 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.3 home runs, 2.6 steals, 7.7 K’s
Pennant Winners: Philadelphia Athletics (102-48), Chicago Cubs (104-50)
World Series: Philadelphia Athletics defeat Chicago Cubs 4 - 1
Best Hitters: Ty Cobb (DET), Sherry Magee (PHI)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson (WAS), Christy Mathewson, 6 (NYG)
1911: 266/336/357, 4.51 runs/g/tm, the average game had 0.4 home runs, 2.8 steals, 8.0 K’s
Pennant Winners: Philadelphia Athletics (101-50), New York Giants (99-54)
World Series: Philadelphia Athletics defeat New York Giants 4-2
Best Hitters: Ty Cobb, 2 (DET), Honus Wagner, 9 (PIT)
Best Pitchers: Ed Walsh (CHA), Pete Alexander, (PHI)
1912: 269/337/359, 4.53 runs/g/tm, the average game had 0.4 home runs, 2.8 steals, 7.9 K’s
Pennant Winners: Boston Red Sox (105-47), New York Giants (103-48)
World Series: Boston Red Sox defeat New York Giants 4-3-1
Best Hitters: Tris Speaker (BOS), Honus Wagner, 10 (PIT)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 2 (WAS), Christy Mathewson, 7 (NYG)
1913: 259/325/345, 4.04 runs/g/tm, the average game had 0.4 home runs, 2.6 steals, 7.5 K’s
Pennant Winners: Philadelphia Athletics (96-57), New York Giants (101-51)
World Series: Philadelphia Athletics defeat New York Giants 4-1
Best Hitters: Eddie Collins (PHA), Gavvy Cravath (PHI)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 3 (WAS), Pete Alexander, 2 (PHI)
1914: 254/321/337, 3.86 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.4 home runs, 2.4 steals, 7.9 K’s
Pennant Winners: Philadelphia Athletics (99-53), Boston Braves (94-59)
World Series: Boston Braves sweep Philadelphia Athletics 4-0
Best Hitters: Tris Speaker, 2 (BOS), George Burns (NYG)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 4 (WAS), Pete Alexander, 3 (PHI)
1915: 250/318/332, 3.81 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.3 home runs, 2.2 steals and 7.5 K’s
Pennant Winners: Boston Red Sox (101-50), Philadelphia Phillies (90-62)
World Series: Boston Red Sox defeat Philadelphia Phillies 4-1
Best Hitters: Ty Cobb, 3 (DET), Gavvy Cravath (PHI)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 5 (WAS), Pete Alexander, 4 (PHI)
1916: 248/312/326, 3.56 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.3 home runs, 2.2 steals and 7.6 K’s
Pennant Winners: Boston Red Sox (91-63), Brooklyn Robins (94-60)
World Series: Boston Red Sox defeat Brooklyn Robins 4-1
Best Hitters: Tris Speaker, 3 (CLE), Art Fletcher (NYG)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 6 (WAS), Pete Alexander, 5 (PHI)
1917: 249/311/324, 3.59 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.3 home runs, 1.9 steals and 7.0 K’s
Pennant Winners: Chicago White Sox (100-54), New York Giants (98-56)
World Series: Chicago White Sox defeat New York Giants 4-2
Best Hitters: Ty Cobb, 4 (DET), Rogers Hornsby (STL)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 7 (WAS), Pete Alexander, 6 (PHI)
1918: 254/317/325, 3.63 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.2 home runs, 2.0 steals and 5.8 K’s
Pennant Winners: Boston Red Sox (75-51), Chicago Cubs (84-45)
World Series: Boston Red Sox defeat Chicago Cubs 4-2
Best Hitters: George Sisler (SLB), Rogers Hornsby, 2 (STL)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 8 (WAS), Hippo Vaughn (CHN)
1919: 263/322/348, 3.88 r/g/tm, the average game had 0.4 home runs, 1.9 steals, 6.1 K’s
Pennant Winners: Chicago White Sox (88-52), Cincinnati Reds (96-44)
World Series: Cincinnati Reds defeat Chicago White Sox 5-3
Best Hitters: Babe Ruth (BOS), Rogers Hornsby, 3 (STL)
Best Pitchers: Walter Johnson, 9 (WAS), Hippo Vaughn, 2 (CHN)
Team of the Decade:
C: Chief Myers
1B: Ed Konetchy, STL/BSN
2B: Eddie Collins, PHA/CHA
SS: Art Fletcher, NYG
3B: Frank Baker, PHA/NYA
OF: Joe Jackson, CLE/CHA
CF: Ty Cobb, DET
OF: Tris Speaker, BOS/CLE
SP: Walter Johnson, WAS
SP: Pete Alexander, PHI/CHN
SP: Eddie Cicotte, BOS/CHA
SP: Hippo Vaughn, NYA/CHN
SP: Rube Marquard, NYG/BRK
Boston Doves / Braves: 0.450 win percentage, 1 Pennant, 1 Championship
Best Team: Without a doubt the “Miracle Braves” of 1914, who went 94-59 and swept the A’s in the World Series.
