Starting IX Newsletter: Roy Halladay and the players who fit best in a different generation, plus Edgar Renteria as Beck
For those unfamiliar with the set-up — welcome! Here’s the scoop. Otherwise, let’s dive right in.
“Starting IX” Excerpt: Players who would’ve fit best in another era
For this week’s “Starting IX” excerpt, we’ll take a look at Roy Halladay, a player seemingly from another era with his penchant for complete games and long, lengthy outings. With him in mind, we’ll highlight a whole list of players who could’ve fit even better in different eras than the ones in which they played.
SP Roy Halladay (1998–2009)
Believe it or not, this was one of the hardest decisions in the book, and it wasn’t even because of the man some of you are thinking of — Dave Stieb (the franchise leader in WAR). Instead, the man I almost put on here was Roger Clemens. He did about as good an impression of Julius Caesar as one can do in his two years in Toronto; he came, he saw, he conquered. In two years, he won over 40 games, lost only 13, while leading the league in strikeouts as well as ERA and ERA+ both years. On top of that, he deservedly won the Cy Young Award both seasons, and he led all pitchers in WAR both times for a combined total of 19.4; pretty heady stuff.
Halladay, however, just had more time with the Jays, while also being a top pitcher in his own regard. Debuting with the club in 1998, Halladay spent his first 12 seasons in Toronto until being traded away to Philadelphia after the 2009 season. He was one of the best control pitchers in the game and a total workhorse. He led the league in complete games five times with Toronto, including his last three years there. He surprisingly never won an ERA title despite a top-five finish five times in Toronto alone. He only had one Cy Young with the team compared to Clemens’ two, but in the end, Clemens needed maybe one more dominant year, or two solid years, to earn this spot.
There’s also the fact that Doc Halladay was beloved by the fans of Toronto, and as such, they saw fit to not hold it against him when he was traded to Philadelphia after the 2009 season, no easy task for a star player to pull off. When in Toronto, Halladay was often called the best pitcher to not have pitched in the playoffs. He proved everyone right when he took the mound on October 6, 2010, and fired the second ever no-hitter in postseason history (Don Larsen’s World Series perfect game being the only other) in his first-ever playoff appearance. In fact, 2010 was a pretty special year for Halladay, despite leaving his beloved Blue Jays. On May 29, 2010, Halladay threw the 20th perfect game in MLB history, one of his 21 victories for the season. Halladay threw nine complete games, four shutouts, and had a 7.30 strikeout to walk ratio. All of this resulted in Halladay capturing his second Cy Young of his career (his first came in 2003 as a Blue Jay). Two things facts stood out about this. First, Doc became the second pitcher in MLB history to win the Cy Young the same year that he threw a perfect game — Sandy Koufax was the other — and second, he joined Tom Glavine, becoming the only pitchers in MLB history to win Cy Young awards seven years apart.
Part of the reason Toronto fans didn’t hold it against Halladay that he left for postseason success in Philly was because Halladay was one of the humblest men in baseball. After his perfect game, he bought watches for every guy on the Phillies that said, “We did it together,” and after his incredible 2010 campaign, all he talked about was the role his teammates had in his success. This coming from a man who trailed only Randy Johnson in both wins and wins above replacement among pitchers in the 2000s decade.
Speaking of decades, Halladay is a man who might well have been better suited to play in another decade entirely. He was well known for his incredible stamina, having led the league in complete games seven out of nine years from 2003–2011, including five straight years from 2007–2011. Halladay approached the game much more like a pitcher from days of yore than any of his peers, which got me thinking: what if we built a Starting IX of players whose style of play didn’t necessarily fit in their era? Not that they would have benefited from changing eras, because then they might have lost what made them stand out in their own era, but simply their style of play was more befitting of another time:
C) Jorge Posada — This is not about the fact that Posada’s game might have worked better in the 1950s, but simply the fact if he was a catcher in New York in the 50s, it would have guaranteed him a couple of MVPs (New York-based catchers won six MVPs that decade).
1B) Roger Connor — The Home Run King before Ruth, Connor would have thrived in a more homer-friendly era.
2B) Jackie Robinson — We could really put every Negro League star on this list as a change in era would have allowed them to actually play in the major leagues for their full careers, but Robinson, in particular, would have fit in with a later-era, high-base-running style, as well.
3B) Brooks Robinson — He would be the GIF god.
SS) Alex Rodriguez — A prodigious talent that simply couldn’t handle this generation’s extreme pressure that went along with being the megastar that he was.
LF) Al Simmons — One of the game’s most underrated players in history, just wait til you get to the A’s section. You’ll have a Simmons-gasm.
CF) Michael Bourn — Bourn was made for the high base-stealing era of the 1980s; if he grew out his hair he would even look the part.
