The Shoeless Joe League:
Washington's multi-positional 25-year old Donovan Hickson emerged as one of the premiere sluggers in the game this season and earns his first league MVP award. He led the league in home runs, bases on balls, slugging percentage, OPS, and WAR in his first full season in the big leagues. Washington acquired Hickson from Philadelphia, who were their prime challengers for the SJL East crown this season, in a trade at the deadline in 1983 in exchange for third baseman Tony Koonce. Although Koonce is thought to have good overall tools he has yet to collect more than 1.2 WAR in a season at age 29. Imagine what might have been this season if Hickson was still a member of the Mud Hens.
Another talented youngster, Chicago's 25-year old (just had a birthday 2 days ago) shortstop Pat Thompson, who led the league in batting average (.351), hits (238) and plate appearances (738), was the only other player to get a first place MVP vote. (I expected this to be closer.)
Hickson's veteran teammate, center fielder Rick Downey, finished second in the voting in spite of not getting any first place votes. Downey led the league in runs scored with 135 and hit a career high 41 homers with 137 RBI.
After that it was a mix of great veterans (slugging San Antonio first baseman John Freeman, future HOF'er Chris Tobin, underrated Philly center fielder Mike Florack, Washington speedster right fielder Myon-ki Choi, Jacksonville right fielder Tim Evans and his teammate, slugging third baseman Chris Brynteson, Chicago veteran third baseman/right fielder George Brown) and a handful of young stars on the rise (Chicago second baseman Dave Kurka and Gold Glove center fielder Kyle Hanly, Houston leftfielder Alex Raymos and his teammates second baseman Wilfredo Garcia, and slightly older and injury-prone center fielder Chris Heisler).
The Moonlight Graham League:
Former Brewer Eric Hammock took the honors in an extremely competitive MGL MVP vote, and I'm a bit surprised by this, though there can be no doubt it was a great season for the injury-prone 31-year old right fielder.
I thought the top contenders would be MGL Rookie of the Year Alex Afanador, who led the league in home runs (41) and WAR (6.5) and San Francisco second baseman Seth Garone, who led all of the WPK in batting average at .365 and served as team captain at age 23. And indeed they were the other top vote getters, with Garone getting as many first place votes as winner Hammock.
The only other player in the MGL to get a first place MVP vote was veteran Oklahoma City left fielder Frank Ortega, who had a career year at age 30 and for the second year in a row put up over 5 WAR (5.2 in '84, 5.8 this season).
I won't go into detail about the crowded field for the MGL MVP, but it included L.A. first baseman David Tockstein, who at age 26 had his first full season in the WPK and led the league in RBI with 110, Oklahoma City Gold Glove third baseman Antonio Briones, who was the leading contender for this award early in the season but missed the majority of the last two months of the season with a sprained knee, Denver third baseman
Ryan Campbell, who was a bit disappointing in terms of power production in his first year on the team but had a strong second half to finish with a team best 5.4 WAR and earned his 2nd Silver Slugger award, and 1983 MGL MVP Luis Olivez, who saw his offensive production drop again in 1985 but now has 3 straight seasons of at least 100 RBI and did hit a career-high 29 homers.