A little more background. Boston was dog crap from 1910-1912 (53, 44 and 52 wins) but perked up to the tune of 69-82 in 1913. But nobody was prepared for Boston to go gangbusters in 1914, unseat the Giants on top of the National League and win a World Series. There’s a reason they were the “Miracle Braves”; it was the first winning season since 1902 when the team went 73-64. And it’s not like they dominated wire to wire; they were in last place as of July 4th, fifteen games out of first. They went 68-19 the rest of the way. Making it even more of a miracle, 1914 was the only year between 1910 and 1918 where the NL won the World Series. The Braves weren’t overwhelmingly good that year, but they were good enough and everything split their way. They had two more solid years after before receding into the waters of horribleness.
Boston Red Sox: 0.579 win percentage, 4 Pennants, 4 Championships
Best Team: The Sox had a lot of great teams in this decade, but 1912 leaps to mind: 105-47, won the AL by 14 games and beat John McGraw’s Giants in the World Series.
In 1909 the Red Sox went 88-63 with a solid team and several quality young players, including 19 year-old Smoky Joe Wood, 25 year-old Eddie Cicotte, 22 year-old Ray Collins and 21 year-old Tris Speaker, who put up 6.3 WAR on the season. You could be forgiven for being optimistic about their future. But 1910 and 1911, while winning seasons, were a little underwhelming. 1912 was when it all clicked; Speaker put up 10 WAR, Wood another 7.6 and all the role players had strong years. Then it went off the rails, at least for a moment. Wood broke his thumb in 1913, suffered appendicitis in 1914 and by 1915 had lost the stuff that made him so dominant. The redoubtable Red Sox still managed to win the AL in 1915, led by Speaker, a great fielding outfield and a solid stable of pitchers, including a 20 year-old lefty phenom named George Herman Ruth.
In 1916 the unthinkable happened; Speaker refused to have his salary cut in half after the collapse of the Federal League and was traded to Cleveland for two players and $55k in cash (about three times the salary of the top player in the league). Yet the Red Sox repeated in ‘16, led by great fielding and a great rotation, which in turn was led by Babe Ruth, and again in 1918. Ruth’s dominance with the bat was already established and in 1918 they had him split time between the outfield and rotation, getting 382 PAs and pitching 166 innings. In 1919 the balance shifted even more toward batting, as Ruth broke the record for home runs in a season, hitting 29 (this record did not stand long). As good as he was as a player Ruth caused no end of headaches with management, violating his curfew with regularity. Despite quality play from Ruth the Red Sox slipped badly into a losing record in 1919. Sensing the need to rebuild and wanting to make good, the Red Sox sold Ruth to the Yankees in the offseason for $100k. This may seem ridiculous (and it certainly didn’t work out for the Red Sox), but $100k was more than the highest payroll the league at the time; it’d be like someone trading one of the best players in the league nowadays for $300 million straight up. This trade (and the decline of the team core) brought an end to a great decade for the Red Sox; they would not be good again until the late 1930’s.
Brooklyn Superbas / Dodgers / Robins: 0.469 win percentage, 1 Pennant, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1916, when everything clicked for one season, allowing them to go 94-60 and win the NL, if lose in the World Series to the Red Sox.
