1985 Cardinals

[jjpm74]

The 1985 Cardinals as a team only hit 85 home runs with only Jack Clark hitting over 20 on the entire team. They offset this by stealing 314 bases which included 5 of their 9 starters stealing more than 30 bases each.

Has there been another team since the deadball era who had less home rums or more stolen bases as a team? I remember watching the Cardinals in this era and just being amazed at how they could turn a single into a run and how they won the divisional championship in 1985 using this method.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Actaully they hit 87 HRs. The '85 Card's 87 HRs is very misleading. As a team they slugged .379. That seems low by today's standards but the '85 NL leader were the Cubs and they only slugged .390 as a team. The Cards led the NL in runs scored, road scoring, BA, OBP, and walks and were second in the NL in home scoring and second with a 107 OPS+. The NL leader (Dodgers) had a 108 OPS+.

[bob]

Oakland stole 341 bases in '76, which helped since they only hit .361 SLG (6th in AL). They had 6 guys steal more than 30 that year! How times have changed...

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Oakland stole 341 bases in '76, which helped since they only hit .361 SLG (6th in AL). They had 6 guys steal more than 30 that year! How times have changed...

I find the A's total a little more impreesive because the SBs were more evenly distributed. Vince Coleman stole 35% (110 SB) of the Card's 314 SBs. Billy North's 75 SBs for the A's was just 22% of the team SB total.

[Proctor, CF]

Amazingly, 5 of the top 11 MVP candidates were on the Cardinals in '85 - with Willie McGee winning it by a landslide. In this regard, they're in rarefied territory - up there with the '37 Yankees, the '46 Red Sox, the '51 Yankees, and the '59 White Sox'.

[hellborn]

Pretty interesting to me that McGee scored more runs than Coleman that season (114 to 107 in about the same # of PAs). Vince put himself into scoring position a very high percentage of his times on base, but his raw OBP was pretty poor.
Tommy Herr is also largely forgotten despite being the best percentage base stealer on the team (31SB, 3CS) and driving in 110 runs with only 8 HRs.
The Cards still stole 262 bases in '86, at a slightly better success rate than '85, but their OBP and slugging tanked and they dropped to 601 runs (last in the NL) from their league leading 747 in '85. Of the regulars, only Andy Van Slyke had a better year in '86 than '85, and most of the team was far worse. Coleman stole 107 bases at a 88% success rate (he was at 81% in '85), but only had 94 runs scored.

[parlo]

The 73 Mets hit 85 HRs (11th in NL), had a 246BA (11th in NL), were 12th in SLG, and 11th in SB.
It was a weak NL East (82-79 1st Place) and a strong pitching staff that carried them. They did upset the Reds in the playoffs, and go 7 games against Oakland in the WS despite their weak numbers.

[jjpm74]

Oakland stole 341 bases in '76, which helped since they only hit .361 SLG (6th in AL). They had 6 guys steal more than 30 that year! How times have changed...

Those raw numbers do look impressive. Very few teams before or since have equalled the numbers that the A's of that era or Cardinals of the mid 80s were able to put up that I can see.