1995 American League

The season got off to a late start, but it did start, and play through to a real World Series. It was quite a relief for baseball fans. Cleveland proved the class of the league, winning 100 games in spite of the shortened season to take the AL Central and plowing through the playoffs before losing the World Series. Boston was seven games in front of the Yankees for the AL East crown, although the Yanks took the Wild Card, while Seattle beat out the Angels by a game for the AL West lead. Edgar Martinez led the league in batting average (.356) and OPS, and tied for the lead in runs (121) and doubles (52). Albert Belle led in home runs (50), total bases, and slugging, and tied for the league lead in RBI (126), runs, and doubles. Mo Vaughn tied for the lead in RBI, and won the MVP award. Yes, it was silly. More about that later. Kenny Lofton led in steals (54) and triples (13). Lance Johnson had 186 hits. Mike Mussina led in wins with 19, followed by David Cone and Randy Johnson at 18. Johnson led in ERA with a 2.48 mark, and strikeouts with 294. Tim Wakefield was second in ERA at 2.95. Todd Stottlemyre was second in strikeouts at 205. Jose Mesa led in saves with 46. Johnson won the Cy Young. Win Shares leaders, players; Edgar Martinez (Seattle) 32, Albert Belle (Cleveland) 30, John Valentin (Boston) and Tim Salmon (California) 29, Frank Thomas (Chicago) 28, Chuck Knoblauch (Minnesota) and Bernie Williams (New York) 27, Manny Ramirez (Cleveland) 25, Mo Vaughn (Boston) and Jim Thome (Cleveland) 24, Carlos Baerga (Cleveland) and Mark McGwire (Oakland) 23, Rafael Palmeiro (Baltimore), Jim Edmonds (California) and Kenny Lofton (Cleveland) 21, Kirby Puckett (Minnesota) and Tino Martinez (Seattle) 20, Brady Anderson (Baltimore), Tony Phillips (California), Travis Fryman (Detroit) and Rickey Henderson (Oakland) 19. Win Shares leaders, pitchers; Randy Johnson (Seattle) 22, Kenny Rogers (Texas) 21, Mike Mussina (Baltimore) 20, David Cone (Toronto/New York) 19, Tim Wakefield (Boston) 18, Jose Mesa (Cleveland) 17, Dennis Martinez (Cleveland), Kevin Appier and Mark Gubicza (Kansas City) 16, Jack McDowell (New York) 15, Roger Pavlik (Texas) and Al Leiter (Toronto) 14. WARP3 scores: Belle 10.7, E. Martinez 8.6, Salmon 8.1, Thomas and Williams 7.8, Knoblauch 6.9, Valentin 6.4, McGwire 6.2, Baerga (last good year), Palmeiro, and Edmonds 5.8, Cal Ripken (Baltimore) 5.7, Thome 5.6, Marty Cordova (Minnesota) and Stan Javier (Oakland) 5.4, Omar Vizquel (Cleveland) 4.7, Ramirez, Wade Boggs (New York) and Roberto Alomar (Toronto) 4.4, Chili Davis (California) 4.3, Phillips, Ivan Rodriguez (Texas) and Robin Ventura (Chicago) 4.2, Vaughn and Fryman 4.0. Pitchers, Johnson 8.6, Mesa 6.9 (peak season), Rogers 5.8, Wakefield 5.7 (peak season), Mussina and Leiter 4.8, David Wells (Detroit) 4.3, Gubicza (last good year) and Felipe Lira (Detroit) 4.2, D. Martinez (last good year) and Jeff Nelson (Seattle) 4.0, Appier and Cone 3.9, Pavlik 3.8. WAR leaders, position players: Valentin 8.4, Belle 7.6, E. Martinez 7.5, Williams 6.7, Knoblauch 6.6, Thome 6.3, Salmon 6.0, Palmeiro 5.9, Thomas 5.8, Edmonds 5.5, Vaughn 5.2, Ventura 5.1, T. Martinez 4.9, Ripken 4.4, Boggs and Naehring 4.3, Lofton 4.1. WAR leaders, pitchers: Johnson 9.5, Appier 5.6, Mussina 5.2, Hanson 4.8, Brown and Finley 4.6, Cone 4.5, Fernandez 4.4, Langston 4.3, Stottlemyre 4.0, Gordon and Pavlik 3.8, Erickson and Rogers 3.7, Abbott 3.6, D. Martinez and Tewksbury 3.5. Actual award winners: MVP (top 15): | Season Results Rk Name Team 1st Place Points Max Points Share| AB H HR BA OPS SB| W-L IP ERA