Brooklyn was quite terrible to start the decade but by 1914 they had a solid team built around Zach Wheat, Ed Reulbach and Jeff Pfeffer. They had two average years before catching fire in 1916. In 1917 the team fell apart and didn’t have a winning record for the rest of the decade.
Chicago Cubs: 0.553 win percentage, 2 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1910, when they went 104-50 and lost in the World Series. 1918 was almost as good.
1910 was the last ride of the dominant Cubs roster of the mid-late 1900s. From then on the team slowly regressed, still winning, but unable to keep pace with the Giants who were generally better at replacing their losses. In 1915 they had their first losing season in over a decade and by 1916 they were outright bad. Their only bright spot was the Hippo Vaughn, a strikeout pitcher (4.5-5.5 K/9 doesn’t seem good now, but 3.5 per 9 was normal back then) who had bounced around the league for years and, with the Cubs at age 26 in 1914 he started to learn control. Even as the Cubs floundered, Vaughn became increasingly dominant. By 1917 they were average again and in 1918 they had a surprisingly dominant year. That the same roster in 1919 added Pete Alexander but could only finish third suggests that 1918 may have been somewhat of a fluke. Nevertheless, in aggregate they were quite good over the decade.
Chicago White Sox: 0.536 win percentage, 2 Pennants, 1 Championship
Best Team: Probably 1917, when they went 100-54 and won the World Series. 1915 and 1919 were both quite good, but 1917 was probably better.
The White Sox from 1910 through 1914 had been decent, if slightly below average. They had some solid players in Jack Fournier and Eddie Cicotte and some quality prospects in Red Faber and Reb Russell but were stalled around 500. Then The Federal League happened. Suddenly every star player became more expensive and many teams couldn’t, or didn’t want to, keep up. Cleveland wanted to sell off Shoeless Joe Jackson; Chicago sent a mountain of money and prospects for him. Connie Mack decided to sell off his entire roster in Philadelphia, and sent Eddie Collins to Chicago for $50,000. If you’re not familiar with deadball era players I’ll add some flavor text; Jackson was the best corner outfielder in either league and Eddie Collins was the best second baseman either league had ever seen.
Chicago transformed into a powerhouse, winning 93+ games four of the next five years (adjusted for season length). But under the surface the team was deeply divided. On one side you had the well-bred college educated players like Red Faber and Eddie Collins (an Ivy League graduate). On the other side you had a rough, blue-collar group led by Chick Gandil. The two sides sniped at each other all season long and Collins, who made almost twice what any other player made, found himself alienated from most of the team. Wound up in this clubhouse division was anger at White Sox owner Charlie Comiskey over his perceived tight fist with player salaries.
There isn’t a lot of objective evidence for the claim that Comiskey was cheap. The White Sox had the third highest payroll in the league and five of the sixteen highest paid players in the AL, not consistent with a cheap owner. But this does not mean that the lower-paid players did not have complaint against Comiskey or the reserve clause. Ultimately, whether or not the accusation was valid is irrelevant; a lot of the less-paid players on the team were unhappy and looking for more money. In 1919 the team won the American League and went into the World Series as 5 to 1 favorites over the Cincinnati Reds (remember how the AL always won the Series this decade? Odds-makers noticed.)
Chick Gandil brought a number of players to his hotel room and explained the proposal he’d received from an interested wagerer; that if the White Sox would throw the World Series each player involved in the fix would be well compensated. Making things more ideal for a fix was that Red Faber, whose integrity was not in question, had the flu and could not pitch the beginning of the series. The players were each promised varying amounts of cash, but in every case it generally was many multiples of their annual salary. They agreed to go through with it.
Now game fixing in the deadball era was . . . well, let’s not say common. But it happened. Players frequently felt underpaid and enterprising gamblers could make it worth their while to contribute to a loss. It was all generally subtle (not always; Hal Chase was widely known by everyone in the league for throwing games) but only in the regular season. A fix on the world’s biggest stage was something new.
The gamblers promised the players massive amounts of money should the fix go through, but once the players (there were seven or eight involved) started throwing the series the backers started dropping the amount offered. It turned out that the gamblers were no more generous than the owners when it came to dealing with players’ inferior bargaining power. In the end the White Sox successfully lost the series, but in doing so drew many suspicious eyes. The players were each paid $5,000 with $35k going to Gandil for being the organizer. This may seem like peanuts, but Ty Cobb was being paid only $20k per season and Joe Jackson was only making $6k per season. And the gamblers had enticed the players with promises of far more.
