Consensus All-Time Giants Team

[calsnowskier]

We all know she's on your "fantasy" team...

I never understood anyone liking “that”…

 

[pachyderm]

We all know she's on your "fantasy" team...

Whelp, I love her so...

 

[calsnowskier]

Whelp, I love her so...

 

[LHG]

OPS+ is definitely the way to go when comparing different eras. But in the super early years, not all the players were pros. Some players were literally playing for no pay at all.

Typically, when I do “all time” studies, I completely ignore anything pre-1900. The game was too volatile to trust, both in rules and player consistency. For example, for the first few years, if a player hit a double, it was actually scored as a single with a SB.

cal, I found a book, "Total Ballclubs", that was gifted to me years ago. It is a complete history of all MLB franchises from 1876 to 2004. Really good read if you have time. Anyway, what I noticed that is the early clubs DID pay their players. I think you are thinking about pre-1876 clubs and independent clubs where amateurs were mixed. Sure, MLB teams played them but those were exhibitions and do not count in the stat books.

 

[Stokes1931]

cal, I found a book, "Total Ballclubs", that was gifted to me years ago. It is a complete history of all MLB franchises from 1876 to 2004. Really good read if you have time. Anyway, what I noticed that is the early clubs DID pay their players. I think you are thinking about pre-1876 clubs and independent clubs where amateurs were mixed. Sure, MLB teams played them but those were exhibitions and do not count in the stat books.

I believe I read somewhere that the Cincinnati Reds were the first paid professional baseball team, and it was like 1869.

When did the Cincinnati Reds really start? It wasn’t in 1869, the year widely celebrated

The Cincinnati Reds trace their founding to the 1869 Red Stockings, the first pro team. But their history is a bit complicated.

www.cincinnati.com

 

[calsnowskier]

I believe I read somewhere that the Cincinnati Reds were the first paid professional baseball team, and it was like 1869.

When did the Cincinnati Reds really start? It wasn’t in 1869, the year widely celebrated

The Cincinnati Reds trace their founding to the 1869 Red Stockings, the first pro team. But their history is a bit complicated.

www.cincinnati.com

That’s why the Reds used to open every MLB season. They stopped that tradition maybe 10 years ago.

 

[LHG]

I believe I read somewhere that the Cincinnati Reds were the first paid professional baseball team, and it was like 1869.

When did the Cincinnati Reds really start? It wasn’t in 1869, the year widely celebrated

The Cincinnati Reds trace their founding to the 1869 Red Stockings, the first pro team. But their history is a bit complicated.

www.cincinnati.com

Yes they were but the start of major league baseball was the formation of the National League in 1876. That league, and all other major leagues started after it, were all professional teams and thus all their players were paid.

 

[LHG]

That’s why the Reds used to open every MLB season. They stopped that tradition maybe 10 years ago.

What I find strange about that is that the Reds are not the longest continuously ran franchise in MLB. That title belongs to the Cubs. There was a Reds team that was part of the initial NL season of 1876 but it folded in June 1877. The NL quickly replaced it with another franchise that same season but they folded at the end of 1879. A 3rd franchise folded after 1880. Cincinnati didn't have a team in the NL again until 1890, when the present franchise was founded.

 

[calsnowskier]

What I find strange about that is that the Reds are not the longest continuously ran franchise in MLB. That title belongs to the Cubs. There was a Reds team that was part of the initial NL season of 1876 but it folded in June 1877. The NL quickly replaced it with another franchise that same season but they folded at the end of 1879. A 3rd franchise folded after 1880. Cincinnati didn't have a team in the NL again until 1890, when the present franchise was founded.

So…

The Reds kept failing (miserably), but there was always another group ready to pick up the team name because “We know how to run this team right!” Only to, ultimately, fail humiliatingly, just like the previous group.

Interesting story…

 

[LHG]

So…

The Reds kept failing (miserably), but there was always another group ready to pick up the team name because “We know how to run this team right!” Only to, ultimately, fail humiliatingly, just like the previous group.

Interesting story…

I know you are being humorous, but I'll be an HF and respond seriously.

Major league baseball then was like indy leagues today. Owners bailed quickly if they were losing money. In the case of the Reds, the NL pushed to get a replacement franchise quickly in Cincinnati because the first one disbanded during the season and they didn't want to compete with an odd numbers of teams. The 3rd franchise was created because the NL effectively shut down the 2nd franchise because they were paying the star players more money and the rest of the owners didn't want that kind of pay scale spreading throughout the league so they basically forced that ownership out and allowed a 3rd franchise to start. Ownership wasn't transferred back then but, typically, the owners got to keep as many of the players from the previous team as possible. That is why I think that the Troy Trojans should be considered the genesis of the Giants. Their team was shut down after the 1882 season an ownership was awarded to a group of New Yorkers. They got most of the players from Troy. It was essentially how ownership changed and teams moved back then.

 

[LHG]

Because no one asked, I thought I'd link this Wikipedia article about the National Association of Base Ball Players, the last "amateur" organization before the creation of paid professional leagues. The article fills in the gaps nicely from what I've read in Total Ballclubs. Basically, a professional version of NABBP was created in 1871 for teams willing to pay their players. That professional version of NABBP lasted from 1871 to 1875, when some teams broke from it and formed the NL, causing the NABBP to fold.
For statistical information, players in the professional NABBP and, any leagues formed afterward, were all paid. The mixing of paid and amateur players in the same associations or even same teams stopped after 1870.

National Association of Base Ball Players - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[LHG]

@calsnowskier , a little more MLB history for you, since you love the DH so much. Back in the 1920s, the NL president (when the leagues were a bit more independent of each other) first suggested the idea of the DH. It didn't gain traction, though, as the only two teams in the NL who supported the idea were the Dodgers and the Giants.