Team of the 70's?

garnettstyle

Who wins?

1. A's - 3 World Series championships
2. Reds - 2 World Series championships, 4 World Series appearances, 6 division titles.
3. Pirates - 2 World Series championships, 6 division titles
4. Yankees - 2 World series championships, 3 World Series appearances

Discuss

PSASAP

Without a doubt, the Oakland A's 1972-74. A dynasty team is a team that wins three consecutive titles, and the A's were that.

craig44

I think the big red machine takes it. I think the team's from 75/76 could have beaten any other from the decade

dallasactuary

I looked at this position by position and without actually looking anything up.

I see Oakland (Hunter, Holtzman, Odom, Blue, Fingers) being clearly better at pitcher than Cincinnati (Gullett, Norman, Billingham, Nolan, Eastwick). I randomly assigned the difference as +5.

At catcher, Cincinnati wins, but not by much. Yes, Bench's career was much better than Tenace/Fosse, but his last great year was 1974. He was still very good in 1975, but not so much in 1976. Tenace (who split duties between C and 1B) was at his peak and was just about as good as Bench was at that point. Fosse was good enough, but not old Bench/young Tenace good. So Cincinnati wins here, but I'm giving them a +3.

At first, Oakland has another clear win. As at catcher, I'll take Perez for his whole career, but his last great year was 1973, and he was perfectly ordinary in '75 and '76; Tenace was clearly better in '73-'74, and Mike Epstein in '72 was like a younger Perez. Another +5 for Oakland.

At second, no point discussing; Reds up +10 for Morgan over Green.

At SS, I declare a tie. Campaneris had some better seasons when he was younger, but in his WS years he was almost exactly the equal of Concepcion.

At third, it's a win for Cincinnati, but not by a mile. Rose was still at his peak, but Rose's peak wasn't that much better than Rose's average. Bando in '73 was as good as Rose in '75, but in the other years, Rose was better. Reds +3.

In left, another tie. Foster would have his best seasons later while Rudi's best seasons lined up with the A's WS wins. In the years in question, they were equals.

In center it's complicated because Oakland used Alou, Hendrick, Davilillo and North while the Reds used only Geronimo. None of the A's players, nor Geronimo, was ever very good but the best at the time was North. North only played in the last Oakland WS, though. I'm giving the A's a +1.

Finally, in right the A's have a clear win. Griffey was a fine player, but he was no Reggie. Oakland +6.

Add it all up and you get..... a tie. Obviously, this couldn't be any less scientific, but I think it supports my gut feeling that there wasn't a whole lot of difference between these two teams. I think the initial feeling that the Reds must be better may come from looking just at the names and not at the years. If you could take the best seasons of every player on the Reds and put them in 1975 and 1976 they may have won 130 games each year. But that's not how it worked, and the Tony Perez and Johnny Bench that were out there in 1976 were shadows of what they once had been, and Foster was a shadow of what he would soon become; what made the Big Red Machine "Big" was Joe Morgan. The A's players weren't as good for their careers, but they came much closer to all having their best seasons at the same time.

Justacommeman

Reds and A's were special. Take your pick.



mark

garnettstyle

Originally posted by: craig44
I think the big red machine takes it. I think the team's from 75/76 could have beaten any other from the decade

I agree with this. That lineup of Rose, Morgan, Bench, Perez, Foster is untouchable. And the Reds were dominate throughout the entire decade.

garnettstyle

How about Reggie Jackson receiving 5 World Series rings in the same decade. WOW.

SDSportsFan

To me, the Reds are definitely #1.



Keep in mind, that the Reds lineup of Bench, Perez, Morgan, Rose, Concepcion, Foster, Geronimo and Griffey, along with Sparky as manager, were together for nearly the entire decade. Sure, they didn't have any superstar pitchers (Gullett and Billingham were very good though), but Capt Hook (Sparky) knew how to maximize the rotation and used his bullpen (Borbon, Eastwick, McEneny) to near perfection.



Charlie Finley started breaking up the A's in 1974 when he got rid of Catfish. Then he dumped Ken Holtzman in 1975, Reggie, Rudi, Tenace and Fingers in 1976, and Vida Blue in 1977.



The A's might have kept winning championships, but Finley was a cheapskate and didn't want to pay the money it took to win.