The matter was eventually brought before a jury which found the players not guilty. The new commissioner of baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis (great name right?), wanting to make a statement banned all eight players from ever playing in the major leagues again. Fair or not, this dramatic gesture more or less put an end to game fixing going forward. It also prematurely ended the career of Joe Jackson, at the age of 32 coming off a 7.4 WAR season. Questions of Jackson’s innocence remain, and will be discussed at more length in his section of the Hall.
Cincinnati Reds: 0.479 win percentage, 1 Pennant, 1 Championship
Best Team: Easily 1919, when they went 96-44, won the National League by 9 games and then won the World Series . . . with a little help.
Cincinnati was fairly bad most of the decade, never having a winning season until 1917. In ‘17 and ‘18 they were decent and in ‘19 everything came together. The team offense was solid, anchored by 3B Heinie Groh and OF Edd Roush. Those two are not remembered often; each fell just short of Honorable Mention, but each put up numerous 5-6 WAR seasons in the 1916-1921 stretch for Cincinnati. The Reds had an excellent offense in 1918 (led the league in runs) but had the worst pitching, allowing the most walks with the second least strikeouts. In 1919 the Reds gained a new manager in Pat Moran, coming off four strong seasons with the Phillies. Moran looked at the roster, assessed the problem, and made some moves, adding high-patience great-glove Morrie Rath and no-arm all-control Slim Sallee. Then, deciding that his team’s fielders were up to it, he pushed the team’s tendencies in the direction that many successful managers would, especially John McGraw. Specifically, he told his pitchers to not try as hard for strikeouts and focus more on not giving up walks, letting opposing batters put the ball in play. And he made sure his hitters did their part to work the count and get free passes to first base. In 1919 the Reds went from 6th in walks taken to 1st and from dead last in walks surrendered to 4th. The defense did their part, leading the league in opponent BABIP, and the Reds went on to dominate the league en route to the pennant.
Cleveland Naps/Indians: 0.498 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: The 1919 Indians went 84-55 and finished 3.5 games behind the White Sox.
The Naps opened the decade just above average, carried by the aging Nap Lajoie and new prospect Joe Jackson. In 1914 the wheels came off and the 39 year-old Lajoie finally surrendered to age. He was traded and the team was renamed the Indians, but in 1915 the team remained terrible. At the intersection of losing and the problems caused by the Federal League the Indians traded away Joe Jackson to the White Sox for cash and prospects. That offseason the ownership of the team was bought out by someone with deeper pockets. And the new ownership moved aggressively, taking advantage of the issues in Boston by trading for Tris Speaker. With Speaker on board and adding two young pitchers (Jim Bagby and Stan Coveleski) the Indians went 500 in 1916, then boasted strong winning seasons for the rest of the decade. While they finished just behind the White Sox in 1919, they would be well positioned going into the 1920s.
Detroit Tigers: 0.529 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1915 when they went 100-54 but finished 2.5 games behind the Red Sox.
Detroit in the teens is the poster child for how one player can’t take a team to the championship by himself. In this decade Ty Cobb put up 84.3 WAR (which is to say, averaged 8.4 WAR per season over a decade). In that decade alone he had almost two thousand hits (1948) and over five hundred extra base hits (521, 313 doubles, 161 triples and 47 home runs). Detroit remained very good, with seven winning seasons through the decade but they were unable to ever win the league. One thing not helping Detroit was the increased strength of the top teams in the American League. Starting the decade the Athletics (built around Eddie Collins, Frank Baker and excellent pitching) and the Red Sox (built around Tris Speaker, Eddie Cicotte and Joe Wood) became routinely unstoppable, winning the first seven pennants between them. And by 1917, though the A’s had sold off their talent completely, the Red Sox were still good (thanks in part to Babe Ruth) and the White Sox had built their dominant teams off the financial struggles of others. Detroit routinely had one of the top two offenses in the league but their pitching was rarely even average. And it is possible that having the highest paid player in the league reduced their ability to compete (Cobb was about 25% of their payroll by the end of the decade).
