Oakland A’s: Best 10 Season At Center Field
By Tej Kamaraju
10. Dwayne Murphy, 1981
| Year ▾ | Age | G | PA | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | OPS+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | 26 | 107 | 477 | 58 | 98 | 10 | 3 | 15 | 60 | 10 | 4 | 73 | 91 | .251 | .369 | .408 | .777 | 130 |
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/20/2014.
Not even a strike that wiped out seven weeks in the middle of the season could keep Murphy’s 1981 season out. He won his second straight Gold Glove and finished just out of the top 10 in the MVP voting as the A’s returned to the postseason for the first time in six years.
He was second in the American League with a 12.0 Power-Speed number and 10th with a 4.3 WAR (seventh among position players) and 64 Runs Created. Defensively, he led AL center fielders with nine Total Zone Runs and led all AL outfielders with a 3.13 Range Factor per game.
Murphy was also second in the AL with 73 walks and 91 strikeouts and ninth with 58 runs. He led AL center fielders with 329 putouts.
In the ALDS against second-half AL West winner Kansas City, Murphy was 6-for-11 with four runs, a double, a homer and two RBI as the A’s rolled to a sweep. But in the ALCS, Murphy was 2-for-8 with a double, an RBI and two walks as the Yankees swept Oakland.