RF) Reggie Jackson — He’d be a perfect fit for the media-crazy, me-first, Twitter era that we live in today. Oh boy, Reggie Jackson in his prime on Twitter, that is something I’d pay to read. Plus, he was a Three True Outcomes hitter before his time.
Utility) Pete Rose — If only he’d played in an era when being slightly corrupt was generally acceptable, and players like Hal Chase were constantly gambling on the side. His hair-on-fire style of play would have fit right in then, too.
SP) Roy Halladay
CP) Dizzy Dean — His arm troubles could have been relieved with a move to the bullpen where his blazing fastball and quirky personality would have been perfect for the closing role.
OOTP Year-by-Year Re-Simulation: 1905
We continue our trek through re-simulating each season in baseball history using Out of the Park Baseball 21, the most realistic baseball simulation game on the market.
MVP: Honus Wagner and Sam Crawford
Cy Young: Red Ames and Frank E. Smith
Three of the four winners here are repeats from our 1904 simulation, with Wahoo Sam Crawford stepping in for Nap Lajoie.
Crawford took the Tigers left field spot in Starting IX, with his section highlighted by his famous MLB record 309 triples and accompanied by a list of the most unbreakable records in baseball history. The top three?
3) Fernando Tatis’ two grand slams in one inning — In order to break it, you’d need three!
2) Cy Young’s 511 career wins — In hindsight, I actually think this should number one.
1) Connie Mack’s 7755 career games managed — Although this one is pretty absurdly safe. It would take 48 years managing, and that’s assuming baseball doesn’t shrink the number of regular season games at some point, which I think it will.
Crazy Stats:
* Honus Wagner: .423 BA; .503 OBP; 15.9 WAR
* Cy Seymour: 13.2 WAR
* Rube Waddell: 1.31 ERA, 1.29 FIP
* Frank E. Smith: 1.39 ERA, 13.4 rWAR
* Deacon White: 30 wins, 13.4 rWAR
* Red Ames: 35 wins
Hey! We finally have some crazy stats to check out, just a week after I said I was going to cancel it. The .423 average for Wagner would rank third in the modern era (starting 1901), trailing only 1901 Nap Lajoie and 1924 Rogers Hornsby — the latter by less than a point. The OBP would enter him into a group of fewer than 20 players to ever get on base more than half the times they came up, but the WAR is the true coup de grat. Those near-16 wins would rank first all-time among position players in baseball history, topping the current (real-world, it must be noted, of course) 14.1 rWAR from Babe Ruth in 1923.
American League pennant winners: Chicago White Sox
National League pennant winners: New York Giants
World Series: White Sox 4, Giants 3
The real-life 1905 World Series saw the White Sox fall in the second official World Series, but here in OOTP Sim Land, they prevailed in a great seven-game series, the first World Series we’ve had go the distance in this experimental re-sim.
The teams split the first two games in Chicago, but the first one-run game didn’t come until Game 4 when the White Sox clipped the Giants, 3–2, thanks to a two-run single in the eighth inning from eventual Series MVP Lee Tannehill. Smith, the regular season Cy Young winner, went the full nine for the win to even the series at 2–2 and steal back home-field advantage.
That home field ended up making quite a bit of difference, as the two teams continued trading games back and forth, setting up a Game 7 to take place in Chicago.
It was a barn burner of a seventh game, with Smith and full caps CHRISTY MATHEWSON toeing the mound in opposition. In 2020 terms, that would be the moral equivalent of something like Shane Bieber (this year’s AL Cy Young winner) facing off with Clayton Kershaw (the best pitcher of his generation) in a World Series Game 7.
Both pitchers lived up to the hype to start, trading zeroes until the top of the sixth inning when the Giants got on the board first with a Dan McGann RBI single. Mathewson and the Giants kept the White Sox off the board until the eighth, when it was a Mike Donlin error that led to a pair of unearned runs off Mathewson, giving Chicago the 2–1 lead.
In the top of the ninth, the White Sox turned to a Starting IX favorite, Nick Altrock, who promptly gave up a leadoff double. However, our favorite Sirius XM station was able to lock up the rest of the frame, earning the 2–1 victory for the White Sox, their first title of our re-sim to date.
“One Final Imagination of the Baseball Hall of Fame” Pre-excerpts: Edgar Renteria as Beck, and the best Minor League names/logos
Last week I said ‘If there’s one thing I love doing in my books, it’s cramming in lists to every possible nook and cranny of my writing.’ Well, if there are TWO things I love doing in my books, it’s cramming in lists to every possible nook and cranny of my writing AND forcing painful cross-culture analogies. Here’s both!
Edgar Renteria: Renteria rather quietly had one of the most interesting baseball careers of the 1990s and 2000s. Just like the musical artist Beck rather quietly had one of the most interesting careers of the 1990s and 2000s (and 2010s since musical careers can last longer than baseball careers). For Renteria, he capped just his second full season with a walkoff single in Game 7 of the World Series — it likely doesn’t get bigger than that.