Steve

JoeBanzai

Originally posted by: garnettstyle
Who wins?

1. A's - 3 World Series championships
2. Reds - 2 World Series championships, 4 World Series appearances, 6 division titles.
3. Pirates - 2 World Series championships, 6 division titles
4. Yankees - 2 World series championships, 3 World Series appearances

Discuss

4 WS appearances says it for me. Too bad Oakland didn't keep their lineup together!

Justacommeman

Originally posted by: JoeBanzai

Originally posted by: garnettstyle

Who wins?



1. A's - 3 World Series championships

2. Reds - 2 World Series championships, 4 World Series appearances, 6 division titles.

3. Pirates - 2 World Series championships, 6 division titles

4. Yankees - 2 World series championships, 3 World Series appearances



Discuss

4 WS appearances says it for me. Too bad Oakland didn't keep their lineup together!

I guess one could point out that the 4th WS that they did not win they lost to......The A's.



mark

dallasactuary

The spirit of most of the responses, I think, has been which team put together the best lineup for a short time that was better than the lineup any other team put together for a short time. But the Pirates were one of the choices, and the lineup that won their first WS wasn't at all the same as the lineup that won their second WS. So in that spirit, which team was the best over the entire decade as their roster changed? One reasonable way to answer that question is to see how the team fared in the standings for the entire decade. Below are the AL and NL standings, adjusted to one complete season, for 1970-1979 (I ignored Seattle and Toronto, so the AL average works out to over .500; not every season was 162 games for every team, so with rounding the NL isn't exactly .500 either):

BAL 96 66
NYY 91 71
BOS 90 72
KC 87 75
MIN 85 77
OAK 85 77
CAL 77 85
DET 77 85
TEX 76 86
MIL 76 86
CHW 75 87
CLE 73 89


CIN 95 67
LA 95 67
PIT 93 69
STL 81 81
HOU 81 81
PHI 81 81
NYM 80 82
SF 79 83
CHC 77 85
MON 74 88
ATL 72 90
SD 64 98


So Baltimore actually had the best reord for the entire decade, with Cincinnati and LA nipping at their heels. The Yankees were good enough throughout the decade, but were little better than average for most of it. Oakland was awesome for the first half of the decade and then dwindled to pathetic by the end. Cincinnati was similar to NY, but were great a little bit more often than they were just good. But Baltimore started and ended the decade as 100+ game winners, and never had a single bad season in between.

I didn't remember just how awful the Padres were, year in and year out. They had one, count 'em one, season where they broke .500 and they were 84-78. That would have been Baltimore's worst season.

SDSportsFan

Originally posted by: dallasactuary

I didn't remember just how awful the Padres were, year in and year out. They had one, count 'em one, season where they broke .500 and they were 84-78. That would have been Baltimore's worst season.

You don't need to remind me; their "awfulness" (to this day) is burned into my psyche!



There were some fun times though



Steve

PM770

Originally posted by: PSASAP
Without a doubt, the Oakland A's 1972-74. A dynasty team is a team that wins three consecutive titles, and the A's were that.

I think the fact they were SO bad from 77-79 hurts the A's case as team of the 70s. Looking at the others, the Yankees were pretty mediocre from 71-75. The Reds (71) and Pirates (73) really only had one bad year in the decade. Same with the Dodgers (79). In truth, it seems like Baltimore was the most consistent, but they only won the 1 title (70).

PM770

But the Padres had great unis in the 70s. Actually, all the unis were awesome in the 70s.

larryallen73

Growing up in LA, a Dodger fan, it was always HUGE when they played the Reds. By far the biggest rivalry of my youth was Dodgers v. Reds and the Reds were THE TEAM. The Reds had so many great players. I would go Red's 1 and A's 2. I suppose Yankees 3. The Dodgers went to 3 WS in the 70's but lost all of them so were a great team but not quite like the Red's or A's.

garnettstyle

Although the Orioles only won 1 World Series, I probably should've included them in the list. No doubt they were one of the best teams in the 70's, and very dominate throughout the decade.

dallasactuary

Best team of the 1960's?

Also the Orioles. That surprised me. I thought it would be the Cardinals or the Yankees, but they were fourth and third respectively. Second place was the Giants.

