1919 World Series Part 5 | Baseball Handbook

The 1919 World Series is at 2-1 in favor of Cincinnati. Today we’ll cover game 4 but first let’s look at starting rotations for both teams in this series.

CIN Starting Rotation

Rank	WAA	Name_TeamID	IP
+008+	6.83	Dutch_Ruether_CIN	242.7
+018+	5.14	Slim_Sallee_CIN	227.7
+028+	3.65	Hod_Eller_CIN	248.3
+034+	3.49	Ray_Fisher_CIN	174.3
+038+	3.25	Jimmy_Ring_CIN	183

According to team status shown in Part 1 Reds’ strength was pitching and the above shows why. Reds going with a 5 starter rotation who are all top of the league. Ranks in 16 team leagues are around half what they are for leagues with 30 teams. Ring who pitches today ranked #38 would be around #75 in a 30 team league. Thus, all 5 pitchers would be considered top 100 today which is good but talent is very spread out.

CHA Starting Rotation

Rank	WAA	Name_TeamID	IP
+004+	8.76	Eddie_Cicotte_CHA	306.7
+047+	2.81	Lefty_Williams_CHA	297
XXXXX	0.80	Dickey_Kerr_CHA	212.3

The White Sox on the other hand had concentrated talent in pitching. Cicotte is a top top maxed out tiered pitcher. Williams is OK and although Kerr is technically above average with a positive WAA, he’s below average for playoff season and the worst starter pitching in the 1919 World Series. Unfortunately for the White Sox he’s their only pitcher not in on the fix and actually won Game 3 yesterday.

According to team status White Sox PITCH was almost even steven with league average according to runs scored against in run differential. This would suggest bad pitching but the above shows otherwise. The above is a perfect example as to how seasonal run differential can deceive because it’s not based upon value of the current roster.

CIN CHA 191910040

	WAA	Vegas	TC Sim	EV	L	S	R
CIN	52	x	X	X	0.59	1.36	1.93
CHA	36	x	X	X	3.92	4.70	-2.34

White Sox have a better Starter pitching today and a much better lineup as they have every day in this series. The Relief (R) column is irrelevant as relief didn’t matter in this era of baseball.

Starters	WAA	WinPct	IP	Tier
Jimmy_Ring_CIN	3.25	0.580	183	1.36
Eddie_Cicotte_CHA	8.76	0.629	306.7	4.70

These are the two starters pitching today. The above would suggest White Sox would be heavy favorites in this game. If they win this game they tie the series at 2-2 and would probably make some people nervous. Let’s see what happens.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Score
CIN	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	2
CHA	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Ruh Roh! White Sox couldn’t score a run and Cincinnati eeked out 2 to win game 4. It’s impossible for a team to win if they don’t score at least one run. Let’s look at this box score in more depth.

CIN Lineup

Rank	WAA		Name_TeamID	PA	R	RBI	TB	H	Pos
-079-	-1.51	1	Morrie_Rath_CIN	4	0	0	1	1	2B
XXXXX	0.50	2	Jake_Daubert_CIN	4	0	0	0	0	1B
+024+	4.26	3	Heinie_Groh_CIN	4	0	0	0	0	3B
+033+	3.53	4	Edd_Roush_CIN	3	0	0	0	0	CF-OF
XXXXX	0.63	5	Pat_Duncan_CIN	3	1	0	0	0	LF-OF
XXXXX	0.40	6	Larry_Kopf_CIN	3	1	1	1	1	SS
XXXXX	-0.15	7	Greasy_Neale_CIN	3	0	1	2	1	OF-RF-LF
XXXXX	0.50	8	Ivey_Wingo_CIN	3	0	0	2	2	CR
XXXXX	-0.88	9	Jimmy_Ring_CIN	3	0	0	0	0	PITCH
TOTAL	7.28	X	TIER=0.59	30	2	2	6	5	X

This lineup seems worse than what their BAT in team status would suggest. Two runs on 5 hits which was enough to win.

CIN Pitchers

Rank	WAA	Name_TeamID	Outs	PA	ER	R	SO
+038+	3.25	Jimmy_Ring_CIN	27	37	0	0	2	SP
TOTAL		CIN	27	37	0	0	2

Jimmy Ring pitched a shut out. Notice only two strikeouts which is interesting. It appears pitchers didn’t strike batters out as often back then. Something to look into.

CHA Lineup

Rank	WAA		Name_TeamID	PA	TB	H	W	Pos
XXXXX	0.94	1	Nemo_Leibold_CHA	5	0	0	0	OF-RF-LF
+017+	5.17	2	Eddie_Collins_CHA	4	0	0	1	2B
+020+	5.00	3	Buck_Weaver_CHA	4	0	0	0	3B-SS
+010+	6.57	4	Shoeless_Joe_Jackson_CHA	4	2	1	0	OF-LF-RF
+021+	4.98	5	Happy_Felsch_CHA	4	1	1	0	CF-OF
+053+	2.65	6	Chick_Gandil_CHA	4	1	1	0	1B
XXXXX	-0.08	7	Swede_Risberg_CHA	4	0	0	1	SS-1B
XXXXX	0.42	8	Ray_Schalk_CHA	4	0	0	3	CR
XXXXX	-1.01	9	Eddie_Cicotte_CHA	3	0	0	0	PITCH
XXXXX	0.53	10	Eddie_Murphy_CHA	1	0	0	0	BAT
TOTAL	25.17	X	TIER=3.98	37	4	3	5	X

This is a lineup equivalent to what Houston and Washington put up this year in the World Series. Sometimes great lineups can’t score. No one can predict the future unless they’re from the future. Since we’re from the future we know this is a must lose game for the White Sox. Jimmy Ring gave up 5 walks to CHA with Ray Schaik, the catcher, not in on the fix, getting 3 of them.

CHA Pitchers

Rank	WAA	Name_TeamID	Outs	PA	ER	R	SO
+004+	8.76	Eddie_Cicotte_CHA	27	30	0	2	2	SP
TOTAL		CHA	27	30	0	2	2

Looks like both runs were unearned which means Cicotte pitched a pretty good game but both unearned runs scored because two errors he made in one play. Here are raw comments from retrosheet.org event data:

com,”Cicotte cut off and dropped the throw home even though”
com,”Schalk was in position to take it”

One would think there would be simpler ways for a pitcher to throw a game like “accidentally” lobbing a batting practice pitch down the middle. This might be too suspicious however. For post season the Reds are fielding a relatively below average weak lineup. Maybe Reds batters simply couldn’t hit and Cicotte is one of the best pitchers of the 1919 season. Baseball fans back then, watching from the stands and listening on radios, were more focused on how the game was played. They didn’t have distractions like big screen TVs to stare at or Facebook updates to worry about. Probably most every person in the stands kept a scorecard.

In game 1 Cicotte gave up 5 walks to lose. He probably couldn’t do that again either so in this game he gave up no walks. Perhaps an error in a situation that guarantees some runs put up on the board was his only opportunity. When those two runs scored the rest of the team in on the fix could coast and make sure not to hit in RISP situations and they succeeded.

That is all for today. White Sox down 3-1 and the fixers resting easy. The next game is on 10/6/1919 which means they were off tomorrow — most likely a rain out.