NDF 2003-04 Winter Fun - 1980 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: Mike Schmidt
Like his World Series 3b counterpart George Brett, Schmidt was the cream of the crop among NL batters. He led the league in SLG% by .100 points and was fourth in OBP despite a .286 batting average. He also won a Gold Glove at 3b.

Best Pitcher: Steve Carlton
Don Sutton was good to but Carlton was better. He led the league in ERA+, wins, strikeouts and innings.

Best Rookie: Steve Howe
The best reliever for a decent Dodgers team. Howe had 2.66 ERA in 85 innings in addition to 17 saves. Not really a great crop of rookies in 1980 for the NL.

[sweaver]

Win Shares leaders, players: Mike Schmidt (Philadelphia) 37, Gary Carter (Montreal) 30, Andre Dawson (Montreal) 29, Dale Murphy (Atlanta) and Keith Hernandez (St. Louis) 28, Darrell Evans (San Francisco) 27, Cesar Cedeno (Houston) 26, Ken Griffey (Cincinnati) and Jose Cruz (Houston) 25.

WS leaders, pitchers: Steve Carlton (Philadelphia) 29, Jerry Reuss (Los Angeles) 21, Rick Camp (Atlanta), Don Sutton (Los Angeles) and Steve Rogers (Montreal) 20.

WARP3: Schmidt 11.7, Carter 10.1, Dawson 8.6, Murphy 7.8, Hernandez 10.0, Evans 7.7, Cedeno 7.8, Griffey 6.5, Cruz 7.7. Carlton 10.6, Reuss 6.4, Camp 6.0, Sutton 6.1, Rogers 7.1.

Actual award voting:
MVP (top 12)

Place  Name  Team  1st place  Points
1 Mike Schmidt      PHI   24    336              
  2 Gary Carter       MON    0    193           
  3 Jose Cruz         HOU    0    166                 
  4 Dusty Baker       LAD    0    138            
  5 Steve Carlton     PHI    0    134       
  6 Steve Garvey      LAD    0    131              
  7 Andre Dawson      MON    0     72                  
  8 George Hendrick   STL    0     50             
  9 Bob Horner        ATL    0     42             
 10 Bake McBride      PHI    0     32                   
 11 Keith Hernandez   STL    0     29                         
 12 Dale Murphy       ATL    0     23    

Cy Young (top 4)

Place  Name  Team  1st place  Points
1 Steve Carlton     PHI   23    118    
  2 Jerry Reuss       LAD    1     55    
  3 Jim Bibby         PIT    0     28  
  4 Joe Niekro        HOU    0     11   

Can we retroactively revoke the BBWAA membership of the guy who put Reuss 1st?
Rookie (top 5)

Place  Name  Team  1st place  Points
1 Steve Howe        LAD   12     80    
  2 Bill Gullickson   MON    5     53   
  3 Lonnie Smith      PHI    4     49               
  4 Ron Oester        CIN    1     16               
  5 Dave Smith        HOU    2     13   

A strongly divided rookie vote: 5 guys with 1st place votes.

[sweaver]

Top player: Mike Schmidt
Top pitcher: Steve Carlton

These are no-brainers. The Phillies won, and those two did most of the work.

Top rookie: Lonnie Smith. This one is tough. I think I would go for a Phillies clean sweep, as they won their first (and still only) World Series. Jeff Reardon, Leon Durham, Al Holland, and Bob Walk also drew a vote each in the balloting. No clear winner.

I go along with Schmidt/Carlton. Hernandez had a great year. No real competition for Carlton here.