NDF 2003-04 Winter Fun - 1910 Award Winners - AL

[sweaver]

For the season referenced in the subject line of this thread, who would be your pick for Best Positional Player (Include defense and position played in your determination), Best Pitcher, Best First Year Player and any other topics of discussion from this season.

[Elmo]

Best pitcher. Pretty tight between Coombs and Walter Johnson 31-9 with 13 SO'd is pretty impressive - Johnson was 25-17, with more Neutral Wins....Better K's and walks too. Johnson almost certainly pitched better, but Coombs pitched well and the record and SO's push me over to Coombs....maybe that's because I guess we'll see a few years that'll go Johnson's way starting 1912.....

Cobb over Lajoie by a hair's breadth. Mainly 1 and 2 in most areas - Cobb has the better slg and oba as well as SB, HR's and RBI's (I like Crawford 120 RBI - but it's about the only area he is at the top) and Lajoie only has a small lead in BA, 16 more doubles (but over all only 6 more extra base hits) and 33 more hits (with an impressive 227). Not quite enough but close.

[sweaver]

The Win Shares leaderboard:
Players; Nap Lajoie (Cleveland) 47, Ty Cobb (Detroit) 45, Eddie Collins (Philadelphia) 39, Tris Speaker (Boston) 34, Frank Baker and Rube Oldring (Philadelphia) 25, Donie Bush (Detroit) and Danny Murphy (Philadelphia) 24, Sam Crawford (Detroit), John Knight (New York) and Clyde Milan (Washington) 23.

Pitchers; Jack Coombs (Philadelphia) 37, Ed Walsh (Chicago) and Walter Johnson (Washington) 36, Russ Ford (New York) 35, Chief Bender (Philadelphia) 26.

WARP3 scores for the WS leaders: Lajoie 14.4, Cobb 13.0, Collins 14.5, Speaker 9.9, Baker 7.8, Oldring 6.8, Bush 9.1, Murphy 7.0, Crawford 6.1, Knight 6.3, Milan 8.2.

Pitchers: Coombs 11.9, Walsh 14.1, Johnson 11.7, Ford 10.8, Bender 8.0.

Best Player: Nap Lajoie. It could be Eddie Collins from the pennant-winning A's, but I will go with a tremendous season from the old pro. Cobb led in OPS, but not by much.

Best Pitcher: Jack Coombs will carry this award for the gonfalon winners, with a 31-9 record and 1.30 ERA. Ed Walsh rated so well because he led the league in ERA despite an 18-20 record, owing to a 6th place team.

Best Rookie: Russ Ford, 26-5 in by far his best season. He and fellow one-year wonder John Knight helped propel the Highlanders to second place.

[WiredTiger]

Best Batter: Nap Lajoie
Nap Lajoie barely beats out Cobb. Cobb lead the league in OBP and SLG% but Lajoie played in more games as was just as good.

Best Pitcher: Jack Coombs
31-9 with an ERA+ of 182 takes the crown over Russ Ford and Walter Johnson