The Virtual 1916-1925 Boston Red Sox (Part 3: 1923-1925)
Previously, we’ve explored an alternate reality for the Boston Red Sox from 1916 through 1919, and then 1920 through 1922. This time we’ll complete the journey by taking them up to the middle of the 1920s.
Namee:
The winter of 1922-23 was a busy one for the real-life Red Sox:
First, at the end of October, they traded second baseman Del Pratt and pitcher Rip Collins to the Tigers in exchange for solid starter Howard Ehmke, $25,000 cash and three other players (including a young Babe Herman). In our version of history, the Sox never traded for Pratt or Collins, so we can’t make this deal.
Then, a few days into 1923, the Red Sox sent two youngsters, pitcher George Pipgras and outfielder-infielder Harvey Hendrick, to the Yankees for backup catcher Al DeVormer and (of course) cash. This was a terrible trade that we won’t be making. On Jan. 30, they made another bad deal with the Yankees, trading pitcher Herb Pennock to New York for a package of mediocrities (most notably weak-hitting infielder Norm McMillan) and, more importantly, $50,000. We’ll nix this trade and keep Pennock.
Finally, on Feb. 10, Boston sent catcher Muddy Ruel and pitcher Allen Russell to the Senators for infielder-outfielder Howie Shanks, catcher Val Picinich and young outfielder Ed Goebel. But our Red Sox never acquired Ruel and Russell in the first place, so they can’t make this trade.
The big short-term result of all these moves is that the Red Sox keep Herb Pennock, who would break through as a star in 1923. But gaining Pennock is partly counterbalanced by not getting Ehmke, who was pretty good in ’23.
The new 1923 Red Sox team is full of holes. Babe Ruth and Tris Speaker are both in peak form, but catcher Wally Schang, suffering from a groin injury, has the worst season of his career up to this point, and right fielder Harry Hooper continues his slow but steady decline.
More problematic is the club’s infield situation, where veterans Larry Gardner and Eddie Foster both ran out of gas in ‘23. Most of the real-life team’s second base and third base playing time went to journeymen Chick Fewster, Howie Shanks and Norm McMillan, but our undone deals mean that none of those guys are on the roster.
What to do? Well, on April 20, the Red Sox purchased Ira Flagstead from the Tigers, and we’ll definitely let that deal go through. Flagstead played right field in ’23, but he was capable of playing the infield (with 55 games at shortstop in 1921), so we’ll put him at second base. Likewise, Harvey Hendrick could do the job at third, where he would spend 118 career games.
That still leaves a lot of playing time for decidedly subpar infielders, and removing Flagstead from the outfield means more at-bats for the motley crew of Dick Reichle and Mike Menosky. Yuck. Still, Ruth and Speaker are so good that this top-heavy offense scores nearly five runs per game, a bit better than the league average of 4.78.
On the pitching side, the quartet of Pennock, Waite Hoyt, Joe Bush and Alex Ferguson would be among the better rotations in the league. Carl Mays had a bad year, but … well, I should probably explain this one.
In real life, Mays was with the Yankees, and, for various reasons, normally-taciturn manager Miller Huggins hated his guts. Although Mays was perfectly healthy, he was allowed to start just seven games for the Yankees in ’23, and was on the bench during the World Series. In 81 innings, Mays had a 6.20 ERA (13 of his 59 runs allowed that year came in one ugly start, on July 17, when Huggins left Mays in the game to take an awful beating). After the season, the Yankees placed him on waivers and then exiled him to the National League (in a time when interleague trades required waivers and were therefore rare).
We can’t assume that Mays would have been at the top if his game in Boston, but absent Huggins’ poor handling, I think it’s safe to say that Mays would have had merely an off year, rather than a disastrous one.
