My second replay from the 1989 season was an interesting one. The A’s got off to a terrible start, heated up, but fell just short of their 99-win goal. Yet, I was treated to an incredible pennant race.
The A’s were seven games under .500 and nine victories behind their 99-win pace after a loss on May 5, giving them an 11-18 record. Then the A’s got it going, regularly picking up two wins in a three-game series. For one brief moment in July, the A’s surpassed their actual season record. Oakland had a .647 winning percentage over the final 133 games.
But, that ended up being not quite enough to match the real-life 99-63 record. The replay A’s finished two wins short at 97-65.
In reality, the A’s won the AL West by seven games over Kansas City and eight games over California. The replay A’s didn’t have much trouble with the Royals, but struggled mightily against the Angels, posting a 3-10 record. In real life, Oakland went 8-5 against California.
So, in our revised AL West standings, that allowed California to finish with an extra five wins and five fewer losses. And, with the A’s not playing quite as well as real life, that resulted in the Angels building a sizeable lead in the West. California entered September up by 5.5 games in the standings. The A’s got it down to two on September 9, but it was back it up to 5.5 on September 20 — when only 10 games remained for the Angels and 11 were left for the A’s.
The Angels closed out the real-life season by winning just two of their final 10 games. Their record in the replay went from 94-58 to 96-66. The A’s, meanwhile, put together their best run of the replay, winning nine of the final 11, including a seven-game winning streak to end the regular season.
Entering the final three-game series, Oakland was behind by one game. The A’s evened it up after the first game, took a one-game lead after the second game, and maintained that lead after both Oakland and California won in the season finale.
It was a significantly different season from my 1989 San Francisco Giants replay, which saw SF get off to a great start and finish with 13 more wins than reality.
Full Replay/Real Life Statistical Comparison
Some background: I utilized as-used starting lineups, unless a position player was uncarded, in which case I put in an equivalent player … EXCEPT for the final week of the season. The real-life A’s started resting their key players for the playoffs, while they were needed in the replay as the AL West title was still in the balance. The field players may have ended up with an extra game or two started as a result. Two pitchers got one extra start as a result of this.
Team Batting
| Batting | AVG | R | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Replay | .252 | 655 | 202 | 18 | 127 | 637 | 128 | 454 | 930 |
| Actual | .261 | 712 | 220 | 25 | 127 | 659 | 157 | 562 | 855 |
Just like in the Giants replay, the offense was not as good as it was in real life. Interestingly, the A’s hit much better than the Giants (.252 to .238) but scored fewer runs (655 to 673). Whenever they were losing, it felt like the A’s couldn’t put a couple of hits together to score a run.
I love seeing stats match up exactly, so the fact that both the real-life A’s and the replay A’s ended up with 127 home runs is pretty cool.
Team Pitching
| Pitching | ERA | CG | SHO | SV | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Replay | 2.64 | 18 | 26 | 44 | 1477.2 | 1036 | 505 | 434 | 427 | 947 |
| Actual | 3.09 | 17 | 20 | 57 | 1448.1 | 1287 | 576 | 497 | 510 | 930 |
And, just like the Giants replay, the pitching was far better than it probably should have been. The A’s had a great pitching staff (certainly according to the APBA grades) and those “A” and “B” pitchers did very well. The A’s finished with a slightly better ERA (2.64) than the Giants (2.68), but Oakland was closer to the actual mark (yet still 0.45 better).
Team Fielding
APBA did pretty well here, as the real-life A’s had a .979 fielding percentage (129 errors), while the replay A’s had a .978 fielding percentage (140 errors). The distribution wasn’t as good (once again, too many for the middle infielders, not enough for the other positions).
Individual Batting
It’s becoming a broken record — but just like the Giants replay — most hitters did not outdo their real-life batting average. Carney Lansford and Dave Henderson were the only two full-season players to do so, while Luis Polonia had an outstanding half-season before he was traded.
Lansford was hitting .381 at the end of June but didn’t hit quite as well in the second half of the season. Still, a .348 average, 12 points better than his real mark, was a pretty good result.
Although the averages varied, it was interesting to see how many players came close to matching their season hit totals. Rickey Henderson (90) was right on, while Terry Steinbach (123/124), Tony Phillips (117/118), Ron Hassey (62/61), Dave Parker (146/149), Stan Javier (74/77) and Jose Canseco (64/61) were within three hits.
Mark McGwire hit a team-best 29 home runs, four less than reality, but the A’s other three sluggers all overperformed. Dave Parker hit 26 (was 22), Jose Canseco hit 23 (was 17) and Dave Henderson hit 18 (was 15).
