The Six Eras of Baseball

In the preceding post, I identified six eras of "modern" baseball:

1901-1919 -- Deadball ("modern")

1920-1941 -- Lively Ball I

1942-1946 -- Wartime Lull

1947-1961 -- Lively Ball II

1962-1993 -- High Plateau

1994-2xxx -- Juiced Player

These six eras have distinctive characters, which are captured in the following table:

				Change from 1901-1919
		Runs per	HR per	Add'l runs	Add'l HR	Runs per
Era	# Teams	game	game	per game	per game	add'l HR
1901-1919	16	7.84	0.30
1920-1941	16	9.69	0.97	1.85	0.67	2.76
1942-1946	16	8.14	0.88	0.30	0.58	0.52
1947-1961*	18	8.91	1.62	1.07	1.32	0.81
1962-1993**	26	8.37	1.56	0.53	1.26	0.42
1994-2009***	30	9.62	1.63	1.78	1.33	1.34
1994-2009	"old 16"	9.73
1901-2009	30	8.82
1901-2009	"old 16"	8.85
* 2 expansion teams in 1961
** 2 expansion teams in 1962; 4 in 1969; 2 in 1977; 2 in 1993
*** 2 expansion teams in 1998

Lively Ball Era I was the most dynamic era to date. There were more home runs than in the Deadball era, to be sure, but it is evident that much of the "small ball" action of the Deadball era carried over into Lively Ball I.

The Wartime Lull was just that. There were more home runs than in the Deadball era, but every home run netted only 0.52 runs on the scoreboard. Think of batters reaching base and mostly waiting around for a home run to be hit, usually to no avail.

The next two eras -- Lively Ball II and High Plateau -- saw a resurgence of home-run hitting, but run production didn't return to the level of Lively Ball II. Again, there was a lot of waiting around for home runs, usually to no avail.

The era of the Juiced Player rivals (but falls short of) the dynamism of Lively Ball I. Yes, a lot more home runs per game (what would you expect?), but not quite the same number of runs per game.

I have always had the impression that baseball in the 1920s and 1930s was baseball at its exciting best: power added to the "small ball" wiles of the Deadball era. The numbers seem to confirm that impression.

EXTRA INNINGS:

The runs-per-game figures for the "old 16" teams -- the franchises in existence from 1901 through 1960 -- suggest that those teams have done better than the expansion upstarts. In fact, for the Juiced Player era (1994-2009), the "old 16" have a W-L record of .512.

But not all of the "old 16" have fared well. Here are the W-L rankings of the "old 16" for the period 1994-2009:

Rank (of 30)	Team	G	W	L	W-L%
1	NYY	2524	1514	1007	.601
2	ATL	2525	1456	1068	.577
3	BOS	2526	1409	1117	.558
4	CLE	2523	1353	1170	.536
5	STL	2525	1347	1176	.534
7	LAD	2526	1336	1190	.529
9	OAK	2524	1312	1212	.520
10	CHW	2527	1312	1212	.520
11	SFG	2526	1310	1215	.519
14	PHI	2526	1260	1266	.499
17	MIN	2525	1251	1273	.496
19	CIN	2530	1232	1295	.488
20	CHC	2524	1230	1294	.487
24	BAL	2525	1175	1347	.466
27	DET	2526	1108	1418	.439
28	PIT	2523	1091	1431	.433

"Old 16" teams occupy the top five spots and 10 of the top 15 spots. But Baltimore (13 straight losing seasons, 1998-2010), Detroit (12 straight losing seasons, 1994-2005), and Pittsburgh (18 straight losing seasons, 1993-2010) have turned in especially embarrassing performances.