The Worst MVPs of All Time - National League » sportvent.com
The Worst MVPs of All Time – National League
By Matt Minucci
MVP. What does it stand for? Well a google search yielded a
variety of interesting results, most of which seemed to focus on a gay
wrestler. I’m not real familiar with the WWE these days…is Hulk Hogan still
champion?
Not the MVP I was looking for...
At any rate, this is not the MVP I had in mind. I wanted to
discuss the Most Valuable Player in baseball. Some people think the MVP should
be the most valuable player on the best team. Others thing it should refer to
the best player on the best team. There’s a subtle difference between those
two, but there is a difference. Finally, others feel it should simply be the
best player in baseball for that particular year. I ascribe to that view,
mainly because I feel that there is little debate about the Cy Young award. The
Cy Young award is for the best pitcher in baseball. The MVP, to me, should
simply be the best player in baseball. If that player also happens to be a
pitcher, so be it.
Most valuable potbelly?
Alright, so now you know where I’m coming at this from. So
what follows are a collection of the absolute worst selections for the league
MVP over various years since the award’s inception in 1931. Prior to 1931, by
the way, there were several different types of awards that essentially amounted
to an MVP award, but they were rife with quirky rules and insider favoritism. One
of those quirky rules was that you could not be a repeat winner, which is why
Babe Ruth didn’t win the “MVP” in 1927.
So, starting from 1931, here are, in my opinion, the ‘worst’
winners of the MVP award.
We’ll start with the National League first, then round up
the American League bozos tomorrow.
1931 – Frankie Frisch, 2B, St. Louis Cardinals
Playing the part of Frisch will be that weird guy from The Hills Have Eyes.
Well, so much for the new and improved MVP award. Yes, the
very first winner of the award was an absolutely terrible selection. Don’t get
me wrong. Frisch was a Hall of Fame player, but 1931 was hardly his best year.
Presumably he won the award because he was the second baseman for the World
Champion Cardinals, the fabled Gas House Gang. But in no way was he deserving of
the award. My choice? Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Chuck Klein. What did
Klein do that season? Ohh, only hit .337 with 31 HR and 121 RBI.
Here’s a side by side comp:
Player BA
Runs HR RBI SB BB OPS TB
Frankie Frisch .311 96 4 82 28 45 .764 205
Chuck Klein .337 121 31 121 7 59 .982 347
It’s not even close. Klein owns Frisch. But the Phillies finished
6th that year and the Cardinals finished first. However, Frisch didn’t
even have the best numbers on his team that year. Jim Bottomley hit .348 with 9
HR and 75 RBI, while Chick Hafey hit .349 with 16 HR and 95 RBI. But Frisch was
the more popular player, the shoe-in future hall of famer, so…there you go. Way
to give credibility to the award in it’s first season fellas.
1944 – Marty Marion, SS, St. Louis Cardinals
What the hell's a jiggawatt?
Ah, Marty Marty Mart Marty. Run for it Marty! The absolute
hands down worst choice for MVP in National League history. Marion was chosen presumably because he was the
definition of defensive short stop the league had ever seen until Ozzie Smith
came into the league. But even given that, there was no way Marion should have won the award. Even the
writers knew this, seeing as how Marion
only received 7 of 24 first place votes. Just look at the stats. It’s not even
funny:
Player BA Runs HR RBI
SB BB OPS TB
Marty Marion .267 52 6 63 1 43 .686 183
Stan Musial .347 112 12 94 7 90 .989 312
It’s not even like Musial was on another team. He was the
Cardinals starting OF for god’s sakes. I’m not sure what was going on in ’44,
but I can’t for the life of me figure out how Marty Marion beat out Stan Musial
for this award. Just thinking about this one makes my brain hurt.
1945 – Phil Cavaretta, 1B, Chicago Cubs
Cavaretta also led the league in getting hit in the face with pitches...
The war years were a strange time. Most of the star players
were off serving overseas. Cavaretta was a 22-year veteran who was in the
middle of a long career and in his prime in ’45. He led the league that year
with a .355 average, his best season. But he shouldn’t have won the award. It
should have gone to Tommy Holmes.
Player BA Runs HR RBI
SB BB OPS TB
Phil Cavaretta .355 94 6 97 5 81 .949 249
Tommy Holmes .352 125 28 117 15 70 .997 367
Holmes, a slugging OF for the Boston Braves, hit just .003
points less than Cavaretta, and led the league in doubles (47), homers, hits
(224), slugging (.577), OPS and total
bases. It’s not even close.
1947 & 1949 – Bob Elliot, 3B, Boston
Braves & Jackie Robinson, 2B, Brooklyn
Dodgers
Poor Ralph Kiner.