1950's: Yankees with only the Dodgers within shouting distance
1940's: Cardinals; Yankees sort of close
1930's: Yankees by a mile and a half over the Cubs
1920's: Yankees; Giants sort of close
1910's: Giants; Red Sox close
1900's: Pirates; Cubs sort of close

1980's: Yankees; Tigers close
1990's: Braves by half a mile over the Yankees
2000's: Yankees; Red Sox sort of close

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you combined it all the Yankees would win.

dallasactuary

This is almost certainly the nerdiest thing I've ever done, but with regard to the best team of the 1970's, I'm going to change my vote to Cincinnati.

Here's where the nerd part comes in. What I did was compare each teams actual W/L record to the record they were expected to have according to the Pythagorean W/L formula. If you're not familiar with it, it's a way of predicting how many games a team wins based solely on the number of runs they score, and the number of runs they allow. It is freakishly accurate (16 of the 24 teams in the 70's were off by 0 or 1; no team was off by more than 3), and where a team over or under performs their expected W/L, the result - I believe but can't prove - is luck. And it turns out that Baltimore overperformed by 1 win while Cincinnati underperformed by 1 win; Cincinnattii was the better team, while Baltimore was luckier (LA also overperformed (was lucky)).

garnettstyle

Dallas, I think most people would agree that New York was the team of the 90's(3 World Series championships).

dallasactuary

Originally posted by: garnettstyle
Dallas, I think most people would agree that New York was the team of the 90's(3 World Series championships).

I'm sure they would, and they're right if WS victories is the only yardstick. But the Yankees were a bad team for a big chunk of the decade, they had the best record in baseball once to Atlanta's four times, and they won 74 fewer games than the Braves. Even in the second half of the decade, when they were winning all their WS, they won 17 fewer games than the Braves.

I don't think there is one right way to define "team of the decade", but I think "best record" is at least as reasonable as "most WS titles".

PSASAP

Bowie Kuhn is as much to blame for the decline of the A's as Charles O. Finley was. If Kuhn had allowed the A's to sell off their players to the Yankees and Red Sox, they could have replenished their farm system and built the team into a contender within a few years. As it was, the stars left for free agency and the A's got nothing in return.

PM770

Originally posted by: PSASAP
Bowie Kuhn is as much to blame for the decline of the A's as Charles O. Finley was. If Kuhn had allowed the A's to sell off their players to the Yankees and Red Sox, they could have replenished their farm system and built the team into a contender within a few years. As it was, the stars left for free agency and the A's got nothing in return.

As it was, they did a pretty good job of rebuilding. After the WS titles, they won the division in 75, were in the race in 76 and then had those miserable years of 77-79. By 1980 they were in quasi-contention for the division and in 1981 they had the best record in the AL. In my mind that is a very strong quick turnaround.

dallasactuary

Originally posted by: PM770As it was, they did a pretty good job of rebuilding. After the WS titles, they won the division in 75, were in the race in 76 and then had those miserable years of 77-79. By 1980 they were in quasi-contention for the division and in 1981 they had the best record in the AL. In my mind that is a very strong quick turnaround.

The A's didn't so much rebuild as hire Billy Martin, the greatest manager in baseball history. Track his career sometime; every time he was hired the team won more games than they had the year before. And I'm not talking about 1 or 2 wins, but usually much more. The 1980 A's won 29 more games than the 1979 A's, with essentially the same roster.

Bullsitter

If y'all were talking college football Alabama would be "THE TEAM" of the 70s.

PM770

The flip side of the Billy Martin coin was that he wore out his welcome extremely quickly at all stops. Oakland was the only place he lasted even as long as 3 complete season (and that's counting a strike shortened 1981). Considering all of the success he had at turnarounds, he had a to be a gigantic pain in the a-- to deal with. Also note that his last season at every stop saw a decline in winning percentage many his second full season and a few are pretty drastic.

PM770

Regarding the 1979 A's v. the 1980 A's: they had 5 pitchers aged between 23-28 years old who really came into their own season over season. It looks like Art Fowler was Billy Martin's pitching coach at all his stops. Just did a quick comparison and it looks like at everyone of Billy Martins stops with Art Fowler there year-over-over ERA improvement relative to the league. Of course, the 1974 Rangers also include picking up Fergie Jenkins but still - is Art Fowler the most underrated baseball genius of all time?

garnettstyle

Originally posted by: Bullsitter
If y'all were talking college football Alabama would be "THE TEAM" of the 70s.

