What-ifs are a central a part of being a baseball fan. We love to think about how in another way issues may’ve turned out if a star participant hadn’t gotten damage, or if a workforce had signed one free agent as a substitute of one other. Some what-ifs are the stuff of legend, just like the fabled evening within the late Nineteen Forties when, throughout a drunken dinner with Tom Yawkey at Toots Shor’s Midtown Manhattan joint, Yankees proprietor Dan Topping practically traded Joe DiMaggio to the Crimson Sox for Ted Williams. Others aren’t revealed till a long time later, like when Barry Bonds stated on the Opening Evening Netflix broadcast final month that he would’ve performed for the Yankees as a substitute of the Giants if George Steinbrenner hadn’t given him a take-it-or-leave-it provide.
All of us have our personal private picks, too. Listed below are just a few of mine: What if the New York Metropolis newspapers hadn’t gone on strike in 1978? What if Eric Gregg hadn’t been the house plate umpire for Livan Hernandez’s begin in Recreation 5 of the 1997 NLCS? What if Dottie Hinson hadn’t dropped the ball, or Jimmy Dugan had simply laid off the booze? Among the most important what-ifs might’ve had an enormous influence on the world past baseball. What if the Black Sox hadn’t thrown the 1919 World Collection? What if Curt Flood hadn’t challenged the reserve clause? What if George W. Bush had been named commissioner of baseball?
We received’t be analyzing any of the above what-ifs on this week’s mailbag, however three of the 4 questions we’re answering under are rooted in an alternate actuality, one by which Mookie Betts was all the time a shortstop, Ford Frick didn’t run Invoice Veeck out of baseball, and a beginning pitcher was precisely league common at every part besides throwing strikes. The lone non-hypothetical query, which is the place we’ll start, seems to be at whether or not groups have extra success once they hit a grand slam than once they rating no less than 4 runs with out one. However first, I’d prefer to remind you that this mailbag is unique to FanGraphs Members. When you aren’t but a Member and wish to hold studying, you’ll be able to join a Membership right here. It’s one of the simplest ways to each expertise the location and help our workers, and it comes with a bunch of different nice advantages. Additionally, when you’d prefer to ask a query for an upcoming mailbag, ship me an electronic mail at mailbag@fangraphs.com.