MITCHELL PAGE Died

[OFFNY]

I know that this is only vaguely Oriole related, but this is the guy that many people felt should have gotten the 1977 Rookie of the Year award over Eddie Murray. It was very close. Good luck to his family. He was only 59 years old.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ycn-8057036

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[Orange King]

He was on the 1980 Oakland A's team managed by Billy Martin. Martin took that team to 83 wins and second place after the A's only won only 54 games the year before. And he did it with virtually the same roster !

Almost everybody had a better year than the year before . Henderson had 100 steals and Tony Armas had 35 home runs and even Page had 17, after having only had 9 the year before.

But the key was the pitching; Martin pushed the starters as far as he could, knowing they were his strength and that the bullpen was weak.. All 5 starters had over 200 innings and the closer had only 6 saves. Matt Keough went from 2-17 to 16-13, and Mike Norris went from 5 wins to 22 wins.

Which of course goes to prove a smart manager who knows his personnel can make all the difference in the world!

[Tony-OH]

It's a good thing like WAR and OPS weren't around then because clearly Page was the better player his rookie year than Eddie Murray. Page was a ridiculous 6 WAR player his rookie year compared to Murray's 2.9 and he had a .926 OPS compared to Murray's .802. Page only accumulated 1.5 WAR the rest of his career (7.5 total) while Murray ended up a 66.7 WAR player.

Obviously Murray ended up the much better player, but for that one year, you can certainly argue that he was true rookie the year in 1977.

RIP

[OFFNY]

It's a good thing like WAR and OPS weren't around then because clearly Page was the better player his rookie year than Eddie Murray. Page was a ridiculous 6 WAR player his rookie year compared to Murray's 2.9 and he had a .926 OPS compared to Murray's .802. Page only accumulated 1.5 WAR the rest of his career (7.5 total) while Murray ended up a 66.7 WAR player.

Obviously Murray ended up the much better player, but for that one year, you can certainly argue that he was true rookie the year in 1977.

RIP

Agreed. The two things that really put Mitchell over the top in deserving that Rookie of the Year Award was

Page: 32 Stolen Bases

Murray: 0 Stolen Bases

ALSO:

Page: .405 On Base Percentage

Murray: .333 On Base Percentage

In hindsight, it's a shame that Page didn't win, because the award would have meant a lot more to Mitchell than it did to Eddie. It would have been his claim to fame, and a place in the record books. Eddie, on the other hand, played in 3 World Series, won 1 World Series, played in 4 League Championship Series, had 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, and was a first-ballot Hall-Of-Famer. At the time, I was glad that Eddie won the Award, but this is a rare instance in which I would rather have a player from another team win an award over a player from my beloved Orioles.

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[DrungoHazewood]

He was on the 1980 Oakland A's team managed by Billy Martin. Martin took that team to 83 wins and second place after the A's only won only 54 games the year before. And he did it with virtually the same roster !

Almost everybody had a better year than the year before . Henderson had 100 steals and Tony Armas had 35 home runs and even Page had 17, after having only had 9 the year before.

But the key was the pitching; Martin pushed the starters as far as he could, knowing they were his strength and that the bullpen was weak.. All 5 starters had over 200 innings and the closer had only 6 saves. Matt Keough went from 2-17 to 16-13, and Mike Norris went from 5 wins to 22 wins.

Which of course goes to prove a smart manager who knows his personnel can make all the difference in the world!

Especially when he doesn't give a darn about the future of his players beyond their next start. All of the pitchers Martin pushed saw their arms disintigrate within a few years. Keough only pitched 19 games the next year, then completely imploded afterwards, going 21-30, 5.29 the rest of his career. By '83 Langford was done. Norris never got within 100 innings of his 1980 high, and never had a full season with a 100 ERA+ again.