WHIP SO Sv +--+----------------+----+-----+------+------+-----+--------+---+-----+-----+---+--+ 1 Mo Vaughn BOS 12 308 392 0.79 | 550 165 39 .300 .963 11 2 Albert Belle CLE 11 300 392 0.77 | 546 173 50 .317 1.091 5 3 Edgar Martinez SEA 4 244 392 0.62 | 511 182 29 .356 1.107 4 4 Jose Mesa CLE 1 130 392 0.33 | | 3-0 64 1.12 1.03 58 46 5 Jay Buhner SEA 0 120 392 0.31 | 470 123 40 .262 .909 0 6 Randy Johnson SEA 0 111 392 0.28 | | 18-2 214 2.48 1.05 294 7 Tim Salmon CAL 0 110 392 0.28 | 537 177 34 .330 1.024 5 8 Frank Thomas CHW 0 86 392 0.22 | 493 152 40 .308 1.061 3 9 John Valentin BOS 0 57 392 0.15 | 520 155 27 .298 .931 20 10 Gary Gaetti KCR 0 45 392 0.11 | 514 134 35 .261 .846 3 11 Rafael Palmeiro BAL 0 34 392 0.09 | 554 172 39 .310 .963 3 12 Manny Ramirez CLE 0 30 392 0.08 | 484 149 31 .308 .960 6 13 Tim Wakefield BOS 0 20 392 0.05 | | 16-8 195 2.95 1.18 119 14 Jim Edmonds CAL 0 18 392 0.05 | 558 162 33 .290 .888 1 15 Paul O'Neill NYY 0 14 392 0.04 | 460 138 22 .300 .913 1 Vaughn edged Belle, in spite of Albert's superior stats, in the biggest travesty since the writers would not vote for Ted Williams because they didn't like him. Same story here. Albert didn't make nice with the press, so they didn't vote for him. Cy Young: | Season Results Rk Name Team 1st Place Points Max Points Share| W-L IP ERA WHIP SO SV +--+----------------+----+-----+------+------+-----+------+---+-----+-----+---+--+ 1 Randy Johnson SEA 26 136 140 0.97 | 18-2 214 2.48 1.05 294 2 Jose Mesa CLE 2 54 140 0.39 | 3-0 64 1.12 1.03 58 46 3 Tim Wakefield BOS 0 29 140 0.21 | 16-8 195 2.95 1.18 119 4 David Cone TOT 0 18 140 0.13 |+18-8 229 3.57 1.23 191 5 Mike Mussina BAL 0 14 140 0.10 | 19-9 222 3.29 1.07 158 6 Charles Nagy CLE 0 1 140 0.01 | 16-6 178 4.55 1.43 139 Two guys voted for Mesa over Johnson? Weird. I mean, Mesa did well, but just 64 innings? Really? This was not a good year for AL award voting. Rookie (top 5): | Season Results Rk Name Team 1st Place Points Max Points Share| AB H HR BA OPS SB| W-L IP ERA WHIP SO SV +--+----------------+----+-----+------+------+-------+---+-----+-----+---+--+ 1 Marty Cordova MIN 13 105 140 0.75 | 512 142 24 .277 .839 20 2 Garret Anderson CAL 13 99 140 0.71 | 374 120 16 .321 .857 6 3 Andy Pettitte NYY 1 16 140 0.11 | | 12-9 175 4.17 1.41 114 4 Troy Percival CAL 1 13 140 0.09 | | 3-2 74 1.95 0.85 94 3 5 Shawn Green TOR 0 8 140 0.06 | 379 109 15 .288 .835 1 A lot of future stars here. Manager: Rk Name Team 1st Place Points Max Points Share | W-L Rank< +--+----------------+----+-----+------+------+------+---------+-----+ 1 Lou Piniella SEA 9 86 140 0.61 | 79-66 1 2 Kevin Kennedy BOS 11 74 140 0.53 | 86-58 1 3 Mike Hargrove CLE 8 71 140 0.51 | 100-44 1 4 Buck Showalter NYY 0 8 140 0.06 | 79-65 2 5 Marcel Lachemann CAL 0 5 140 0.04 | 78-67 2 6 Phil Garner MIL 0 4 140 0.03 | 65-79 4 7 Bob Boone KCR 0 3 140 0.02 | 70-74 2 8 Johnny Oates TEX 0 1 140 0.01 | 74-70 3 A very split vote. Top player: Albert Belle. Belle was certainly the best in the league, and played on the best team, making the MVP vote just look petty. Which it was, certainly. #1 Albert Belle, #2 Edgar Martinez, #3 John Valentin, #4 Tim Salmon, #5 Chuck Knoblauch, #6 Bernie Williams. Top pitcher: Randy Johnson took his place at the top in this season. #1 Randy Johnson, #2 Mike Mussina, #3 Tim Wakefield, #4 Kenny Rogers, #5 David Cone. Top rookie: Garrett Anderson, equal to award-winner Cordova and two years younger. Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi were also rookies in this season. Top manager: Mike Hargrove, directing the Indians to the best record in the league.