1970 Reds: best Player?

[9RoyHobbsRF]

Wo was the best player in the Reds pennant winning year of 1970?

Johnny Bench
.293/.345/.587
45 HR 4 3B 35 2B 54 BB 148 RBI

Bernie Carbo
.310/.454/.551
21 HR 3 3B 19 2B 94 BB 63 RBI

Tony Perez
.317/.401/.589
40 HR 6 3B 29 2B 83 BB 129 RBI

Pete Rose
.316/.385/.470
15 HR 9 3B 37 2B 73 BB 52 RBI

Bobby Tolan
.316/.384/.475
16 HR 6 3B 34 2B 62 BB 80 RBI

[westsidegrounds]

Clearly, it was Bench.

Can't argue with a 7.1 WAR!

[chicagowhitesox1173]

I picked Perez but I would rather have picked Bench looking at it now.

[leecemark]

--Bench by a wide margin. This is at least in the discussion for best seaosn ever by a catcher.

[Gee Walker]

Under normal conditions, a catcher misses 20 or 30 games every season. Bench was no normal catcher. Bench played as many games as Perez, and got 10 PA's less than Perez in 1970. Admittedly, Perez hit marginally better than Bench. But Bench played the best defense that I've ever seen from a catcher. Perez was a pretty good first baseman, so it isn't really close.

[9RoyHobbsRF]

--Bench by a wide margin. This is at least in the discussion for best seaosn ever by a catcher.

interesting to note that Dietz (same year, same division) beats him in many offensive ratings including offensive WAR. ops, , adjusted ops+, adjusted batting runs, adjusted batting wins, offensive win %, win probablity added, and more

it is very rare for a catcher to hit .300, drive in 100 runs, and walk 100 times

Dietz did all three, Bench did 1 of the 3

[leecemark]

--OTOH Bench was an all time great defender while Dietz struggled to be adequete. Bench also caught virtually everyday while Dietz wasn't asked to handle such a workload. I suspect that most would agree that Bench's 1970 was amoung the greatest seasons ever by a catcher while few would put Dietz's season there.

[Yankillaz]

Bench, using the traditional stats....and his defense, of course.

[westsidegrounds]

And that .532 waaWL% can't be ignored either.

[willshad]

I'm curious as to why you would pick 1970,; a year in which it was obvious who had the best season on the Reds. 72, 73, 74, or even 77 would have been closer polls.

[1905 Giants]

I picked Johnny Bench based on WAR, but none of the other seasons are at all shabby, especially Perez' and Carbo's seasons.

[9RoyHobbsRF]

I'm curious as to why you would pick 1970,; a year in which it was obvious who had the best season on the Reds. 72, 73, 74, or even 77 would have been closer polls.

I favor teams that I know well from either being a basefall fan at the time or because they were a prominent team in my Strat-O-Matic table baseball simulation hobby history, the 1970 Reds meet both criteria. I started following them in 1968 when they seemed to be the ony team that could hit the ball, I think they had an average in the high .270s when most teams were in the .230s including the World Champion Tigers. I became a big fan of Johnny Bench real early and can remember getting up one day on the summer (we had just moved into a still developing new development and I had not made a lot of friends yet) and reading the paper and seeing Bench hitting 3 home runs in one game continuing an awesome start.

1970 is also interesting because the Reds built a huge early record, going 57-24 in the first half (.706) but played just .556 ball (45-36) the rest of the year. They also were one of the very few teams to change ballparks mid-season (oddly so did the 1970 Pirates).

In the first half they had a young flame thrower named Wayne Simpson who went 14-3 and was easily their best pitcher (strong candidate for write-in nominee) and he got hurt and shut down the rest of the season. Actually when they built their big lead, Tony Perez was actually outhitting Bench rather easily .356/.438/.678 with 29 HR and 90 RBI vs Bench at .302/.361/.547 with 28 HR and 79 RBI. I also think Carbo with 94 BB vs 365 AB was incredible and he hit 21 HR in limited AB and Rose and Tolan were as fine as table setters as any in the games history.

PS I was going to do a lot more teams but the mods asked to only do a few at a time;

[willshad]

I favor teams that I know well from either being a basefall fan at the time or because they were a prominent team in my Strat-O-Matic table baseball simulation hobby history, the 1970 Reds meet both criteria. I started following them in 1968 when they seemed to be the ony team that could hit the ball, I think they had an average in the high .270s when most teams were in the .230s including the World Champion Tigers. I became a big fan of Johnny Bench real early and can remember getting up one day on the summer (we had just moved into a still developing new development and I had not made a lot of friends left) and reading the paper and seeing Bench hitting 3 home runs in one game continuing an awesome start.

1970 is also interesting because the Reds built a huge early record, going 57-24 in the first half (.706) but played just .556 ball (45-36) the rest of the year. They also were one of the very few teams to change ballparks mid-season (oddly so did the 1970 Pirates).

In the first half they had a young flame thrower named Wayne Simpson who went 14-3 and was easily their best pitcher (strong candidate for write-in nominee) and he got hurt and shut down the rest of the season. Actually when they built their big lead, Tony Perez was actually outhitting Bench rather easily .356/.438/.678 with 29 HR and 90 RBI vs Bench at .302/.361/.547 with 28 HR and 79 RBI. I also think Carbo with 94 BB vs 365 AB was incredible and he hit 21 HR in limited AB and Rose and Tolan were as fine as table setters as any in the games history.

PS I was going to do a lot more teams but the mods asked to only do a few at a time;

That's interesting stuff. Funny how time has changed the perception of things, and now it's mostly remembered for Bench having a 'historical' season, and the other guys being almost forgotten. I think Bench is overrated due to the home run and RBI totals he put up that year.

[9RoyHobbsRF]

another team I put the same questions to were the 1950 Yankees

Berra, DiMaggio and Rizzuto seem almost dead even to me but they had some other really good players

In a real freakish hot start, in one of my 1950s leagues (all pennant winners) Johnny Mize who hit 25 HR in 274 AB that year, started I think with 9 HR and 20 RBI in the first six games, multiply those number into 162 games!

Game 1 a 2-0 win over the 1957 Braves 1x2 with a HR BB RBI and 2 runs scored
Game 2 a 8-7 walk-off win over the 1957 Braves 3x5 with 3 runs scored, a walk HR and an RBI
Game 3 a 13-3 win over the 1957 Braves he went 4x5 with a 2B, 2 runs scored 2 HR and 5 RBI
series totals 8x12 4 HR 7 RBI

Game 4 a 9-7 in over the 1953 Dodgers 1x5 with a run scored HR and 2 RBI
Game 5 a 8-1 win over the 1953 Dodgers 1x3 with 2 BB, a run scored, HR and 2 RBI
Game 6 a 13-1 win over the 1953 Dodgers 4x4 with 2 BB, 3 runs scored 3 HR and 9 RBI including a grand slam
series totals 6x12 5 HR 13 RBI

first six games 14x24 9 HR 20 RBI

and
in Game 7 a 9-2 win over the 1950 Phillies 2x5 3 runs scored 2 HR 5 RBI
Game 8 a 10-5 win over the 1950 Phillies 0x4 with a walk, run scored and RBI
Game 9 a 6-5 loss to the 1950 Phillies 0x4
series 2x13 2 HR 6 RBI

9 game totals 16x37 11 HR 26 RBI