How Accurate Were Clifford Van Beek's Lineups? — Part Two
Looking at the National Pastime National League
The National Pastime National League Lineups
This is the second of two parts. If you haven’t read about the National Pastime American League lineups yet, please check that post out here:
https://baseballreplayjournal.substack.com/p/how-accurate-were-clifford-van-beeks
We’re going to follow the same rules, and we’re just going to jump into this one to save time. I’ll have a quick summary once we’re done, and we’ll spend more time in our next post speculating at how Van Beek could have managed this.
St. Louis Cardinals
Once again, Van Beek gets the batting order and the positions exactly right. As usual, Jimmie Wilson’s 362 at bats got him the starting role over Gus Mancuso, who had only 227.
Pittsburgh Pirates
Van Beek is right here again. Lloyd Waner usually hit in front of Paul Waner, with Lloyd in center field and Paul in right, although it can be hard to see because Baseball Reference only includes the last names. Everybody is exactly where they need to be.
Chicago Cubs
The batting order is close, but not quite there. Van Beek decided not to card Clyde Beck, who had 244 at bats in 83 games, choosing instead to card George Kelly, who had 166 at bats in 39 games. Beck should have been the starting shortstop, and Woody English started more games at third base (83) than at short (73). I’m really not certain why Beck was not carded.
We’ll talk about Rogers Hornsby winding up on the bench in a separate post. I think it’s an understandable decision.
Boston Braves
This is one of those funny instances where the defensive lineup is right on, and yet the players in the most common defensive lineup are different than the players in the most common batting order.
Here are the most common players at each batting order for the Braves in 1930:
The only quibble I see here is that Al Spohrer was in the 6th slot more often than the 7th slot. You could put Buster Chatham up in the 5th spot, but you’d then run out of a good place to stick Jimmy Welsh. Having Spohrer hitting 7th strikes me as a good compromise, and is another indication that Van Beek probably had the lineup lists sitting right in front of him.
Once again, the defensive positions are right on, down to the outfielders.
Brooklyn Dodgers
Del Bissonette and Glenn Wright should be swapped in the batting order. That’s even more apparent when you look at how often each of them hit in each spot:
As we’ve seen before, I’m guessing that this is just a transcription error on the part of Van Beek, or perhaps on the part of his printer.
Neal Finn had 273 at bats in 87 games; Jake Flowers had 253 at bats in 89 games. This is a good argument that Van Beek may have made his decision based on the total numbers of games played rather than on at bats. When it comes to starts at second base, Finn had 73 compared to only 61 for Flowers — and yet Flowers got the starting nod.
Cincinnati Reds
There’s not much to say here. Van Beek gets the most common batting order and defensive lineup exactly right.
New York Giants
The batting orders here are exactly right. Freddy Leach and Wally Roettger seem to have their positions swapped. Leach actually never started in center in 1930, while Roettger started 82 games there. Again, I’m guessing this is a transcription error.
Philadelphia Phillies
We’ve got something to talk about now.
Denny Sothern ended the season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and received a card for them (which is how Van Beek handled all in-season transactions, by the way). Naturally, that meant that he couldn’t be the leadoff hitter for the Phillies.
Once you realize that, his batting choice makes sense. Here are the players that appeared in each batting order position for the Phillies in 1930:
The same applies for fielding positions:
Van Beek got the starting fielders right for every position except center field, and, again, this is only because Sothern ended the season with the Pirates. Fred Brickell was the second most common center fielder for the Phillies, who had a remarkably consistent lineup for a team that lost 102 games.
Conclusion
In the National League, Van Beek got the most common batting orders and defensive lineups exactly right for the following teams:
St. Louis Cardinals
Pittsburgh Pirates
Cincinnati Reds
The Philadelphia Phillies were also right once you understand how Van Beek treated players that were traded during the season.
The Boston Braves, Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York Giants are all extremely close, and arguably would have been right on had it not been for presumptive transcription errors.
That leaves the Chicago Cubs, and even there Van Beek was really close. He decided not to card a player I think he should have carded.
In a week, I’ll have a post about how in the world Van Beek could have gotten all of this right.