1923
Pos Player B Age G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS+
1B B. Ruth L 28 152 522 138 203 47 14 39 138 170 93 .389 .539 .757 239
2B I. Flagstead R 29 112 417 69 127 25 4 9 61 41 26 .305 .366 .448 114
SS E. Scott R 30 152 533 47 130 16 4 5 58 13 19 .244 .255 .317 50
3B H. Hendrick L 25 87 232 33 63 8 2 5 38 10 22 .272 .299 .388 80
RF H. Hooper L 35 145 576 103 167 32 4 10 56 68 22 .290 .364 .411 104
CF T. Speaker L 35 150 574 133 218 59 11 17 112 93 15 .380 .455 .610 178
LF D. Reichle L 26 103 307 42 77 14 3 1 31 19 27 .251 .302 .326 65
C W. Schang B 33 84 272 38 74 8 2 2 33 27 17 .272 .349 .338 81
C E. Ainsmith R 33 74 243 20 51 9 5 3 30 20 17 .210 .264 .325 54
OF M. Menosky L 28 97 228 25 52 10 5 0 25 28 21 .228 .303 .316 63
32 P. Pittenger R 24 72 210 18 48 7 0 0 16 6 10 .229 .244 .262 33
3B L. Gardner L 37 62 165 12 42 11 2 0 25 25 15 .255 .344 .345 82
2B E. Foster R 36 40 134 12 27 3 0 0 5 8 8 .201 .238 .224 22
2S M. McNally R 29 50 108 9 24 2 0 0 1 9 7 .222 .264 .241 26
Others 122 14 29 6 2 1 10 10 11 .238 .289 .344 66
Pitchers 562 53 118 14 6 3 50 40 107 .210 .252 .272 38
TOTAL 5205 766 1450 271 64 95 689 587 437 .279 .347 .410 106
Pitcher T Age G GS CG IP W L SV H HR BB SO ERA ERA+
J. Bush R 30 37 30 22 276 19 15 1 263 7 117 125 3.43 120
W. Hoyt R 23 37 28 19 239 17 10 1 227 9 66 60 3.02 136
H. Pennock L 29 35 27 21 238 18 8 3 235 11 68 93 3.13 131
C. Mays R 31 31 25 13 207 9 13 1 224 17 64 42 4.57 90
A. Ferguson R 26 34 27 11 198 14 10 1 229 5 67 72 4.04 102
C. Fullerton R 24 37 14 6 143 7 9 3 167 9 71 37 5.09 81
G. Pipgras R 23 15 1 1 36 0 2 0 38 2 25 12 6.00 68
L. Howe R 27 12 2 0 30 1 0 0 23 0 7 7 2.40 171
Others 0 0 5 0 0 0 14 0 5 1 18.00 23
TOTAL 154 93 1372 85 67 10 1420 60 490 449 3.84 107
These Red Sox have a Pythagorean record of 85-67. The real life team “deserved” to go 54-98, but they managed a 61-91 record, beating their Pythagorean projection by seven games. Seven games is a lot; it would make our Red Sox 92-60. But even without the luck, they’d finish ahead of the Tigers (83-71).
The big question is, would the Yankees still have won the pennant (and their first World Series)? In real life, they went 98-54, a whopping 16 games ahead of the second-place Tigers. But we’ve got them losing Babe Ruth, plus their three best pitchers (Hoyt, Pennock and Bush), plus their shortstop (Everett Scott) and their half-time catcher (Schang). Even with a 16-game cushion, could any team survive such a gutting?
Let’s see… Ruth had 37 Win Shares Above Average; that’s a dozen games all by himself. Hoyt, Pennock and Bush had a combined 24 WSAA. In other words, replace those four with league-average players, and the Yankees have a deficit of 20 games.
With luck—and some good player acquisitions—the Yankees might have been able to pull off a first-place finish. More likely, the Red Sox, holes and all, would have won yet another pennant, their sixth flag in nine seasons.
Treder:
Between the 1923 and ’24 seasons, the actual Red Sox made two major transactions. The first was a seven-player trade with Cleveland in which the major talent surrendered by Boston was first baseman George Burns; since we don’t have Burns (or the two other guys the Red Sox gave up), that’s a deal we won’t make.
The second was a straight purchase of the veteran star outfielder Bobby Veach from Detroit. Veach was 35 at this point, in his decline phase and no longer playing every day for the Tigers (the young Heinie Manush had pushed him aside), but his bat was still effective. Since our 1923 Red Sox had a gaping hole in left field, it’s entirely plausible that they would have made this deal. Probably the Tigers would ask for a greater sum of cash from these pennant-winning Red Sox than they did from the actual cellar-dwellers, but we’ll let this one go through.
Along with Veach, we’ll see another significant newcomer to the 1924 team, one who was actually there: outfielder Ike Boone, a retread Boston rescued from the minors. Boone wasn’t much of a fielder or baserunner, but he could hit, and it would make sense for our Red Sox to bring him on to compete with Veach for the left field opening.