For Beck, his first major label album included “Loser,” the track for which he is still best known, a song that captured the zeitgeist of the moment to perfection.
Both built off the momentum of their “moment,” Renteria making the All-Star Game two of the three next seasons, while Beck released Odelay, the album of his which has still sold the most copies to date. Both would remain relevant while not quite jumping into the stratosphere for most of the 2000s decade, Renteria making three more All-Star Games, but never finishing higher than 15th in the MVP, and never quite reaching that Jeter-A-Rod-Tejada tier of short stops. Beck released six albums between 1998–2008, but none of these albums quite captured his audience as much as “Loser,” or even Odelay had. For both players, they actually did their best work during this time (Renteria’s 5.6-WAR 2003 season; Beck’s rap-folk-pop fusion Guero, which is a top-ten album of the decade), but their most famous moments were bound to be on either end of this stretch.
For a finale (and here, we’re cutting off Beck’s career after Morning Phase since baseball players can’t play into their 50s), both found themselves in the spotlight once more, but for brief moments, and not while they were necessarily at their peak. Renteria put a near-perfect cap on an underrated career with a 2010 World Series MVP with the San Francisco Giants, his second ring in his seventh postseason appearance. For Beck, his late-career moment came when Kanye West fake charged the podium after Beyonce once again lost at the Grammys.
Maybe Renteria can stick around the sport as a coach/announcer so we can keep the comparison going into his and Beck’s later days and see if it stays comparable.
Ryan Howard: One of the most lovable players from that decade I’ve been referring to as the Lost Boys Decade, Howard was one of the most pure power hitters during his rather abbreviated peak. He won Rookie of the Year in 2005 and followed that up with four seasons in which he averaged 50 home runs and 143 RBI a season. His Phillies won back-to-back pennants in 2008–2009, with Howard playing no small role in that playoff success. He won the 2009 NLCS MVP and hit three homers in their eventual World Series victory.
His peak didn’t last long due to the fact that: A) His skill set evaporated quickly; and B) he debuted at an older age than most. It’s hard to blame him, though, as he must have had hella fun playing for a couple of the best minor league affiliates: the Batavia Muckdogs and the Lehigh Valley Ironpigs. Both make the top floor for minor league team/name/logo combinations. (Note: There are both unaffiliated teams, as well as teams no longer in existence.)
** Everett Aquasox
** Modesto Nuts
** Quad Cities River Bandits
** Yuma Desert Rats
** Lexington Legends (mostly because of hat)
** Savannah Sand Gnats
** Hillsboro Hops
** Akron Rubber Ducks
** Lehigh Valley Ironpigs
** Batavia Muckdogs
** Charlotte Stone Crabs
** Daytona Tortugas
** Fort Wayne Tincaps
** Normal Cornbelters
** Lansing Lugnuts
Who Is This Player?
Answer at the end of the newsletter (I’m debating formats here, so feedback on how easy/difficult this section is would be appreciated)
Weekly Best Reads
- If you’re here, you likely have thoughts about the Baseball Hall of Fame. Here’s Mike Petriello showing that the OLD Baseball Hall of Fame (not the spicy new one imagined in my second book) is letting in fewer players than ever before.
- Another week, another strong piece from Rob Arthur at BP. I love these 10,000-foot view articles about the sport.
- If you’re a fantasy player, this is an interesting piece from Jeff Zimmerman over at FanGraphs on hitters going to the IL and their performance before and after.
- Long Read of the Week: This is actually one of the shorter long reads of the week we’ll do because it’s quite chart-laden, but if you haven’t discovered the work Jon Bois and the gang are doing over at Secret Base, that’s my holiday gift to you. Here’s one of my faves, focusing on the wacky 1994 AL West.
Pop Culture Recommendation of the Week
Oh baby. This is the recommendation you’ve all been waiting for. The Big One. The Game Changer.
The National Geographic section of the Disney+ app…
No, but seriously. I haven’t been as mesmerized with any visual medium as I have been by a few of these series I’ve watched here in the past few weeks. The “Wild ____” series are great with Portugal and the Congo particularly intriguing, but the real standout was “India from Above,” a two-part series that was among the most arresting both visually and educationally that I’ve seen in a long time. You can get lost for days if not weeks in the NatGeo section of Disney+.
Keep You On Your Toes
Lots of people get into the giving spirit around the holidays, and they want to make sure they know where their money is going and what impact it will have. Here’s a great list from Give Well highlighting some of the most impactful charities one can donate to right now.
Quiz Answer
The answer to this week’s trivia question: Frank Chance. The famous third heat in the Tinkers to Evers to Chance rhyme we all learned as kids, Chance’s but season came in real-life 1905 (not our OOTP sim above), so he seemed an appropriate choice for this week.
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Feel free to reach out to Jim.Turvey21@gmail.com for any feedback or inquiries.
