Grant is here as much for his historical importance as his quality. It’s a challenging model: the record shows him as a mediocre player for almost all of his career, and an odd choice for early attempts to break (perhaps more accurately, “bypass”) the color line.
He couldn’t hit, didn’t walk much, had very little power, and struggled to hold down a full time starting role. He was a fantastic glove at 2B, to the degree fielding statistics and reputation can be trusted, so he’s got that going for him.
There are three potential arcs for Grant: further research could uncover plausible arguments that spoke to his quality beyond this initial draft, increasing his performance and, therefore, his playing time. Or, further research could raise confidence in Grant just being a bad player, and his career actually never coalesces, ending after 1899 or perhaps 1903. Or, he is who we see now: someone whose offensive woes are hidden by the overall Deadball context and whose glove keeps him around as a utility player.
We’ve embraced that third path, but honestly it doesn’t feel great: utility players very rarely have 18 year careers, no matter how good their glovework is. It’s not that they don’t have MLB careers–there are a lot of them out there–but they usually get about 1,000 PA’s over 3-5 years and disappear. And, Grant _only_ played 2B, so even calling him a utility player is a bit of a stretch.
So the option was to either follow that model, and ignore the 2nd half of Grant’s historical record or to reduce his playing time and project him as–somehow–sticking around.
For now, we’ve gone with the latter, but, again, this one is subject to a fair bit of possible reinterpretation.
| Name | Charlie Grant (Tokohama) |
| ID / Status | grant-003cha / Draft |
| Pos | 2B |
| DOB / i9s Career | 08/31/1877 / 1897 - 1914 |
| Birthplace | Cincinnati, OH (USA) |
| Height / Weight | 5'8" / 160 |
| B / T | R / R |
Batting Projections
| Year | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | SB | CS | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 1897 | 135 | 20 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 15 | 3 | 1 | 0.148 | 0.179 | 0.178 | 0.356 |
| 1898 | 141 | 31 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 12 | 4 | 2 | 0.220 | 0.276 | 0.248 | 0.525 |
| 1899 | 91 | 17 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 0.187 | 0.245 | 0.220 | 0.465 |
| 1900 | 110 | 22 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 0.220 | 0.228 | 0.300 | 0.528 |
| 1901 | 101 | 20 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 11 | 16 | 5 | 1 | 0.198 | 0.277 | 0.248 | 0.524 |
| 1902 | 185 | 42 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 12 | 20 | 5 | 2 | 0.227 | 0.274 | 0.286 | 0.561 |
| 1903 | 193 | 39 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 24 | 8 | 2 | 0.202 | 0.252 | 0.233 | 0.486 |
| 1904 | 153 | 28 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 22 | 4 | 2 | 0.183 | 0.233 | 0.229 | 0.462 |
| 1905 | 298 | 75 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 23 | 44 | 14 | 4 | 0.252 | 0.305 | 0.305 | 0.611 |
| 1906 | 104 | 18 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 14 | 3 | 1 | 0.173 | 0.225 | 0.240 | 0.466 |
| 1907 | 176 | 36 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 31 | 7 | 2 | 0.205 | 0.259 | 0.256 | 0.515 |
| 1908 | 133 | 23 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 20 | 3 | 1 | 0.173 | 0.220 | 0.203 | 0.423 |
| 1909 | 221 | 43 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 36 | 10 | 3 | 0.195 | 0.252 | 0.213 | 0.465 |
| 1910 | 190 | 37 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 29 | 6 | 2 | 0.195 | 0.254 | 0.221 | 0.475 |
| 1911 | 164 | 35 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 16 | 32 | 3 | 2 | 0.213 | 0.283 | 0.268 | 0.552 |
| 1912 | 165 | 36 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 27 | 6 | 3 | 0.218 | 0.279 | 0.242 | 0.522 |
| 1913 | 195 | 56 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 36 | 6 | 5 | 0.287 | 0.359 | 0.303 | 0.662 |
| 1914 | 125 | 23 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 29 | 2 | 1 | 0.184 | 0.244 | 0.200 | 0.444 |