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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, May 14, 2012
What is WAR good for? Interesting nuggets like this one. I’m sure most fans associate the name Roger Maris with the number 61—as in 61 home runs, 1961, and the film 61*. Maris had a historic 1961 season, surpassing Babe Ruth’s single-season home run mark and driving in a ton of runs. For his effort, he earned 6.7 WAR and the MVP Award. His most valuable season, however, actually came the previous year in 1960—his first MVP season. While he hit 22 fewer home runs and drove in 29 fewer runs, his OPS+ was nearly on par with 1961 (160 in 1960, 167 in 1961). Because of a big difference in plate appearances, his WAR Batting Runs separate a but more (41 in 1960, 54 in 1961). In the field, however, Maris was worth 19 runs in 1960 and just a single run in 1961, giving him a 1960 WAR total of 7.3, or 0.6 more than his record-breaking season.
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1. Harveys WallbangersWhen he was with the O's, hitting 23 HRs a year, I remember being stunned at just how good his '79 looked.
injuries ate him up. fred lynn needed coaching in risk management
Looking this up I am reminded of the ridiculous MVP decision that year. The BBWAA wouldn't repeat such a gaffe these days, would they? Would they?
ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha
you and your crazy dreams
Fred Lynn's 1979 season, as you probably surmised, was helped out a tad by playing at Fenway (OPS home/road split of 1.267/.831). His first season with the Angels in 1981 is beginning to remind me of a certain new Angel in 2012...
I remember reading Buzzy Bavasi's memoir, which did not have a lot of positive things to say about Fred Lynn (B. Bavasi loved Reggie.)
This ought to be one hell of a lot more equivocal. Maris might have been worth those amounts in the field that year . . . or he might have been worth a million leprechauns, or seventeen angels dancing on the head of a pin. There's absolutely no way of knowing.
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