NDF 2003-04 Winter Fun - 1914 Award Winners - NL

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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.

3 way battle between Cravath, Sherry Magee and George Burns - the edge goes to Cravath based on better OBA and OPS (though Magee led the league in slg by .010 over Cravath). Burns' main claim to fame (by the way, the comedian George Burns was 18 this year....) was 62 steals. The other George Burns stole much more material than that.

Based on Stats alone, you have to go with Bill James 26-7 in his only full year for the champion Braves....I think he won a couple of WS starts. That Bill James (there was another one that year in the AL) entered service the following year after 5 wins and 13 games and pitched only one more time in 1919 after the war where he made a single appearance. He ptiched in 24 games the previous year, so no rookie for him, otherwise it would have been one of the more interesting careers in baseball history - still pretty interesting.

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Win Shares leaderboard:
Players; George Burns (New York) 31, Sherry Magee (Philadelphia) 29, Gavy Cravath (Philadelphia) 28, Tommy Leach (Chicago) 27, Zack Wheat (Brooklyn) 26, Joe Connolly and Johnny Evers (Boston) 25, Rabbit Maranville (Boston) and Vic Saier (Chicago) 24.

Pitchers; Bill James (Boston) 36, Dick Rudolph (Boston) 29, Jeff Pfeffer (Brooklyn), Jeff Tesreau (New York) and Pete Alexander (Philadelphia) 26, Slim Sallee (St. Louis) 25, Bill Doak (St. Louis) 24.

WARP3: Burns 8.9, Magee 7.5, Cravath 7.6, Leach 6.2 (the last good year of a long career), Wheat 8.2, Connolly 5.5, Evers 7.1, Maranville 7.4, Saier 6.3, and also James 8.4 (his only good year), Rudolph 6.9, Pfeffer 8.3, Tesreau 7.6, Alexander 9.8, Sallee 6.6, Doak 5.3.

Award Voting (MVP):

Place  Name  Team  1st place  Points
1 Johnny Evers      BSN    0     50          
  2 Rabbit Maranville BSN    0     44                 
  3 Bill James        BSN    0     33  
  4 George Burns      NYG    0     31        
  5 Dots Miller       STL    0     18          
  6 Jeff Tesreau      NYG    0     15     
  7 Sherry Magee      PHI    0     14            
  7 Dick Rudolph      BSN    0     14     
  9 Zack Wheat        BRO    0     10                
 10 Pete Alexander    PHI    0      9    
 11 Roger Bresnahan   CHC    0      6                   
 11 Lee Magee         STL    0      6                  
 13 Bill Doak         STL    0      5   
 13 Art Fletcher      NYG    0      5               
 13 Jim Viox          PIT    0      5              
 16 Jake Daubert      BRO    0      4          
 16 Christy Mathewson NYG    0      4   
 16 Vic Saier         CHC    0      4            
 16 Butch Schmidt     BSN    0      4                  
 20 Lew McCarty       BRO    0      3           
 21 Heinie Groh       CIN    0      2            
 22 Tommy Clarke      CIN    0      1              
 22 Gavvy Cravath     PHI    0      1  

You can tell the shock at the Miracle Braves: the top 3 in the MVP voting came from Boston.

[sweaver]

Top player: George Burns was the best overall player in the league, leading in runs and steals and 3rd in doubles. At the time, I would have been tempted to select a Boston player, but Connolly was a platoon player, Evers and Maranville didn't hit enough.

Top pitcher: Pete Alexander at the beginning of his run as top NL pitcher. It's tempting to pick James or even Rudolph, but Alexander was better. The Braves triumph was a true team effort, which is why the true honor to bestow is...

Top manager: George Stallings. He used platooning like no one had before, and got a couple of career years that the Boston Braves rode to the World Championship.