Hey, I’m not above giving Jackie Robinson any award. And he
certainly had a great season in ’49, leading the league in batting with a .342
average and stolen bases with 37. I really only include him here to show how
Ralph Kiner got jobbed twice in three years. The more outrageous of the two was
clearly 1947, when Kiner destroyed Elliot in every category. See for yourself:
Clearly, Kiner was the MVP in ’47, while there’s certainly a
debate in ’49. But it’s amazing was remarkably similar seasons Kiner had in ’47
and ’49 and didn’t sniff the MVP in either one. Kiner actually led the league
in homers for seven consecutive years, from ’46 to ’52 and never finished
higher than 4th in MVP voting.
1960 – Dick Groat, SS, Pittsburgh
Pirates
Dick Groat jokes. A necessary evil in life.
Insert your own Dick Groat joke here. Anyway, the fact that Willie
Mays didn’t win the MVP in 1960 is an absolute travesty. The fact that Dick
Groat did win it is just ridiculous. Mays also probably should have won it in ’55
but at least Roy Campanella had a tremendous year for the Dodgers. In ’60,
Groat’s numbers were woefully poor for an MVP. Basically he won a batting
title, was a spectacular defensive shortstop and played for the division
winning Pirates. That’s it. The numbers really tell the entire story:
Player BA Runs HR RBI SB BB OPS TB
Dick Groat .325 85 2 50 0 39 .766 226
Willie Mays .319 107 29 103 25 61 .936 330
Mays actually finished third behind Groat and Don Hoak,
another Pirates, which just pushes voting for players from the division winner to
absurd proportions. This should have been Mays award, no question.
1962 – Maury Wills, SS, Los Angeles Dodgers
Neither does Maury Wills winning the '62 NL MVP.
This year just defies all explanation. Let’s take a look at
Wills numbers before I drop the bomb on this MVP decision. Wills was an all
star and a golden glove winner in ’62. He hit just .299 but led the league in games
played (165 – the Dodgers lost a 3 game tie-breaker playoff series to the
Giants), AB (695), 3B (10) and stolen bases (104.) His 104 SB that year set the
modern record which would stand until 1974 when Lou Brock would break it.
That’s all fine. A great season. But in 1962 you had an
absolutely inferior player – Wills – beating out three Hall of Famers, all of
whom had monstrous, career best seasons. It’s inexplicable. Who did Wills beat out? Oh, only Frank
Robinson, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. Yes, you read that right. Just look at
these ridiculous stats:
Player BA Runs HR RBI SB BB OPS TB
Maury Wills .299 130 6 48 104 51 .720 259
Frank Robinson .342 134 39 136 18 76 1.045 380
Willie Mays .304 130 49 141 18 78 .999 382
Hank Aaron .323 127 45 128 15 66 1.008 366
Unbelievable, right? For the record, Dodger outfielder Tommy
Davis had an amazing season as well, finishing 3rd in MVP voting
with 27 HR, 153 RBI and a .346 average. Wills actually barely beat out Willie
Mays, and in all likelihood, the amazing season by Robinson, Aaron and Davis
took the votes away from Mays that would have enabled him to beat out Wills.
But the fact that Wills got 209 points, 8 first place votes and 75% share of
the votes is just plain goofy.
Poor Willie Mays. He should have won the MVP at least 5
times. I can think of at least four seasons he was completely jobbed. (’55, ’60,
’62 and ’64)
1973 – Pete Rose, OF, Cincinnati
Reds
The MVP award. So easy a caveman can win it.
Once again, we have a case of a batting champ playing for a
division winner that beats out a more deserving player. Rose had a great season
in ’73, but it’s not even close to the season Pops Stargell had. In ’73 Rose
had 49 extra base hits. Stargell had 44 home runs. The numbers show this award
was solely because Rose played for the division winning Reds:
Player BA Runs HR RBI SB BB OPS TB
Pete Rose .338 115 5 64 10 65 .838 297
Willie Stargell .299 106 44 119 0 80 1.038 337
I feel for ya Pops.
From this point until the 1990’s there were some dubious
choices, but none utterly outrageous, though I suppose Steve Garvey over Mike
Schmidt in ’74 and Kirk Gibson over Darryl Strawberry in ’88 come close.
But once you get to the 1990’s, you get to the “Let’s screw
Barry Bonds out of the award every year” phase of the discussion. Now, I am not
a Bonds fan. In fact, it’s safe to say I loathe the guy. But when you see how
often and how unjustly he was screwed out of these award, it’s almost
understandable why he started juicing. Again, we’re talking about the pre-roid
Bonds. And even when he did start juicing, baseball was okay with it – as you’ll
see in the 1998 race.
1991 – Terry Pendleton, 3B, Atlanta Braves
Barry Bonds in 1991.