1924
Pos Player B Age G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS+
1B B. Ruth L 29 153 529 138 204 41 8 43 137 144 83 .386 .515 .737 220
2B I. Flagstead R 30 149 560 113 172 35 7 5 49 77 41 .307 .393 .421 110
SS E. Scott R 31 153 548 56 138 12 6 4 66 21 15 .252 .271 .318 51
3B H. Hendrick L 26 122 367 50 110 16 5 6 57 26 31 .300 .345 .420 96
RF H. Hooper L 36 130 476 111 159 28 8 9 64 66 25 .334 .409 .483 129
CF T. Speaker L 36 135 486 107 169 37 9 8 87 73 13 .348 .427 .510 141
LF I. Boone L 27 128 487 79 164 31 4 13 117 54 32 .337 .402 .497 131
C W. Schang B 34 114 356 46 105 19 7 5 55 49 44 .295 .374 .430 107
32 D. Lee L 24 85 259 33 66 8 4 0 28 36 15 .255 .338 .317 72
OF B. Veach L 36 95 260 43 77 18 5 3 55 24 9 .296 .346 .438 101
C J. Heving R 28 56 145 20 41 7 1 0 17 13 9 .283 .333 .345 79
2S M. McNally R 30 65 123 19 30 1 0 0 7 12 10 .244 .296 .252 46
32 C. Geygan R 21 44 82 7 21 5 2 0 5 4 16 .256 .293 .366 73
3B L. Gardner L 38 38 50 3 10 0 0 0 5 5 1 .200 .273 .200 23
Others 112 16 30 5 0 0 11 13 9 .268 .338 .313 68
Pitchers 504 47 111 20 6 4 45 30 79 .220 .252 .308 44
TOTAL 5344 888 1607 283 72 100 805 647 432 .301 .371 .437 114
Pitcher T Age G GS CG IP W L SV H HR BB SO ERA ERA+
H. Pennock L 30 40 33 24 272 20 7 3 283 12 61 97 2.78 157
J. Bush R 31 39 30 18 239 16 13 1 246 9 104 77 3.54 123
W. Hoyt R 24 46 31 13 235 17 10 4 277 8 72 68 3.75 116
C. Mays R 32 37 22 12 203 19 7 0 217 3 37 57 3.41 127
A. Ferguson R 27 35 15 7 159 10 9 1 173 4 72 52 3.79 115
D. Leonard L 32 11 6 3 51 3 2 1 68 1 18 26 4.56 95
C. Fullerton R 25 25 10 5 101 6 6 1 111 1 49 22 4.37 100
B. Ross L 21 20 1 0 47 2 1 1 55 2 15 8 3.45 126
O. Fuhr L 30 12 4 1 27 1 1 0 33 0 13 10 6.00 73
G. Pipgras R 24 9 1 0 15 0 1 1 20 0 18 4 10.00 44
Others 4 1 44 1 2 0 58 2 26 15 7.16 61
TOTAL 157 157 84 1394 95 59 13 1541 42 485 436 3.77 116
Now, our Red Sox machine is firing on all cylinders again! Speaker slows down a bit, but is still great, and Ruth remains phenomenal. And overall the offense plugs its many holes of 1923: both Hooper and Schang rebound for one final outstanding season, Boone earns the starting role in left with lusty hitting, Flagstead is excellent, and Hendrick provides solid work. It adds up to the most potent attack in the league.
Combine that with the ever-brilliant pitching staff, and this Boston team wouldn’t squeak by with an excuse-me pennant as in ’23, but would grab it authoritatively, beating out a strong Washington team, denying the Senators their first-ever flag. This would make it seven championships for the Red Sox in 10 seasons.
Namee:
The 1924-25 offseason was relatively quiet for the real-life Red Sox; all they really did was re-acquire utility infielder Mike McNally and flip him to Washington for infielder Doc Prothro. Our Red Sox never would have given up McNally in the first place, but I’ve got no problem with trading him for Prothro.
In April, Boston sent first baseman Joe Harris to the Senators for a couple of players, including useful outfielder Roy Carlyle. Our version never had Harris to begin with, so they can’t make this deal. Then in May, the real Red Sox traded Bobby Veach and Alex Ferguson to the Yankees for pitcher Ray Francis and $9,000. Neither Veach nor Ferguson had a lot left in the tank, but Francis was utterly useless. We’ll void this one.
