The equalized '80s

Dwight Gooden, with 41 points in a rating system that rewards players for top-five finishes in certain categories, was the only major league player to top 41 points in the 1980s.

Mike Schmidt had three of the top four seasons among major league hitters in the 1980s. In his best season of 1981 he led the National League in seven categories and even finished fourth in average at .316, well above his career mark of .267.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  The 1980s was the decade when the elite baseball players came somewhat back to the pack. Whereas standouts of past years such as Ted Williams and Sandy Koufax stood out supremely from their peers, there wasn't as much separation between the best and the rest in the '80s when looking at my decade-by-decade ratings of the best players of each 10 years and the best individual seasons by those players. 

  But the game had been trending toward this since the 1940s, when there were 11 seasons with 40 or more points in my ratings system, led at bat by Ted Williams' 47 1/2 in 1949 and on the mound by Bob Feller's 46 in 1940. Williams had four 40-plus seasons in the decade, Feller three.

  Forty-plus seasons at bat in the 1950s came from Mickey Mantle (44, 1956) and Willie Mays (40, 1955). In the '60s, Sandy Koufax's 44 in 1965 topped all pitchers, while Triple Crown winners Frank Robinson (45 1/2, 1966) and Carl Yastrzemski (40 1/2, 1967) cracked 40 at the plate.

  Jim Rice was the lone player to reach 40 in the 1970s, leading batters with 41 in 1978. Steve Carlton came close at 39 in 1972, the season he won 27 games for a 57-win team.

   In the 1980s, pitcher Dwight Gooden was the lone player to hit 40, scoring 41 in 19 in 1985, with Bret Saberhagen pitching (37 1/2, 1989) and Mike Schmidt hitting (37,1981) the closest to 40.

  The settling effect is further exposed by looking at what brought up the bottom in the top 10 seasons for previous decades. In the 1940s, it was, by pitching and hitting respectively, 35 1/2 each; 1950s, 27 and 32; 1960s, 28 and 29 1/2; and 1970s, 29 1/2 and 28 1/2.

  In the 1980s, 25 points tied for the bottom top 10 pitching mark while at the plate it was 26 1/2.

  Which means not so much that the greats were greater in earlier years but by the 1980s, there were probably more good players to go around and spread out the standings among the leaders.

  So here's how I came up with the rankings:

  The “study” consisted of pulling out a Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia and looking over the listing of league leaders in several categories for each year. The top five were listed in some instances, the top four in others – don’t ask me how that line was drawn. The major categories almost all included the top five. In a couple instances just the top three were listed. Sometimes just two. I think a large number of players tied had something to do with less than four, and space limitations may have come into play. I gave five points for the top ranking, four for second and so on down. Where just four were listed, it went 5-4-3-2. If there was a tie, I divided the total number of points between the rankings by the number of players who were tied. Example: Three players tied for second – 4+3+2=9 divided by 3=3 points for each player.

Robin Yount, with 32 1/2 points in 1982, ranked second among major league hitters for best seasons in the 1980s. He was the only player to squeeze in among the top four besides Mike Schmidt.

  The categories: hitting -- batting average, total bases, hits, runs, slugging average, RBIs, walks, doubles, homers, steals, homer-percentage, triples; pitching  – winning percentage, saves, hits/nine innings, strikeouts/nine innings, ERA, strikeouts, shutouts, innings pitched, wins, complete games, walks/nine innings, games pitched.
  What I came up with I think gives a fairly representative presentation of the top players and seasons. There are enough categories included to give a balance between the counting stats that reward durability and reliability and the rate stats that address pure performance. Offense takes in power, speed, batting eye and contact; pitching -- power, control, durability and dominance (i.e., shutouts). Mind you, the numbers, other than the rankings I assigned, don’t matter here, just how the players ranked in comparison with their peers. Which I think is the best way to rate players, how they rate relative to others. The 48 homers Schmidt hit to lead the NL in 1980 don't matter any more than the 22 four players hit to tie for the AL lead in 1981 (a year where numbers were shrunk by a midseason strike). Those players were simply the best over their peers in that particular year in that particular category.

Top 10 batting seasons

1. Mike Schmidt, 1981, 37

2. Robin Yount, 1982, 32 1/2

3. Mike Schmidt, 1980, 31

4. Mike Schmidt, 1986, 30 1/2

5. Don Mattingly, 1986, 30

6. Dale Murphy 1985, 29 1/2

7 (tie). Don Mattingly, 1985, 28

           Dale Murphy, 1983, 28

9. Kevin Mitchell, 1989, 27

10. Bob Oliver, 1982, 26 1/2

  This list gives impetus to the argument that Mike Schmidt was the greatest third baseman over time, overall. The Phillies third sacker, whose 10 career Gold Gloves tops all National Leaguers at the hot corner, had three of the top four batting seasons in the 1980s, including the best mark of 37 in 1981. That year he led the NL in seven categories and even finished fourth in average at .316, well above his career mark of .267. George Brett, a contemporary of Schmidt's also ranked near the top of third basemen all time, didn't have any seasons in the top 10 and in fact ranked in the AL's top five only twice -- second in his MVP year of 1985 and fifth in the 1980 season when he flirted with batting .400, finishing at .390. Brett missed too many games with injuries and didn't have quite enough power to cover too many categories.