Heismans of the 70's

Ohio State - 2
Alabama - 0

estang

i would go in this order:



1) Reds - most consistent winner for entire decade

2) Athletics - most clutch team - 1971 was most victories with 102

3) Yankees - deepest teams from hitting to pitching

4) Pirates -

5) Orioles

6) Dodgers

7) Red Sox

8) Phillies

9) Royals



Most successful player: Reggie Jackson

Best hitter: Rod Carew

Best starting pitcher: Steve Carlton

Best reliever: Rollie Fingers

Most complete player: Joe Morgan

garnettstyle

Willie Stargell hit the most home runs in the 70's.

dallasactuary

Originally posted by: estang
Most successful player: Reggie Jackson
Best hitter: Rod Carew
Best starting pitcher: Steve Carlton
Best reliever: Rollie Fingers
Most complete player: Joe Morgan

This will come as a shock to nobody, but I'm going to disagree with a few of these choices.

Since you separated "hitter" from "player" and gave the "player" award to the runaway best of the 70's I'll let that go even though Morgan was also the best hitter of the 1970's. And Jackson was on some great teams that won a lot of World Series so I'll agree that he was the most successful. I don't care about relief pitchers since they aren't very important so I won't object to Fingers, although Mike Marshall might.

But the best pitcher of the 70's wasn't Carlton. He had the best single season, but too many of the others were mediocre. Of Carlton's five best seasons, only two were in the 70's. The best pitcher of the 70's was either Seaver or Palmer; too close to call between those two, but they were head and shoulders above everyone else. In clear third was Blyleven and Perry and Nekro round out the top 5. Sixth and seventh, in some order, were Carlton and Jenkins.

The best hitter of the 70's, besides Morgan, was Willie Stargell and in a distant third was Reggie Jackson. Carew was fourth, followed by Bobby Bonds, Pete Rose, Ken Singleton, Bobby Murcer, Amos Otis and Johnny Bench. The difference between Carew and Bonds was slight; the difference between Carew and the top 3 was clear.

garnettstyle

Good posts by Dallas and Estang.

My top 3 for the 70's would be.....

1. Stargell
2. Morgan
3. Jackson

estang

Dallas (first, I'm not happy that you took the North Stars away and we're left with the Wild's abysmal logo and team name and uniforms)



I didn't put a lot of thought into the best pitchers of the 1970s, and I agree that Palmer and Seaver are right there with Carlton, Blyleven, and Ryan. If I was to do it over again, I'd probably say Palmer was the best.



However, I cannot agree with you to think that Morgan was a better hitter than Carew. You cannot win 6 batting titles in the 1970s and not be the best hitter. It's not even close.



Knowing that the Morgan lovers would come out and say how superior he was to Carew, that's why I said the most "complete" player of speed, defense, hitting, and ultimately winning.



If you put Carew in the same spot as Morgan, his numbers will look completely different and superior to Morgan. It's not even comparable.



To make my point, let's look at hitting averages:



Year Carew Morgan

----------------------------------------

1970 .366 .268

1971 .307 .256

1972 .318 .292

1973 .350 .290

1974 .364 .293

1975 .359 .327

1976 .331 .320

1977 .388 .288

1978 .333 .236

1979 .318 .250



Morgan may not even be in the Top 10 best hitters of 1970s



Garvey, Madlock, Oliver, Rose, Bench, Parker all were better hitters than Morgan...



Even if you add walks and look at OBP, I'm sure Carew will come out on top despite Morgan taking a lot of walks. And in the lineup that he was in, he needed to walk as there were superior hitters behind him in the order. Carew didn't have that luxury.



Not even close...



Reggie Jackson was more of a slugger, as opposed to a pure hitter. There's a difference.



Morgan had a .182 average in 222 plate appearances in the post-season. That's abysmal.

Justacommeman

I'm not sure Carew did anything better then Joe Morgan except hit singles. If you're into singles he is your man.



Morgan is one of the top 30 hitters all time in my opinion. Carew nowhere and I mean nowhere close to that.



mark



Edited for grammar

dallasactuary

estang - as justacommeman said a little differently, you're using batting average as the sole measure of hitting. No single measure works well for that, but even if you are restricted to a single measure, batting average is worse than either OBP or slugging.