The year 1925 was a low point in Babe Ruth’s career. He became ill during spring training; the press dubbed the ailment “The Bellyache Heard ‘Round the World,” and Ruth missed over a third of the season. When he did play, he was a shadow of his normal self, hitting under .300 for the only time between 1917 and 1933.
As if that wasn’t enough for our ball club, Schang at age 35 has the worst season of his career, and the 37-year-old Hooper finally reaches the end of the line. On the pitching side, the normally-reliable Bush sees his ERA balloon to nearly five, and Mays appears in just a dozen games.
1925
Pos Player B Age G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS+
1B B. Ruth L 30 98 359 71 106 14 3 24 66 59 68 .295 .392 .552 137
2B I. Flagstead R 31 148 572 92 160 38 2 6 61 63 30 .280 .349 .385 86
SS D. Prothro R 31 119 415 56 130 23 3 0 51 52 21 .313 .386 .383 95
3B H. Hendrick L 27 120 375 58 107 23 6 7 54 25 28 .285 .328 .435 92
RF H. Hooper L 37 127 442 74 119 25 5 6 52 54 21 .269 .344 .389 86
CF T. Speaker L 37 117 429 90 166 36 6 11 82 70 12 .387 .477 .576 162
LF I. Boone L 28 133 476 71 157 34 5 9 89 60 19 .330 .400 .479 122
C W. Schang B 35 73 167 25 41 8 1 2 24 17 9 .246 .304 .341 63
OF T. Vache R 36 110 252 45 79 15 7 3 48 21 33 .313 .378 .464 114
1B P. Todt L 23 67 219 31 62 12 5 4 32 15 12 .283 .336 .438 95
C J. Heving R 29 57 142 19 26 9 0 0 8 14 8 .183 .253 .246 27
SS E. Scott R 32 60 137 15 34 5 1 0 17 5 5 .248 .267 .299 43
C J. Bischoff R 30 41 133 17 37 9 1 1 16 6 11 .278 .303 .383 75
SS D. Lee L 25 69 131 17 29 3 2 0 11 18 11 .221 .309 .275 49
OF B. Veach L 37 58 110 17 34 10 1 0 18 10 3 .309 .360 .418 97
S3 B. Connolly R 24 53 107 17 28 7 1 0 19 23 9 .262 .386 .346 88
S2 B. Rogell B 20 42 94 8 18 3 1 0 9 6 9 .191 .231 .245 21
C A. Stokes R 25 25 69 10 15 1 1 0 3 5 10 .217 .270 .261 35
OF D. Williams L 28 26 67 9 15 1 1 0 13 5 4 .224 .270 .269 37
Others 33 3 10 1 1 0 3 2 3 .303 .343 .394 86
Pitchers 502 45 117 23 8 3 55 17 50 .233 .245 .329 45
TOTAL 5231 790 1490 300 61 76 731 547 376 .285 .348 .409 96
Pitcher T Age G GS CG IP W L SV H HR BB SO ERA ERA+
H. Pennock L 31 42 31 21 271 18 11 2 268 11 70 86 3.12 145
T. Wingfield R 25 38 26 18 248 16 15 2 261 11 90 29 3.96 114
W. Hoyt R 25 38 30 17 235 13 11 3 277 14 75 84 4.25 106
J. Bush R 32 33 28 15 209 13 14 0 227 16 91 63 4.96 91
D. Leonard L 33 18 18 9 126 9 7 0 146 8 43 65 4.73 96
A. Ferguson R 28 33 8 2 85 3 4 1 99 8 45 35 5.40 84
R. Ruffing R 20 28 4 1 78 4 3 2 86 4 25 23 4.73 96
C. Mays R 33 12 5 3 52 5 3 2 66 1 13 10 3.66 124
C. Fullerton R 26 7 1 0 23 0 2 0 22 1 9 3 3.17 143
Others 4 1 0 13 0 1 0 17 1 6 2 6.23 73
TOTAL 152 86 1339 81 71 12 1469 75 467 400 4.20 108
The result is a record of 81-71, well behind Washington and Philadelphia but likely a hair ahead of St. Louis (who’d be slightly less competitive without Bush) and Detroit (ditto without pitcher Dutch Leonard). Depending on luck, these Red Sox may have finished out of the first division for the first time since 1908.