[Tony-OH]

Especially when he doesn't give a darn about the future of his players beyond their next start. All of the pitchers Martin pushed saw their arms disintigrate within a few years. Keough only pitched 19 games the next year, then completely imploded afterwards, going 21-30, 5.29 the rest of his career. By '83 Langford was done. Norris never got within 100 innings of his 1980 high, and never had a full season with a 100 ERA+ again.

Absolutely. The 1980 A's are one of my favorite teams to replay seasons with because I always wondered if they could have been better with some decent bullpen management. Bob Lacey ended up saving me 20+ games and I won over 90 games with them one year. Of course I also made some trades that helped out that horrible lineup outside of Henderson, Murphy, Armas, Revernig (platoon against righties only) and Page ( see Revernig). Fun team to play with though. For some reason Rob Picciolio became my starting shortstop and hit .280 and slugged 10 home runs in my OOTP8 addition.

[Frobby]

Looking back, it's interesting how the stats in use at the time (BA/HR/RBI) tell a different story than the modern stats. I really can't make the argument that Eddie deserved the ROY -- but I'm still glad he won.

The voters might have been swayed because Eddie went nuts in September -- .364/.393/.651 with 9 HR and 26 RBI, almost carrying the O's to the playoffs. However, Page was no slouch, closing with .351/.479/.574, 5 HR, 15 RBI.

[OFFNY]

Frobby said:

Looking back, it's interesting how the stats in use at the time (BA/HR/RBI) tell a different story than the modern stats. I really can't make the argument that Eddie deserved the ROY -- but I'm still glad he won.

The voters might have been swayed because Eddie went nuts in September -- .364/.393/.651 with 9 HR and 26 RBI, almost carrying the O's to the playoffs. However, Page was no slouch, closing with .351/.479/.574, 5 HR, 15 RBI.

Actually, they did also use stolen bases, walks, and strikeouts, too ........ in which Page had a monumental advantage over Murray that year. Walks and strikeouts, combined with hits and at-bats is very similar to on-base percentage, sans the hit-by-pitches..

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[mefogus]

Absolutely. The 1980 A's are one of my favorite teams to replay seasons with

May I ask what you're using for replay?

:f

[Frobby]

Actually, they did also use stolen bases, walks, and strikeouts, too ........ in which Page had a monumental advantage over Murray that year. Walks and strikeouts, combined with hits and at-bats is very similar to on-base percentage, sans the hit-by-pitches and reaching base on errors.

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I just think the understanding of the stats' significance was very different then. OBP and SLG existed as stats even then, but HR and RBI were afforded far more significance. At bottom, Eddie won the Rookie of the Year because he had more HR and RBI than Page. And, as I said, he carried the team in September and almost took them to the playoffs.

Stolen bases generally were ignored unless the player was Rickey Henderson or something.

[Tony-OH]

May I ask what you're using for replay?

:f

I had an old version of OOTP (8 I believe) that I used. I moved over to baseball mogul because of having all the teams easily available and I liked the quick unconfusing interface and the ability to take over an expansion team, including the draft (I took over the 1977 Mariners and had them in the playoffs by year three), but I'm leaning towards going back to OOTP 12 this year because I was disappointed how the stats went hitter heavy by year four in a franchise in mogul.

I'm waiting on my preview copy OOTP 12 and Mogul before making a final call though.

[OFFNY]

I just think the understanding of the stats' significance was very different then. OBP and SLG existed as stats even then, but HR and RBI were afforded far more significance. At bottom, Eddie won the Rookie of the Year because he had more HR and RBI than Page. And, as I said, he carried the team in September and almost took them to the playoffs.

Stolen bases generally were ignored unless the player was Rickey Henderson or something.

Oh, definitely. They absolutely had a different understanding in those days. In those days, I had never heard of WHIP, WAR, etc. I thought that they may have given some consideration to stolen bases (though not nearly as much as HR, RBI, and batting average).

I think that sometimes the new staistics help, but not always. Occassionally, they'll come up with a new statistic that is questionable (quality starts) or flat out ridiculous (game-winning hits, which they completely stopped after about 7 or 8 seasons).

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