  Coming in behind Schmidt in top-10 seasons were Don Mattingly (1986 and '85) and Dale Murphy (1985 and '83). Robin Yount, second at 32 1/2 in 1982, was the only player to break through Schmidt's domination at the top. 

  Within the NL, Schmidt led the league three times with his top 10 seasons, while Murphy was tops in his two top 10s. Mattingly was the only multi-Al leader with his two top-10 finishes, which ranked second and third in the league for the decade behind Yount's 1982.

Bret Saberhagen had the second-best pitching season and second-best overall in the major leagues in the 1980s with 37 1/2 points in 1989.

Top 10 pitching seasons

1. Dwight Gooden, 1985, 41

2. Bret Saberhagen, 1989, 37 1/2

3. Roger Clemens, 1987, 33 1/2

4. Steve Carlton, 1980, 33

5. Mike Scott, 1986, 32

6. Roger Clemens, 1986, 27

7 (tie). Mike Norris, 1980, 25 1/2

           John Tudor, 1985, 25 1/2

9 (tie). Steve Carlton, 1982, 25

           Mario Soto, 1983, 25

           Dwight Gooden, 1984, 25

  As noted above, Gooden's top 41 topped all major league players in the 1980s. He tied for ninth in 1984, giving him two top-10 seasons to tie him with Roger Clemens (third, 1987 and sixth, 1986) and Carlton (fourth 1980 and tie for ninth, 1982). Saberhagen's 37 1/2 in 1989 took second to squeeze in among the top with Gooden, Clemens and Carlton and win him his second Cy Young Awsrd. That was also second overall in the majors and dwarfed his 1985 season of 16 when he won his first Cy and the Kansas City Royals won their first World Series title.

  Nobody besides Gooden or Carlton had more than two seasons leading the NL in the decade. Gooden's 41 in '85 was the top NL mark of the decade, followed by Carlton's 33 in 1980.

  Clemens and Dave Stieb each led AL pitchers in three straight seasons. In addition to his top 10 seasons in 1986 and '87, Clemens' 24 1/2 the following year led the loop. Stieb, although he didn't come close to cracking the top 10, topped the AL from 1982 through '84 with marks between 16 and 20 1/2. This is indicative of the lower bar for leaders in the '80s but also indicative of the respect the hard-luck Blue Jays right-hander deserved.

  Stieb, a seven-time All-Star who won the second-most games of any pitcher in the 1980s and led the AL in WAR from 1982 through 1984, never finished above fourth in Cy Young voting, that coming in 1982. Pete Vuckovich won it that year. About all Vuckovich did that year was win games -- for a pennant-winning team that led the major leagues in runs scored. He went 18-6 with a 3.34 ERA, leading the AL in winning percentage and placing second in victories. Stieb, pitching for a last-place team that was last in the AL in runs scored and fourth-lowest in the majors, went 17-14 with a 3.25 ERA. He led the league in complete games, innings pitched and shutouts, and was fifth in wins and ERA.

  Vuckovich was rated the second-worst Cy Young winner ever by The Sporting News. And TSN did name Stieb the AL Pitcher of the Year for '82.

  How star-crossed was Stieb? Four times in five years, he reached the ninth inning with no-hitters and came away empty, four times with one-hitters, once with a two-hitter. Three times in 12 months, he actually reached the last out of a no-hitter, including twice within six days in 1988. He finally finished  a no-hitter in 1990. 

  Speaking of bad Cy Young choices, TSN rated Steve Bedrosion, NL 1987, as the worst. Bedrosian won it on the strength of an NL-leading 40 saves, half of the Phillies' win total that year. But all that earned him was 16th in the MVP voting. He gave up 11 home runs in 89 innings and had a 74-28 strikeout-to-walk ratio, hardly the stuff of a dominant closer.

  So who got snubbed? Well, nobody really. Nolan Ryan topped our list that year with 20 points, followed by Mike Scott with 19 (coming off a fifth-place 32-point season).

  But that's the way the decade rolled, with more noticeable parity than in the past. 

  Sources: Listings for the top five each year came from  "The Baseball Encyclopedia: The Complete and Official Record of Major League Baseball," Macmillan. Information on the worst Cy Young Award selections came from  https://www.sportingnews.com/us/other-sports/news/the-10-worst-cy-young-winners-tablet/ccb1nqu47ahi19o6s7pjz67lg.