New York Giants: 0.598 win percentage, 4 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: Almost certainly 1912, when they went 103-48 but lost to the murderous 1912 Red Sox.
The Giants had an excellent decade by every measure except championships. In a 162-game season they’d have averaged about 97 wins a year; they had a single losing season and finished in the top two in eight different seasons. This run of success (as you’ll recall the Giants were dominant in the 1900s as well) was an incredible achievement by John McGraw. By 1919 every single strong player from the prior decade had retired and yet his team kept winning. The Giants had few stars (Christy Matthewson being the lone exception); they merely had a deep roster of very capable players who integrated well into the team concept. Art Fletcher (Honorable Mention!) is the great example. Best-gloved shortstop in the league for five years combined with a league average bat. At short that’s a 5 WAR player, and he was the best the Giants had for the second half of the decade. Unremarkable, but effective. Few other times in history can you look at so many pennant winners and struggle to recognize a single name on their roster. And yet. Without a doubt consistently the best team of the decade.
New York Highlanders / Yankees: 0.473 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: It’s close but probably the 1919 team that went 80-59, finishing 3rd behind the White Sox and Indians.
The Highlanders had generally struggled since their inception, losing money and winning few games. In 1915 (under pressure from the Federal League - I know you keep hearing this but I’m telling you, for a cost-controlled league where almost every team had payrolls below a million dollars (inflation-adjusted), a rival league showing up and forcing owners to pay more or lose players was a serious strain on a lot of teams and was the single biggest driver of change in the decade) the owners sold to brewery magnate Jacob Ruppert who intended to spend freely to enhance his team’s success.
While the team had been poor (from 1911-1917 they finished no higher than fourth) the team was working to both add quality veterans and find good young players. By 1919 they had built a solid core. Roger Peckinpaugh (acquired young in 1913, but 28 in 1919) was a consistent 4+ WAR shortstop. Del Pratt was equally solid at second (31, acquired from the Browns in 1918). Frank “Home Run” Baker was 33 and slowing down but he too was consistently excellent at third. Carl Mays (acquired in 1919 from the Red Sox) provided quality in the rotation. By the end of 1919 the Yankees (as they were now known) had a strong enough core to finish third, but they would need something more to get over the hump. That offseason they traded for Babe Ruth. The next time the Yankees finished with less than 80 wins was 1959, which is to say, 1919 was the first year of a forty-year streak of winning seasons. When it began the Yankees were just another forgettable team in the American League. And when it ended they were the most dominant team in the history of the sport.
Philadelphia Athletics: 0.478 win percentage, 4 Pennants, 3 Championships
Best Team: Almost certainly 1910, when they went 102-48 and won the World Series in five games.
The stat line above says it all; they won the league four times and the championship three times but finished with a below average record for the decade. 1910-1914 their worst season was 90-62 in 1912, the only year they didn’t win the AL. From 1915-1919 they finished eighth every single year. What the heck happened in the middle of the decade that changed the team’s fortunes so decisively?
If you guessed the Federal League, good job, it means you’ve been paying attention.
In the front half of the decade the A’s were loaded with future Hall of Famers, specifically Eddie Collins and Frank Baker. To support them the A’s had a fantastic rotation, led by Chief Bender, Jack Coombs and Eddie Plank. I cannot oversell Eddie Collins; he, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker were the three most valuable hitters for the decade. Looking at their roster you could be forgiven for thinking that the A’s would be winning forever. But in 1914 the Federal League came out, the market demanded that players’ salaries go up and team manager / GM / part owner Connie Mack (extremely competent but also scrupulously cheap and dependent on the A's income for his own) decided that he had no interest in competing in a league with skyrocketing salaries. So he sold off every damned good player he had (for money mostly) and the A’s were pure garbage for the next decade, not having a winning season until 1925. In terms of changing the balance of power in the league, Connie Mack’s decision to sell off his team in the offseason before 1915 probably changed the league as much as the Babe Ruth trade did.
Philadelphia Phillies: 0.515 win percentage, 1 Pennant, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1915, when they went 90-62 and won the NL, losing the World Series to the Red Sox in 5.
