NDF 2003-04 Winter Fun - 1976 Award Winners – AL

[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: Rod Carew
Very tough choice. Lots of OF/1B/3b types among the top hitters. Reggie didn't have that many at bats and MCrae was basically a DH. Carew was third in OPS+, third in BA, third in OBP and fifth in SLG%. He also had 49 stolen bases. Munson won the MVP award but I think there were better players out there.

Best Pitcher: Mark Fidrych
The Bird is the word! 19-9 with a league leading ERA+ of 158. I still to this day drink milk "on the rocks" because I thought the Bird did so too.

Vida Blue and Jim Palmer finish a close second.

Best Rookie: Mark Fidrych

I might go Brett instead of Carew, but they are pretty similar. Carew stole 49 bases (getting caught 22 times). Pretty close and none of the other people really seaparate themselves. In the end I guess I might agree with the voters and go Munson - he never walked which hurts his SLG and OBA (as it did throughout his career) 38K's and 29bb's and 616 official AB's.....don't see that very often.

Munson .302 and 105 RBI's (second to Lee May) and 14 sb's (caught 11 times).

Pitching - Nolan Ryan walked 183 people to lead the league...#2 Bill singer with 96.......

I think that Palmer, Tanana, Vida Blue and maybe El Tiante had better years than Fidrych. BUT, with a nod to the brilliance of Ralph Houk - 24 complete games for a 21 year old that robbed him of any future chance for this prestigious award (by the way, what do they get for a prize an NDF Virtual TShirt?) so I go Fidrych too. What a waste!!!!!!

[sweaver]

Win Shares leaderboard:
Players; George Brett (Kansas City) 33, Bobby Grich (Baltimore) 31, Rod Carew (Minnesota) 30, Graig Nettles (New York) 28, Ron LeFlore and Rusty Staub (Detroit), Hal McRae (Kansas City) and Mickey Rivers (New York) 26 each, Reggie Jackson (Baltimore) and Amos Otis (Kansas City) 25.

Pitchers; Jim Palmer (Baltimore), Frank Tanana (California) and Mark Fidrych (Detroit) 27 each, Vida Blue (Oakland) 25, Luis Tiant (Boston) 22, Wayne Garland (Baltimore) and Mike Torrez (Oakland) 20.

WARP3: Brett 8.4, Grich 9.8, Carew 8.8, Nettles 10.3, LeFlore 9.0, Staub 7.2, McRae 7.2, Rivers 6.8, Jackson 8.4, Otis 6.6. AL MVP Munson had 24 Win Shares and a 7.7 WARP3. Pitchers; Palmer 10.1, Tanana 10.4, Fidrych 10.5, Blue 10.1, Tiant 7.9, Garland 6.9, Torrez 7.7.

Award Voting:
MVP (top 20);

Place  Name  Team  1st Place  Points
1 Thurman Munson    NYY   18    304                   
  2 George Brett      KCR    2    217               
  3 Mickey Rivers     NYY    1    179             
  4 Hal McRae         KCR    0     99           
  5 Rod Carew         MIN    1     71         
  5 Chris Chambliss   NYY    0     71         
  7 Amos Otis         KCR    1     58               
  8 Bill Campbell     MIN    0     56    
  9 Lee May           BAL    0     51             
 10 Jim Palmer        BAL    0     47 
 11 Mark Fidrych      DET    1     41  
 12 Joe Rudi          OAK    0     35            
 13 Sal Bando         OAK    0     31          
 14 Carl Yastrzemski  BOS    0     26                    
 15 Frank Tanana      CAL    0     19 
 16 Reggie Jackson    BAL    0     17                       
 16 Graig Nettles     NYY    0     17             
 18 Gene Tenace       OAK    0     13                     
 19 Rollie Fingers    OAK    0     12   
 20 Vida Blue         OAK    0     10     

Cy Young (top 7);

Place  Name  Team  1st place  Points
1 Jim Palmer        BAL   19    108    
  2 Mark Fidrych      DET    5     51    
  3 Frank Tanana      CAL    0     18   
  4 Ed Figueroa       NYY    0     12    
  5 Luis Tiant        BOS    0     10     
  6 Vida Blue         OAK    0      8   
  7 Bill Campbell     MIN    0      7  

Rookie:

Place  Name  Team  Points
1 Mark Fidrych      DET   22     22   
  2 Butch Wynegar     MIN    2      2 

[sweaver]

Top player; Graig Nettles. The BBWAA would have thought me crazy, but even with a .255 average Nettles pushed the team to the top with power and amazing defense. What, Munson was a leader?

Top pitcher; Frank Tanana. About four guys are even at the top, but I think Tanana had the least help, excepting perhaps Fidrych. The Bird gets a consolation prize....

Top rookie: Mark Fidrych. He was not a good bet to last long with that K rate, but he was something to watch. And he was very good in 1976.

Top manager: Billy Martin got the Yankees their first win since 1964.