What do you think is the greatest year ever by a player way under the radar?

[rats60]

Originally Posted by jsq

ragin cajun ron guidry, 25 -3 record with 1978 yankees.

the yankees sucked big time till after the all star break and guidry was the only thing holding the team together and he still posted a 25-3 record. yankees were still 6.5 games out starting september they caught fire and went on to win.

jim rice won mvp. rice had an excellent year. and since many people felt bad about fred lynn winning the mvp the prior yr over rice when rice in 1977 was arguably better, rice received massive sympathy votes in 1978 and had a great year but no where near as exceptional a year as guidry.

guidry had one of the best pitching yrs in major league history, he had that record with a great team for 1 month of the season (september), a sub 500 team for first 1/2 of the season and a solid team for a few months.

guidry was unstoppable. go look up the era, the strikeouts, everything, he totally dominated every team he pitched against. literally one of the greatest pitching feats in major league history

Jim Rice had a monster year. He finished 3rd in AVE, 1st in SLG, 1st in OPS, 2nd in runs, 1st in hits, 1st in TB, 1st in 3b, 1st in HR and 1st in RBI. He carried the Red Sox to a first place tie in the AL East. He absolutely deserved MVP.

Guidry had a great season and won the Cy Young, but he had nowhere near the impact of Rice. You want to bad mouth the Yankees, but they were loaded, the best team money can buy. The Yankees won 97 games in 1976 and were AL Champions. The Yankees won 100 games in 1977 and were World Champions. The 1978 Yankees again won 100 games.

Also, your description of the Yankees season is false. The Yankees went 10-9 in April and were above .500 the rest of the season. They were 46-35 the 1st half of the season, 11 games over .500. They were 53-28 the 2nd half and won game 163. They were 77-54 at the end of August, 23 games over .500. They got crazy hot in September going 22-9 to catch the Red Sox. Only a Yankees fan would call 11 games over .500 sucking or 23 games over .500 only solid.

Guidry had a good season, but nowhere near historic. That would be Steve Carlton in 1972 or Dwight Gooden in 1985. If you go by WAR and look at the 20 years between 1969-1988, Guidry only had the 13th best year during that period.