There are three stats (well, there are lots, but these are the best three) that take everything, or nearly everything, into account that are much better ways to determine how well a player hit.

1. Offensive WAR - Morgan 65.8, Carew 56.1

2. WPA: Morgan 47.1, Carew 32.4

3. Offensive Win Shares: Morgan 258, Carew 211


The margin by which Morgan was the best hitter of the 1970's is clear and fairly significant. Now, I don't have any way of "backing out" Morgan's stolen bases from any of the above, so if you are taking the position that those don't count when measuring hitting, then while I am pretty confident that Morgan would still win, I can't prove it. But when I hear "best hitter" I think "who would you rather have at the plate for a given at bat", and on that basis the best hitter of the 70's was Morgan.

Justacommeman

As an Ameican League guy Rod Carew never scared me. A single was about the only damaged you had to worry about. Morgan terrified me. Stargell terrified me........I think most others would agree



mark

Darin

Originally posted by: dallasactuary

Originally posted by: estang
Most successful player: Reggie Jackson
Best hitter: Rod Carew
Best starting pitcher: Steve Carlton
Best reliever: Rollie Fingers
Most complete player: Joe Morgan

This will come as a shock to nobody, but I'm going to disagree with a few of these choices.

Since you separated "hitter" from "player" and gave the "player" award to the runaway best of the 70's I'll let that go even though Morgan was also the best hitter of the 1970's. And Jackson was on some great teams that won a lot of World Series so I'll agree that he was the most successful. I don't care about relief pitchers since they aren't very important so I won't object to Fingers, although Mike Marshall might.

But the best pitcher of the 70's wasn't Carlton. He had the best single season, but too many of the others were mediocre. Of Carlton's five best seasons, only two were in the 70's. The best pitcher of the 70's was either Seaver or Palmer; too close to call between those two, but they were head and shoulders above everyone else. In clear third was Blyleven and Perry and Nekro round out the top 5. Sixth and seventh, in some order, were Carlton and Jenkins.

The best hitter of the 70's, besides Morgan, was Willie Stargell and in a distant third was Reggie Jackson. Carew was fourth, followed by Bobby Bonds, Pete Rose, Ken Singleton, Bobby Murcer, Amos Otis and Johnny Bench. The difference between Carew and Bonds was slight; the difference between Carew and the top 3 was clear.

I almost died of shock when I saw an Amos Otis mention from Dallas!
He was actually the Royals first star player, the face of the team before Brett came along.
He never gets mentioned on these boards.lol.
I was so disappointed he wasn't voted one of the Royals top four players last year
during all star festivities, I decided to do his basic player set in honor of him.

Skin2

I don't think Morgan is clearly a better hitter than Carew during the 70's.

OPS+
Carew 142
Morgan 140

That is just a quick look and does take out the base running aspect...if looking at hitting only.


Reggie is 148
Stargell is 156


I would disagree too with Morgan being the best hitter in the 70's if you are separating hitting from baserunning.

dallasactuary

I love Amos Otis almost as much as Gene Tenace - fantastic player playing for a poor team (when he was at his peak) in a small market, so hardly anyone noticed him.

Per 600 plate appearances, Amos Otis had 3.1 WAR, 1.8 WPA and 20.8 Win Shares.
Per 600 plate appearances, Jim Rice had 3.1 WAR, 1.7 WPA and 18.7 Win Shares.

Amos Otis was a better baseball player than Jim Rice.

dallasactuary

Originally posted by: Skin2
I don't think Morgan is clearly a better hitter than Carew during the 70's.

OPS+
Carew 142
Morgan 140

That is just a quick look and does take out the base running aspect...if looking at hitting only.


Reggie is 148
Stargell is 156


I would disagree too with Morgan being the best hitter in the 70's if you are separating hitting from baserunning.

I think the thin margin in OPS+ between Carew and Morgan is probably more than erased by their GIDP, but they are at least close if we ignore SB. But if the question is "who do I want at the plate?" the answer is clearly Morgan since his SB factor into that.

But, if we define "hitting" more narrowly, then Stargell was possibly the best hitter of the 1970's. I don't see any way to get Carew to #1. And skin, I'm surprised that you're looking at OPS+ to make the call when Morgan's WPA was so much higher than Carew's, and everyone else's.