Week in Review - American League (April 29-May 5, 1929)

 

Now into the first week of May and things continue to heat up in the American League, as the shocking Senators remain atop the standings at this early point in the season.  The Athletics continue to stay close to them, led by a powerful offense and the incredible arm of Lefty Grove.  At the same time, some familiar bats have also started to come alive, with players like Ruth, Lazzeri, and Simmons now starting to knock balls out of the park and climb up the lists of league leaders.  Let's take a look at where things stand through May 5, 1929:

American League
Team	Wins	Losses	Games Back	Win Pct	Home	Road	Strk	L10
Senators	9	3	-	750	4-1	5-2	W-2	7-3
Athletics	9	5	1	643	4-1	5-4	L-1	7-3
Tigers	10	8	2	556	4-5	6-3	W-1	5-5
Yankees	6	6	3	500	2-2	4-4	L-1	5-5
Browns	8	8	3	500	4-5	4-3	W-2	6-4
White Sox	7	8	3.5	467	5-4	2-4	W-1	5-5
Indians	7	9	4	438	4-5	3-4	L-5	3-7
Red Sox	2	11	7.5	154	1-7	1-4	L-1	2-8

The standings look very similar to last week, with the Senators improbably remaining at the top.  You have to wonder how long they will be able to maintain this pace, as the A's and Yankees offense is truly starting to hum, but they have yet to fall out of first place.  Making the Senators lead even more surprising is that, when you peruse the list of offensive league leaders, there is hardly a Senators player to be found.  The big loser over the last week were the Cleveland Indians, who have now lost five consecutive games and are 3-7 in their last 10.  Star Lew Fonseca continues to shine, but they did not win a single game over this week and now find themselves 4 games back.  It is still early and just about anyone still has time to make a run (although the Red Sox at 2-11 seem to already be getting buried).

This link to the Baseball-Reference page showing the actual standings at this point in 1929 show that our replay yielding some surprising results. The St. Louis Browns sat at 11-5 at this point in the actual season, whereas in the replay they had to win their last two games to get back to .500.  Otherwise, with the exception of the Senators far outpacing their actual record, the other teams are all hovering around the actual wins and losses.

AL Batting Leaders

 

 

American League - Top 10 Hitters

[NOTE: In the first Week in Reviews that I did for each league, I did a "player of the week" type of analysis and intended to do that going forward.  However, I discovered that tracking stats in NPIII on a weekly basis wasn't feasible - it worked in the first edition but the season stats were the "weekly stats."  As we progress through the season, however, it would not work unless I entered the statistics into another program to track, which I'm not interested in doing.  So, we are switching this section to a "Top 10 Position Players" and "Top 5 Pitchers" sections, which will be a running and ever-evolving list of the top performers in each league.  These can kind of be viewed as a running MVP tracker.]

  

             Lew Fonseca (CLE)                                      Al Simmons (PHA)

1. Lew Fonseca, Cleveland Indians (.422/.499/.719) - Fonseca was last week's Player of the Week and has continued his whirlwind season through this week.  Currently riding a 15-game hit streak, Fonseca was the lone bright spot for the Indians over the last week, as the team went 0-4 to fall to 7-9 overall.  Fonseca cannot be blamed, however - while he no longer leads the league in hitting, his .422 average is second and he still leads the AL with 16 RBI.  He is second in total hits (27) and slashing at .422/.499/.719 is always going to put you near the top of any best player list.

2. Al Simmons, Philadelphia Athletics (.351/.429/.865) - Simmons missed the first few games of the season but appears to be trying to make up for lost time.  Despite only playing in 10 games thus far this season, Simmons is already tied for the league lead in home runs (5) and is the hammer on the best offense in the American League.  He also leads the league in slugging and OPS.  The A's offense is potent, as evidence by four hitters appear on this list, but Simmons is having the best season of all of them up to this point.

3. Lu Blue, St. Louis Browns (.348/.422/.742) - After hitting for the cycle in the first week of the season, Blue continues to be the sparkplug to the St. Louis Browns offense - hitting leadoff, he still has managed to blast 5 home runs, which is tied for the league lead, and drive in 12 runs.  Blue does a little bit of everything, ranking in the top among the top six of all American League hitters in home runs, RBI, runs, hits, OBP, slugging, OPS, and walks.

4. Bing Miller, Philadelphia Athletics (.473/.508/.709) - Currently sitting atop the AL batting race, the only knock that one could make on Miller's number is a low RBI total - but when you consider who he is hitting behind (Cochrane, Simmons, etc.) it should not come as a surprise that there aren't many men left on base for Bing to knock in.  Regardless, his 1.217 OPS currently sits at third in the AL and he is certainly performing at an insanely high clip every time he comes to the plate.

5. Tony Lazzeri, New York Yankees (.409/.490/.727) - He could easily be the forgotten man in the Yankees lineup, but Lazzeri has outshined Ruth and Gehrig up to this point.  Second in the league in batting average, second in OBP, third in slugging, and second in OPS...Lazzeri has been the catalyst for the Yankees offense, as Ruth got off to a slow start to the season.   

6. Mickey Cochrane, Philadelphia Athletics (.377/.453/.472) - The Third A's player on this list, Cochrane and Simmons are the guys knocking in runs for Connie Mack.  Cochrane sits second in the league in RBI 

7. Heinie Manush (St. Louis Browns) - The league leader in hits and hitting .406 over, he, Lu Blue, and Ski Melillo are trying to keep St. Louis close enough to make a run at the pennant.  If the pitching can catch up with the offensive performers, the Browns are certain to make a push toward the top of the standings.

8. Ski Melillo, St. Louis Browns (.387/.433/.597) - Melillo hits near the bottom of the Browns' order, but that hasn't stopped him from producing in every respect, as his 12 RBI currently rank 8th in the AL.

9. Jimmy Dykes, Philadelphia Athletics (.340/.414/.680) - Similar to Melillo, Dykes hits near the bottom of his team's lineup, and comes to the plate after some heavy hitters have usually already clear the bases, but Dykes is still shining and setting the plate for when the lineup turns over.

10. Harry Heilmann, Detroit Tigers (.356/.422/.479) - The best hitter for the somewhat surprising Tigers, Heilmann is among the league leaders in RBI and runs scored.

AL Pitching Leaders

 

 

American League - Top 5 Pitchers

 

            Lefty Grove (PHA)                                            Ted Lyons (CHW)

1. Lefty Grove, Philadelphia Athletics (4 games, 4 starts, 4-0, 0.56 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, 29 Ks) - Not even a discussion as to the best pitcher in the AL at this point in the season.  The stats listed here are impressive on their own, but add in that all four starts have been complete games, one of them a shutout, and it's even more impressive.  Grove may be not only the best pitcher in the AL, but the league's best player, period.

2. Ted Lyons, Chicago White Sox (3 games, 3 starts, 2-0, 0.64 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, 9 Ks)

3. General Crowder, St. Louis Browns (5 games, 4 starts, 3-1, 2.36 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 6 Ks)

4. George Pipgras, New York Yankees (4 games, 4 starts, 1-1, 2.9 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 17 Ks)

5. Ken Holloway, Cleveland Indians (7 games, 1 start, 1-0, 2.00 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, 5 Ks)