NDF 2003-04 Winter Fun - 1987 Award Winners – NL

[WiredTiger]

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.

[WiredTiger]

Best Hitter: Tony Gwynn
Lots of good hitter bunched closely together. I don't believe that Dawson had the best year. He's not even in the top ten in OPS+. Gwynn had speed and defense and was a great hitter.

Best Pitcher: Nolan Ryan
It's really tough to vote for someone with a 8-16 record but Ryan was the best pitcher that year. Led the league in OPS+ and pitched over 200 innings. He also had 270 strikeouts. One of the strangest pitching years ever. How in the world did he lose 16 games?

Best Rookie: Benito Santiago
Had a good year at the plate and behind it. Mike Dunne was also good that year.

I'd probably go with Jack Clark this year. Led the league in walks, OBA, SLG and OPS. But I can see Gwynn too - this was the 56 steal Gwynn, not the stocky Gwynn of later years.

Actually....looking back it has to be Gwynn. 36 2bs and 13 triples vs Clark's 23 and 1 (on the carpet that year, yes? - those are pretty unacceptable although of course by this point he is very slow)

I'd have to give the pitcher to Ryan's rotation mate Mike Scott. He's on the top of many of the ratios, second to Ryan in K's (and was 16-13 for the same team that Ryan was 8-16 for) - can't quite figure out why his RSAA is only 14 - Frank Williams has 23.....Do you remember his wonderful 1987 season? Didn't think so. 4 wins and 2 saves with a 2.3 ERA in 105+ip for the NL West second place Reds. Weird......

[sweaver]

Win Shares leaderboard:
Players; Tim Raines (Montreal) 34, Jack Clark and Ozzie Smith (St. Louis) 33, Eric Davis (Cincinnati) and Darryl Strawberry (New York) 30, Dale Murphy (Atlanta) and Tony Gwynn (San Diego) 29, Pedro Guerrero (Los Angeles) and Tim Wallach (Montreal) 28, Mike Schmidt (Philadelphia) 26. Andre Dawson had 20 WS.

Pitchers; Orel Hershiser (Los Angeles) 21, Tim Burke (Montreal) 20, Rick Sutcliffe (Chicago) and Bob Welch (Los Angeles) 19, Mike Scott (Houston) 18, Todd Worrell (St. Louis) 17, Andy McGaffigan (Montreal) and Steve Bedrosian (Philadelphia) 16, Lee Smith (Chicago), John Franco (Cincinnati), Nolan Ryan and Dave Smith (Houston), and Rick Reuschel (Pittsburgh) 15 each. Frank Williams of Cincy had 11.

WARP3 scores: Raines 10.5, Clark 6.9, Ozzie 10.9, Davis 10.8, Strawberry 9.8, Murphy 11.4, Gwynn 11.6, Guerrero 7.9, Wallach 7.3, Schmidt 10.0, Dawson 7.0. Pitchers; Hershiser 8.7, Burke 5.8, Sutcliffe 7.9, Welch 7.9, Scott 7.8, Worrell 6.5, McGaffigan 4.6, Bedrosian 5.1, Smith 6.6, Franco 6.2, Ryan 6.9, D. Smith 4.7, Reuschel 5.4, Williams 2.9.

Actual award voting:
MVP (top 15):

Place   Name   Team   1st place   Points
1 Andre Dawson      CHC   11    269                            
  2 Ozzie Smith       STL    9    193                        
  3 Jack Clark        STL    3    186                
  4 Tim Wallach       MON    1    165      
  5 Will Clark        SFG    0    128             
  6 Darryl Strawberry NYM    0     95             
  7 Tim Raines        MON    0     80           
  8 Tony Gwynn        SDP    0     75              
  9 Eric Davis        CIN    0     73              
 10 Howard Johnson    NYM    0     42            
 11 Dale Murphy       ATL    0     34        
 12 Vince Coleman     STL    0     20            
 13 Juan Samuel       PHI    0     19       
 14 Mike Schmidt      PHI    0     13      
 15 Pedro Guerrero    LAD    0     12    

Cy Young:

Place  Name  Team  1st Place  Points
1 Steve Bedrosian   PHI    9     57  
  2 Rick Sutcliffe    CHC    4     55  
  3 Rick Reuschel     TOT    8     54    
  4 Orel Hershiser    LAD    2     14  
  5 Dwight Gooden     NYM    1     12 
  5 Nolan Ryan        HOU    0     12   
  7 Mike Scott        HOU    0      9    
  8 Bob Welch         LAD    0      3 

Rookie (top 5)

Place  Name  Team  1st place  Points
1 Benito Santiago   SDP   24    120                  
  2 Mike Dunne        PIT    0     66    
  3 Joe Magrane       STL    0     10    
  4 Casey Candaele    MON    0      9                  
  5 Gerald Young      HOU    0      7 

[sweaver]

Best Player: Ozzie Smith. I thought Ozzie deserved the MVP in 1987, and I still do today. Raines tops the Win Shares, Gwynn the WARP3, but Ozzie does well both places and he played for the winners.

Best Pitcher: Orel Hershiser, although "none of the above" might be fitting here. Hershiser was 16-16 on the eve of his monster season, but was 3rd in wins, 3rd in ERA, 4th in strikeouts, 1st in innings. It's easy to see how Bedrosian snuck in and stole this award.

Best rookie: Benito Santiago, although this was his best season.

Best manager: Whitey Herzog of the Cardinals, rebounding from a below .500 season to win the pennant.