So …
Ruth, Hoyt and Pennock would have many more good seasons after 1925. But a lot of this dynasty’s stars were in the twilights of their careers. Speaker and Schang would age gracefully, but their durability and effectiveness were still in decline. Mays had only one good year left after ’25; Bush had zero. And 1925 was Hooper’s final season. It seems we’ve taken this particular ride to the end of the line.
Before moving on, let’s look back at the past decade, at the dynasty that could have been:
Year Actual W-L Virtual W-L Actual Pos Virtual Pos Actual Champ Virtual Champ 1916 91-63 96-58 1 1 Boston Boston 1917 90-62 96-56 2 2 Chicago Chicago 1918 75-51 81-45 1 1 Boston Boston 1919 66-71 77-60 6 4 Chicago Chicago 1920 72-81 99-54 5 1 Cleveland Boston 1921 75-79 102-52 5 1 New York Boston 1922 61-93 90-64 8 2 New York St. Louis 1923 61-91 85-67 8 1 New York Boston 1924 67-87 95-59 7 1 Washington Boston 1925 47-105 81-71 8 3 Washington Washington
Throw in their championships of 1912 and ’15, and these Red Sox win eight pennants in 14 years. For some perspective, consider that Babe Ruth’s storied Yankees (1920-1934) won seven pennants in 15 seasons.
And speaking of Ruth’s Yankees: what about the Ruth-less Yankees? We know that they’d lose their pennants in 1921-23. And without their many ex-Red Sox, there’s no way they would have won in 1926; the Indians (minus Speaker) or the A’s would have been AL champs instead.
Ruth, Hoyt and Pennock were among the biggest stars on the ’27 Yankees, and without them, the team wouldn’t have won anything close to 110 games. But the Yankees still would have had Lou Gehrig at first base, Tony Lazzeri at second, Earle Combs and Bob Meusel in the outfield and Urban Shocker and Wilcy Moore on the pitching staff, all of whom had outstanding years. The first pennant for the New York AL franchise, then, would have been in 1927, though with a ball club far less legendary than the actual “Murderer’s Row”.
The Yankees would not have repeated in 1928; the 98-win Athletics would take that championship. It’s certainly possible that New York would have found passable replacements for all their former Boston players in the 1920s, but the ex-Red Sox were so good, and so numerous, that I just can’t see the Yankees making up enough of the difference in any year save 1927.
The next title for the real-life Yankees was in 1932, when they finished 13 games ahead if the A’s. Even without Ruth, I think that team still wins it. At which point, presumably, history resumes its normal course.
Treder:
Or does it?
Obviously when conducting a counterfactual exercise such as this, the presumption is that everything else goes along just as it did (or nearly as it did). But, just as obviously, the fundamental premise of a counterfactual exercise is the acknowledgement that history didn’t have to take the course it did, that changing one thing here can have tremendous repercussions there and there and there.
So, let’s consider the Yankees of 1932 and beyond. Even as Ruth aged and departed, general manager Ed Barrow was able to rebuild the franchise to even more dynastic greatness by constructing one of the mightiest farm systems in the game. But hang on a second: Barrow himself was yet another of New York’s many Bostonian imports (and alongside Ruth, the most significant). Who’s to say that in our scenario Barrow, to whom only Branch Rickey is comparable as the greatest baseball executive of the first half of the 20th century (if not of all time), decides to go to work for the Yankees at all?
Moreover, with or without Barrow, the Yankees were able to fund the development of their farm system with the tremendous revenue they generated from Ruth and their many championship ball clubs. Who’s to say that in our scenario they’d be able to construct the monumental system as they did, and employ the brilliant George Weiss to direct it? Perhaps without the impact of Ruth and the many other ex-Red Sox catapulting the Yankee dynasty to the head start it enjoyed in the 1920s, it never would have formed at all.
Which would make the American League of the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s and early ’60s a distinctly more varied environment than it was, with several franchises (the Yankees no doubt among them, but also Cleveland, Detroit, and, yes, Boston) hotly competing for dominance over the decades.
Clearly this is in the realm of the purest speculation. But it isn’t the least bit implausible to imagine that had the river of talent not flowed as it did from Boston to New York in the late 1910s and early 1920s, the course of baseball history might have progressed instead in any number of dramatically different directions.