See here for a full player-by-player stat comparison, but here are the basics:
| Batters | Replay | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| Carney Lansford | .348, 65 R, 202 H, 1 HR, 63 RBI, 38 SB | .336, 81 R, 185 H, 2 HR, 52 RBI, 37 SB |
| Luis Polonia | .332, 25 R, 73 H, 1 HR, 12 RBI, 14 SB | .286, 31 R, 59 H, 1 HR, 17 RBI, 13 SB |
| Rickey Henderson | .264, 66 R, 90 H, 4 HR, 32 RBI, 39 SB | .294, 72 R, 90 H, 9 HR, 35 RBI, 52 SB |
| Dave Parker | .262, 64 R, 149 H, 26 HR, 83 RBI | .264, 56 R, 146 H, 22 HR, 97 RBI |
| Terry Steinbach | .257, 33 R, 123 H, 4 HR, 40 RBI | .273, 37 R, 124 H, 7 HR, 42 RBI |
| Dave Henderson | .254, 68 R, 157 H, 18 HR, 81 RBI | .250, 77 R, 145 H, 15 HR, 80 RBI |
| Jose Canseco | .254, 39 R, 64 H, 23 HR, 59 RBI | .269, 40 R, 61 H, 17 HR, 57 RBI |
| Tony Phillips | .254, 49 R, 117 H, 5 HR, 33 RBI | .262, 48 R, 118 H, 4 HR, 47 RBI |
| Mike Gallego | .244, 47 R, 101 H, 4 HR, 46 RBI | .252, 45 R, 90 H, 3 HR, 30 RBI |
| Stan Javier | .239, 23 R, 74 H, 1 HR, 39 RBI | .248, 42 R, 77 H, 1 HR, 28 RBI |
| Ron Hassey | .221, 34 R, 62 H, 4 HR, 22 RBI | .228, 29 R, 61 H, 5 HR, 23 RBI |
| Lance Blankenship | .208, 9 R, 30 H, 0 HR, 10 RBI | .232, 22 R, 29 H, 1 HR, 4 RBI |
| Mark McGwire | .200, 85 R, 109 H, 29 HR, 74 RBI | .231, 74 R, 113 H, 33 HR, 95 RBI |
| Billy Beane | .198, 11 R, 22 H, 0 HR, 4 RBI | .241, 8 R, 19 H, 0 HR, 11 RBI |
| Walt Weiss | .192, 24 R, 49 H, 2 HR, 19 RBI | .233, 30 R, 55 H, 3 HR, 21 RBI |
| Glenn Hubbard | .136, 13 R, 19 H, 5 HR, 20 RBI | .198, 12 R, 26 H, 3 HR, 12 RBI |
Individual Pitching
With one big exception, Oakland’s ERA list ended in almost-perfect tiers, with the “A” pitchers first, followed by the “B” pitchers, and ending with the “D” pitchers. But Dennis Eckersley, who was pretty much untouchable in real life, was anything but in the replay, giving up nearly twice as many runs and nearly doubling his ERA.
The Royals’ Bret Saberhagen won the AL Cy Young Award that season by going 23-6 with a 2.16 ERA. Although, the A’s did beat him twice in the replay, so those numbers might have ended up being a little different. Could Mike Moore with his 21-10 record and his 1.41 ERA have beaten him out?
I suppose it makes sense to see Oakland’s three “B” starters end up with similar numbers: Dave Stewart with 18 wins and a 2.71 ERA, Storm Davis with 16 wins and a 2.84 ERA and Bob Welch with 16 wins and a 2.93 ERA.
Poor Matt Young finished with a 6.75 ERA both in real life and in the replay.
