Despite finishing 24 games under .500, the Wolves offense was still solid. The final tally on stats did take a hit after Mons Raider went down with injury around the mid way point of the season. The club sat in the top 3rd in runs scored for most of the season before fizzling out to 7th overall despite a team OBP that ranked first in the entire Frick League and a team that stole more bases than anyone in the Frick as well. The Wolves had seven regulars that saw an OPS in the .800s, with even a few platoon guys reaching that mark as well. Only Niccolo Machiavelli (.790) and Elroy Hinson (.689) failed to reach an OPS over .800. So with all of that said, any one of the other 7 guys had a legit claim at the York Award.
Many thought third year player and starting 3B Ross Quicker would win the award. Quicker led the team in WAR with a 3.6 mark on the season as well as leading the team in OPS with a .875 mark. He also stole 46 bases while hitting 22 homeruns to finish 2nd in both of those categories. But surprisingly, he did not claim the honors on the night.
Others thought 1B Natanael Barral was going to take home the top prize. Barral was second on the team in runs scored, runs batted in, and was tied for 3rd in hits while leading the team in doubles with 50 and walks with 84. As one of the more all around offensive threats on the team, many thought it was his award on the night. It was not.
The award also did not go to Mons Raider who still led the team in stolen bases and OBP despite playing in just 94 games. It didn't go to Steve Dempsey who led the team with a .339 batting average. It didn't even go to Jharrod Thealer who was second in OBP and walks on the team despite missing several weeks as well.
Instead, the award went to Jon Mick. Mick started the season off like a gangbuster, hitting 26 homeruns over the first two months and 34 over the first 3 months. The second half so "Porky" cool off considerably but not enough to take the award from him. Mick led the team in Homeruns (50), RBI (148), Hits (175), Slugging Percentage (.535), and Runs Scored (105). He finished 2nd in OPS a distant 7th in OPS.
"We didn't consider WAR too much in the consideration" said Wolves owner Mick Shrimpton, Jr. "Unlike the Sawyer Silk Award for the BBA which is a defacto MVP award, the York Award is strictly an offensive award. WAR takes into account defense which Mick never played this season. We looked strictly at offensive numbers. In the end, it came down to Mick and Quicker and Mick's numbers were just too far ahead of Quicker's. Granted, we really loved what Ross did for us this season."