The Phillies were a pretty average team for most of the decade, but it wasn’t for lack of star power. In 1911 they signed 24 year-old Pete “Grover Cleveland” Alexander, the best pitcher of the decade if, you know, Walter Johnson suddenly never existed. In 1912 they added 31 year-old Gavvy Cravath, a slow batter who couldn’t hit for average and had bounced around the minors and majors for years. In the Phillies’ small stadium, the Baker Bowl, Cravath’s preference to put the ball in the air instead of the ground started working for him. Starting in 1913 he led the NL in home runs three straight years with 19, 19 and 24. All of it came together in 1915 when both players had dominant years and the rest of the team came together behind them. They won the pennant that year, but not the championship. In the years after the team remained strong, finishing second in both 1916 and 1917.
In 1918, with the US entering World War I, Philadelphia sold Alexander to the Cubs for two prospects and $55k, figuring that he’d be drafted shortly. He was, and lost most of 1918 to military service. But then he was back in 1919 and still dominating while the Phillies’ went down the tubes, finishing 6th in 1918 and 8th in 1919. Their next winning season would be 1932.
Pittsburgh Pirates: 0.495 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1912, when they went 93-58, yet still finished ten games behind the Giants. Unfortunate for the Pirates that their best year of the decade happened to be the same year as the Giants’ best year (which was better). And in turn, it was unfortunate for the Giants that in 1912 the Red Sox were having their best year, which was also better. Alas.
The Pirates had been getting by on surrounding the best player in the NL (that would be Honus Wagner) with a decent crew. The Pirates were good at the beginning of the decade, finishing 3rd, 3rd, 2nd and 4th. By 1914 Wagner was 41 and not able to carry the team anymore. The Pirates struggled from ‘14 to ‘17, finishing 8th once. But by 1918 the team was restocked and the decade closed with the Pirates back up to 500 and well-positioned for the next decade.
St. Louis Browns: 0.401 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1916, when they went 79-75, finishing 5th, twelve games out of first.
Not going to spend a lot of time here. The Browns sucked. On the upside, in 1915 they brought on 22 year-old George Sisler whose Hall of Fame career would provide the Browns a jolt. I mean, not a crazy jolt. They’re still the Browns. Not to oversell, but the Browns have five whole winning seasons coming to them in the 20’s!
St. Louis Cardinals: 0.440 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1914, when they went 81-72, finishing 3rd, 13 games out of first.
St. Louis was *not* a good baseball city for the first two decades of the century. Luckily the Cardinals landed 19 year-old Rogers Hornsby in 1915 who, starting in 1916, put up seasons of 4.9, 9.9, 5.4 and 6.7 WAR. The 20s would be the last decade where the Cardinals were bad.
Washington Senators: 0.506 win percentage, 0 Pennants, 0 Championships
Best Team: 1912, when they went 91-61, finishing 2nd, 14 games behind the Red Sox.
Washington wasn’t the worst team of the decade, or close to it. Much of that was Walter Johnson; Johnson’s record for the decade was 265-143 for a 500 team. It is one of the abiding tragedies that Johnson played his whole career for what ultimately was a bad team. Had Johnson caught on with the Giants or something he’d be spoken of like the second coming. As it is he’s considered one of the best pitchers ever.
Franchises that Dominated the Most this Decade:
1) Boston Red Sox
2) New York Giants
3) Philadelphia Athletics
4) Chicago White Sox
5) Chicago Cubs
Franchises that Dominated the Least this Decade:
1) St. Louis Browns
2) St. Louis Cardinals
3) New York Highlanders / Yankees
4) Brooklyn Superbas/Dodgers/Robins
5) Washington Senators
Franchises that Sucked the Most this Decade:
1) St. Louis Browns
2) Philadelphia Athletics
3) St. Louis Cardinals
4) Boston Doves/Braves
5) Brooklyn Superbas/Dodgers/Robins
Franchises that Sucked the Least this Decade:
1) New York Giants
2) Boston Red Sox
3) Chicago Cubs
4) Chicago White Sox
5) Detroit Tigers
Phew, that was a lot of history. Let’s take a breather, and then, on to Honorable Mention Center Fielders!