WPK 1986 Awards Season, Pt. 5 (Harris/Lee Award winners)
The SJL Harris/Lee (Pitcher of the Year) winner:
It was considered a virtual lock that 23-year old Jacksonville right-hander Casey Van Fossen would win the Harris/Lee award in the SJL for 1986, given to the best pitcher of the season. Van Fossen became just the 3rd pitcher in WPK history to earn the Pitching Triple Crown (Aaron McNally did it twice in a row in 1974 and 1975 and Jaime Schardein is the only other- he accomplished this in the WPK inaugural season of 1965). Van Fossen is the first ever to do so in the Shoeless Joe League. In addition to leading the league in wins (20), ERA (2.94), and strikeouts (267), he also led in WHIP (1.09), K/9 (10.1), FIP- (71), Quality Starts (23), Shutouts (3), Winning percentage (.800), and WAR (7.0).
His also 23-year old teammate David Parker finished second and that should give you some hint as to why the Wolf Pack are likely to remain competitive for awhile.
Not surprisingly, a pair of Chicago Fire starters also finished in the top 5.
And Columbus veteran and almost sure future Hall of Famer Luis Ramirez, who is a 3-time winner of this award, finished in 6th at age 34. The Iron Man lefty hurler would likely be putting up even more impressive numbers still if he weren't on a lackluster Columbus team, the only club he has ever pitched for in his 13 plus year WPK career.
The MGL Harris/Lee Award winner:
Portland's 23-year old fireballer Kyle Gilbert won his first Harris/Lee award, leading the league in K's with 213, and finishing 3rd in ERA (3.16), tied with 2 others (including Denver's
Eric Fehrenbacher) for 2nd in wins (16), 1st in shutouts (5), 2nd in FIP (3.25), and 3rd in both WAR and rWAR (6.0 for each).
Matt Greene of Oklahoma City, the winner of the 1985 Harris/Lee Award finished in 2nd place this time in spite of not getting any first place votes.
Impressively, Phoenix closer Steve Hensgens, who was earlier named the MGL Reliever of the Year, did get 4 Harris/Lee first place votes to finish 3rd in the voting overall.
Two Denver Brewers,
Jim Atwell and
Eric Maisch, finished 5th and 6th respectively. Both of them have won this honor once in their careers.