Ah, the first season in “Let’s Screw Bonds out of the MVP”
and it’s a dozy. Pendleton had no business winning this award. It was based
solely on the fact that the Braves won their division. Problem was, the Pirates
won their division as well. About the only thing Pendleton had on Bonds was
batting average. In a somewhat down year for hitters, Pendleton won the batting
tile with a .319 average, while Bonds hit just .292. But just looking at the
numbers, you can see that Barry crushed Pendleton in nearly every other
category.
Player BA Runs HR RBI SB BB OPS TB
Terry Pendleton .319 94 22 86 10 43 .880 303
Barry Bonds .292 95 25 116 43 107 .924 262
It was the first, but not the last.
1995 – Barry Larkin, SS, Cincinnati Reds
Barry Bonds in 1995.
’95 was an absolutely brutal year for the MVP voting.
Probably the worst since Marty Marion. And what do you know? We have a
defensive SS winning the award yet again. Larkin didn’t lead the National
league in even a single offensive category. These results are an absolute joke.
It should have been Bonds again. In fact, Bonds finished 12th this
year. Vendetta anyone? If not for Bonds,
Greg Maddux could also have won the award, as he had one of the greatest
seasons ever for a starting pitcher – and he did win the Cy Young. Maddux went
19-2 with a 1.63 ERA. To suggest that
Larkin had a better year than Bonds is an insult to every baseball fan’s
intelligence.
Player BA Runs HR RBI SB BB OPS TB
Barry Larkin .319 98 15 66 51 61 .886 244
Barry Bonds .294 109 33 104 31 120 1.008 292
Bonds gets jobbed again. By my count, this would give him 10
MVPs. Absurd.
1996 - Ken Caminiti, 3B, Houston Astros
Skinny Bonds lost to Caminiti.
Hey Bob, remember when you asked me what irony was? In ’96,
a ‘roided out Caminiti beat out a non-roided out Barry Bonds because well…everyone
hated Barry Bonds. In ’96 Bonds became only the 2nd 40-40 guy in
baseball history – the other was Canseco. This should have been an automatic
MVP. But because Bonds was, well, Bonds, the voters went to Caminiti in droves.
The numbers are close, except for stolen bases, but Bonds is still better than
Caminiti in pretty much every category.
Player BA Runs HR RBI SB BB OPS TB
Ken Caminiti .326 109 40 130 11 78 1.029 339
Barry Bonds .308 122 42 129 40 151 1.076 318
151 walks?!? One wonders how many HR and RBIs Bonds would
have had if he hadn’t walked 151 times. Which leads us to…
1998 – Sammy Sosa, OF, Chicago
Cubs
What's a steroid?
Que' es un esteroide?
Ah, 1998. The halcyon days of yore when we were young and
innocent and though Andro was just Ovaltine with a kick and the new bash
brothers, Sosa and McGwire just liked working out. The dark shroud of the Mitchell
report and HGH were 9 or 10 years away and chicks just simply dug the long
ball. Enter Sammy Sosa, MVP. In what seems like an absurd twist, Sosa won the
MVP over McGwire seemingly for no other reason than it was a consolation prize
to whoever lost the HR derby.
As a side note to the bizarre 1998 campaign, Barry Bonds,
who once again finished buried down at 8th in the voting – behind Trevor
Hoffman even – had one of his best pre-steroid season ever.
Player BA Runs HR RBI SB BB OPS TB
Sammy Sosa .308 134 66 158 18 73 1.024 416
Mark McGwire .299 130 70 147 1 162 1.222 383
Barry Bonds .303 120 37 122 28 130 1.047 336
Remember, this was BEFORE the PEDs for Bonds, while Sosa and
McGwire were fueled with enough PEDs to kill Bolivia. Regardless, this should
have been McGwire’s award. McGwire also got jobbed out of the award in 1999
too, losing to an inferior Chipper Jones. At least his mark of 70 HRs will
stand for…oh, well…
2000 – Jeff Kent, 2B, San
Francisco Giants
Barry Bonds in 2000.
The last entry in our list of National League’s worst MVPs
is also the last of the Bonds screw-jobs. Now, by all accounts, Bonds had begun
taking ‘roids at this point, but even so, the public hatred of Bonds was so
great that the writers would go to any lengths to avoid giving him the award,
even if it meant giving the award to a guy who not only had an inferior season,
but also played on the same damned team as Bonds!
Player BA Runs HR RBI SB BB OPS TB
Jeff Kent .334 114 33 125 12 90 1.020 350
Barry Bonds .306 129 49 106 11 117 1.128 330
I don’t feel bad for Bonds. But I do think it’s pretty darn
funny.
Well that wraps up my thoughts on the worst National League
MVPs of all time. Tune in tomorrow when we run through the American League.
