Monday, March 19, 2018

Losers League: Final thoughts

Man, that was a long project. I started the Losers League -- eight 1969 teams with 90+ losses in a 154-game schedule -- in June 2016, and wrapped it up in March 2018.

I figured it would take about 18 months, and it was a bit more than that, but I deliberately slowed the pace this winter to avoid being done before the cards arrived for my next Strat project, and then wound up shutting down for two weeks when I came down with the flu bug and another week for a spring training excursion.

I expect to try a similar league in the future, specifically eight teams from the 1973 National League (a set I do not have at the moment). Three things to get on the record to be aware of for that:

1) The "emergency players pool" I invented at midseason was an idea I wish I'd devised at the beginning. Details are in the linked post. I used the catchers with some frequency, and an infielder once or twice. I didn't have to resort to the outfielders or pitchers.

2) Forgoing the stats was a wise choice. Yes, I would like to have the specific numbers on Sam McDowell's dominant season. But it took about 21 months to play this out, and it might have taken twice as long if I was updating stats.

3) The use of the 1924 AL schedule didn't work as well as I had hoped. There were obvious translation issues, which can only be attributed to me. My tentative notion for the future 1973 NL leagug is to use the 1924 NL schedule; whatever I actually do with that, the schedule needs to be checked before play begins.

As for the Losers League itself: The champion White Sox had one obvious strength, at least relative to the league as a whole: They were easily the best fielding club. Somehow the weak second-line pitchers (Gary Bell, Jack Hamilton, Don Secrist, Jerry Nyman, Sammy Ellis all had real-life ERA above 5) didn't cost them many games. And they were a pretty fun team to play with.

As noted, no stats, but my choice for MVP would be Sam McDowell. I doubt Cleveland lost a game he started after April. It sure wasn't many.

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