1994 Super Sim- What If The Strike Never Happened?!

 I was five years old in 1994 when the strike shut down the Major League Season, many things were going on that season that were unanswered. Oddly enough I didn't know much about this season due to me being so young, but this past 2 years has been the renaissance for the great game of MLB showdown, this blog was the first step for me, finding it and connecting with the wonderful people that run the blog. Then myself making interactive leagues where the community drafted and I played the games out led to me making a discord for everyone to have one collective space to talk trash to each other. Sadly the pandemic happened but a tiny glimmer was the explosion of the discord and MLB showdown and all the cool things that came with it. Two of the biggest things was a discord member SavardTheGoat created a super sim code where he can sim a full 162 game season before you can even think of the rosters. Secondly, was an absolute gamechanger and that was the creation of the Showdown Bot by the wonderful Matt Gula. What happens when you combine these two super powers together?  The correct answer is many things, but the first one for you all to find out about is taking the stats and games played from prior to the strike and having the sim engine simulate the remaining games of the season to get to the playoffs. 

Rewind a little while back at work and I see a discussion about what ifs in the 1994 season in the discord which led to a amazing conversation that I screen grabbed as my main motivation for making the rosters in the showdown bot, and reaching out to Savard to run the sim for us. Here are some parts of the conversation.

If you haven't joined the discord yet I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it, we are currently in the process of drafting 30 teams to be ran through the sim using all time rosters from 1992-2021 (I am sure this post will be coming soon as well for those interested).

The Biggest Questions heading into the sim:
Can Tony Gwynn hit .400 batting average?

Can Matt Williams hit 62 Home Runs?

Who wins the AL Central?

Is Montreal the real deal?

Those are the main questions from the chat that inspired this idea so we will answer those in this post, but there are many other awesome things that will come from this sim. For the sim, it is only simulating the regular season, I will personally play out the playoff series, and we are going by 1995 playoff rules, each division winner and 1 wild card from each league. Another old rule that I just learned was back then the wild card team couldn't play their division winner in the opening round, even if they were the number 1 seed, a very interesting rule, which plays out huge in the conclusion of the regular season sim.

Going into August of 1994: For those unfamiliar with what was going on in the season up until the work stoppage, here is the link to the baseball reference page.

The Sim: Those looking to learn about the sim and how it runs, here is the link to Savards explanation and introduction to his sim league that he ran on here previously. 

Final Standings: The standings were sorted into three tabs, the overall total standings, where the team was at the time of the strike, and finally the sim standings. As you can see the Braves and Expos tied, for tie breaker I took Montreal's record vs the Braves and the fact they had a better record prior to the the strike. The Cincinnati Reds finished with the best record in the Majors and no team won 100 games which makes for some compelling parity in the league. Another note, is how terrible the western divisions in each league were, Oakland really pulled ahead in the sim to take the division.

Statistical Top 10s: I will have another post at another time deep diving on the individual player stats, so for now I am only showing the top 10s at each category. 

Starters: Greg Maddux was the most impressive starter, led the league in wins, innings pitcher, ERA and WHIP. The Braves will lean on him heavily in the postseason as they look to start their dynasty a year earlier than history expected.  

Bullpen: Mike Jackson was like Greg Maddux, leading in ERA, WHIP and Runs allowed for the bullpen pitchers. 

Batters: Matt Williams leads the league in homers, then most leaders you will see Frank thomas, Jeff Bagwell or Kenny Lofton at the top. The biggest outlier is Craig Biggio and his insane number of doubles. When it comes down to player of the year it has to be either Frank Thomas or Jeff Bagwell they were both incredible. 

The Biggest Questions heading into the sim:
Can Tony Gwynn hit .400 batting average? Sadly no, Tony Gwynn finished the season with a .379 average, but he led the league. His average took a big dip from his .394 at the time of the strike. 

Can Matt Williams hit 62 Home Runs? Another super sadly no, but he did get to the 60 mark, just one short of tying Roger Maris 61, and tying with the Babe at 60. At this time in history, it would have been tied for the 2nd most home runs in a single season, pretty cool stuff.

Who wins the AL Central? The Chicago White Sox at 97-65 win this loaded division, and the Cleveland Indians win the AL Wild Card spot with a 96-66 record. Lost behind those two teams are the Kansas City Royals finished 92-70 and if we were at the 5 team playoff format, would be playing the Indians in the 1 game play in game.

Is Montreal the real deal? Regular season wise, the answer is a resounding yes, the Expos winning 98 games and finish a tie with the Braves for the NL East, with expos taking the tie breaker. Finished one game behind the Reds for the best record in the league, and the Reds reward is to play the Braves. he next phase of this question is how will Montreal do in the post season, to consider them the real deal I believe they need to take care of the Giants and then not get swept in the next round. If the winner of the Braves/Reds series defeats the Expos in a competitive series, I would like to think that it is still a real deal team, but the fans up in Montreal may be thinking World Series of Bust!!!!

Finally, the playoff seeding. I am looking very forward to diving deep into these teams before I start simulating these games out. The matchups will be tons of fun and the interaction with all of you will make it even better. Be on the look out for a playoff preview coming next. 

This is a little collage of some of the 1994 cards I made while getting wrapped up in all of this, they will all be posted at a later time.