Again, see here for a full player-by-player stat comparison, but here are the basics:
| Pitchers | Replay | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| Bill Dawley | 1-0, 0.93 ERA, 9.2 IP, 3K | 0-0, 4.00 ERA, 9.0 IP, 3 K |
| Rick Honeycutt | 9-1, 0.98 ERA, 73.2 IP, 31 K | 2-2, 2.35 ERA, 76.2 IP, 52 K |
| Jim Corsi | 0-0, 1.29 ERA, 42.0 IP, 24 K | 1-2, 1.88 ERA, 38.1 IP, 21 K |
| Eric Plunk | 2-1, 1.32 ERA, 27.1 IP, 26 K | 1-1, 2.20 ERA, 28.2 IP, 24 K |
| Mike Moore | 21-10, 1.41 ERA, 275.1 IP, 161 K | 19-11, 2.61 ERA, 241.2 IP, 172 K |
| Todd Burns | 5-2, 1.77 ERA, 91.2 IP, 40 K | 6-5, 2.24 ERA, 96.1 IP, 49 K |
| Gene Nelson | 5-3, 2.22 ERA, 73.0 IP, 48 K | 3-5, 3.26 ERA, 80.0 IP, 70 K |
| Dave Stewart | 18-10, 2.71 ERA, 259.1 IP, 172 K | 21-9, 3.32 ERA, 257.2 IP, 155 K |
| Storm Davis | 16-6, 2.84 ERA, 196.2 IP, 141 K | 19-7, 4.36 ERA, 169.1 IP, 91 K |
| Bob Welch | 16-12, 2.93 ERA, 218.0 IP, 163 K | 17-8, 3.00 ERA, 209.2 IP, 137 K |
| Dennis Eckersley | 1-3, 3.08 ERA, 49.2 IP, 37 K, 32 SV | 4-0, 1.56 ERA, 57.2 IP, 55 K, 33 SV |
| Greg Cadaret | 0-1, 4.85 ERA, 26.0 IP, 17 K | 0-0, 2.28 ERA, 27.2 IP, 14 K |
| Curt Young | 3-11, 5.93 ERA, 98.2 IP, 52 K | 5-9, 3.73 ERA, 111.0 IP, 55 K |
| Matt Young | 0-5, 6.75 ERA, 34.2 IP, 30 K | 1-4, 6.75 ERA, 37.1 IP, 27 K |
| Brian Snyder | 0-0, 13.50 ERA, 2.0 IP, 2 K | 0-0, 27.00 ERA, 0.2 IP, 1 K |
Pitching Matchups
I began tracking this during the Giants replay to figure why they were dominating so much. I decided to keep the same data for the A’s. This list shows the A’s record vs. the opponent based on starting pitchers’ grades. This isn’t based on the pitcher of record, but just who started, figuring they had the most impact.
One takeaway: the A’s went 16-23 when the starters were equal, 4-10 when they were facing a superior starting pitcher, and 77-32 when they had the advantage on the mound. That’s a lot of games where the A’s had the edge.
| OAK “A” | OAK “B” | OAK “C” | OAK “D” | |
| Opp “A” | 0-0 | 1-0 | 0-0 | 1-1 |
| Opp “B” | 7-6 | 12-17 | 0-0 | 0-6 |
| Opp “C” | 7-3 | 22-12 | 0-0 | 2-3 |
| Opp “D” | 10-3 | 31-8 | 0-0 | 4-6 |
Opponents
The hitters with the best batting averages against the A’s: Minnesota’s Greg Gagne .452 (14-for-31), California’s Devon White .370 (20-for-54), Minnesota’s Kent Hrbek .333 (12-for-36), Baltimore’s Steve Finley .324 (11-for-34), New York’s Jesse Barfield .311 (14-for-45).
The top home run hitters: 5 by Kansas City’s Bo Jackson, and 4 by Boston’s Nick Esasky, Minnesota’s Hrbek, New York’s Don Mattingly and Seattle’s Greg Briley.
Hrbek drove in 13 runs, while Seattle’s Alvin Davis had 12 RBI.
Two pitchers beat the A’s three times: Boston’s Roger Clemens, who went 3-1 in four starts with a 0.75 ERA, and California’s Willie Fraser, who won three times in four relief appearances.
More Opponents
The replay A’s struggled against California (-5) and Cleveland (-4). The only team they really outperformed against was Kansas City (+4).
| Opponent | Replay | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| Baltimore Orioles | 6-6 | 7-5 |
| Boston Red Sox | 7-5 | 5-7 |
| California Angels | 3-10 | 8-5 |
| Chicago White Sox | 8-5 | 8-5 |
| Cleveland Indians | 6-6 | 10-2 |
| Detroit Tigers | 9-3 | 8-4 |
| Kansas City Royals | 10-3 | 6-7 |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 7-5 | 7-5 |
| Minnesota Twins | 7-6 | 7-6 |
| New York Yankees | 9-3 | 9-3 |
| Seattle Mariners | 7-6 | 9-4 |
| Texas Rangers | 10-3 | 8-5 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 8-4 | 7-5 |
Miscellaneous
For posterity’s sake, here’s a few more things I tracked:
| Replay | Actual | |
|---|---|---|
| April | 11-15 | 18-8 |
| May | 16-10 | 16-10 |
| June | 17-10 | 13-14 |
| July | 17-9 | 16-10 |
| August | 17-12 | 18-11 |
| September/October | 19-9 | 18-10 |
| Extra Innings | 11-6 | 5-10 |
| One-Run Games | 26-22 | 29-18 |
| 2-Game Series | 2-2-2 | |
| 3-Game Series | 26-9 | |
| 4-Game Series | 5-1-5 |
ROGER SPORTS & GAMES 