In 1934, Lou Gehrig won the triple crown and finished 5th, to three Detroit Tigers (they won the pennant that year) and a pitcher form his own team. Detroit players got 54% of all MVP points that year and took 4 of the top 6 spots. Not only did Gehrig win the triple crown, he also led the league in OBP and slugging. While we didn't have these then, we now know he had the highest WAR, offensive winning percentage, WPA, RE24, wOBA, wRC+ etc. He was basically the best by every measure of that time, and every measure of the future.
Not only that, but the two Tigers who were on the leaderboards in all those categories (Charlie Gehringer, Hank Greenberg - Gehringer was 2nd in WAR to Gehrig, although in was not that close) did not win, but came in 2nd and 6th respectively (The third tiger in the top 5 was pitcher Schoolboy Rowe. There was no CY then), losing out to their catcher Mickey Cochrane, who had what was a pedestrian season for him. (His 1934 season was the lowest WAR for him in any season between 1930 and 1935.
Cochrane also won the award in 1928, when he had something like his ninth best season with a team that did not win the pennant. Was he particularly loved by the voters? Were they actually biased against the Yankees? The Yankees won the pennant in 1928, Ruth hit 54 home runs, and Ruth and Gehrig finishe #1 and #2 in WAR. Neither one got any votes at all, and all the Yanks votes combined would have only finished third.
I find 1934, and Mickey Cochrane as a whole more of a mystery than Dimaggio over Williams in 1946. (Or in 1941, when the power of the hit streak gave Dimaggio the nod over the last .400 season - I think voters just liked Dimaggio) I wish someone could explain that one, and explain the popularity of Cochrane.
I stand by my position that most valuable and most outstanding are not the same thing. I don't think the MVP hast to be the best player on the best team, but value is different than outstanding. It is also not the MWP (Most WAR Player). Mike Trout leads the world in WAR every year on what usually is a mediocre Angels team. This doesn't mean he shouldn't win MVP, but if Mookie Betts (when he played for Boston) is just a little off the Trout WAR pace, but Boston wins the division that may go to value.
If someone wants to give out the MWP that is fine, but until then, we can look at value as a concept. How much did Player A help his team perform during the season? Trout has 10 WAR, but the Angels won 79 games. Betts had 8 WAR and Boston won 100 games (those are examples, I did no research), it is reasonable to vote for Betts over Trout.
This is in contrast to the Cy Young which is given to the pitcher who had the best season. For that award team performance is irrelevant. Steve Carlton can win that for a 50 odd win Phillies team and it makes sense. That guy was clearly the best that season.
IMO, every team has an MVP. The league MVP doesn't have to be from the team that wins the division but it should go to a contender. As the old saying goes, we could've finished last without him. But, I'm old school and when they started handing out to the highest WAR guy basically, I stopped paying attention. Why vote? Just make it statistical and that goes for all of the awards. (Joe should've known he was going to set off the tedious arguments)
The flip side to "we could've finished last without him" is you also could've finished first (or contended) without him. Put Trout on Boston, and they probably don't win significantly more than the 100 games they won with Betts.
How valuable to a team is that guy if you took him away from that team. Not how "good" is a guy that if you added him to another team. That's the argument for "valuable" over "best" player in making the award. So the argument isn't not how much better would Boston have been by adding Trump but how well would they have done without Betts.
If you meant Trout instead of Betts, there's no way of knowing that but you know that the Angels could've easily been a non-contender without him.
Sorry, I don't think I explained that very well. If you take away an "MVP" type player from a contender, you still replace that player with another player's production. That production may be less (8 WAR vs 2-5 WAR for instance), but I would argue that team is still a contender. I don't think we should judge a player's value based on how good the players around him were in a particular season.
Your point about a player's value shouldn't depend on the players around him is a good one. The idea that you can replace one player with an imagined or real comparable player who would perform a certain way in the same circumstances I can't buy. These are human beings and there are many variables.
Perhaps they should change the name or get rid of it altogether and give out a WAR title like a batting or HR title. Neither will probably happen and they probably like the controversy and conversation generated. I'm not really into individual awards and find "awards season" a snooze.
George McQuinn, Eddie Joost, and Lou Boudreau are all mentioned in the classic song Van Lingle Mungo, by Dave Frishberg. So if anyone is a fan then perhaps they should not be forgiven for not knowing McQuinn after all....;)
Eddie Joost was the same story as George McGuinn in a sense. The Philadelphia Athletics improved from 49 wins in 1946 to 78 wins in 1947. Joost was the most notable change between the two teams. Joost had spent 1946 in the minors with the Cardinals before the Athletics acquired him. Therefore, at least some writers reasoned, he was primarily responsible for the large improvement.
I'm not saying I agree of course. Just trying to figure out why a 1947 MVP voter might have seen it that way.
Fangraphs says Joost had a 94 wRC+ in 1947, which is fine (not MVP quality but fine) for a shortstop. 2.6 WAR Fangraphs says. I'd be surprised if that is the worst recipient of MVP first place votes if one uses WAR as the yardstick.
That's a good example of the value of WAR. It's good for comparing one player to another but it's not the complete picture of a player. It should be a factor but kept in perspective especially when comparing players of different eras.
The first place votes for McQuinn and (especially) Joost seem almost criminal now, but *seven* first place votes for Joe Page?? I'm convinced that the writers at that time simply did not know what to do with relievers. I explored this a little when you wrote about Robin Roberts losing the NL MVP in 1952 back in January, and I thought that had more to do with Wilhelm and Joe Black siphoning off votes than it did with anything else that year.
It's worth noting that the 1947 Yankees did not have an especially strong pitching staff, despite leading the AL in ERA. Ten different pitchers made at least five starts, and only three made 20 or more (Allie Reynolds, Spec Shea and Bill Bevens, in his last season as a major leaguer, it would turn out). Page finished 44 games, but nobody else on the team even finished 10, and nobody with an ERA under 4.00 finished 5, which means that anybody else they tried out in that role maybe blew it. Perhaps the view was that Page was the glue holding all those wins together, helping finish out what Shea and Bevens and the 39-year old Bobo Newsom and not-yet-perennial 20-game winner Vic Raschi could not? That doesn't mean he deserved those votes, necessarily, but it kinda explains them.
I guess George McQuinn shows Joe and Mike's comments about Yankee magic reviving careers extended much further back than I thought, although George retired after his brief Yankee resurgence rather than disappearing on some other team's roster never to be heard from again.
Has there ever been a player who had as bad as season as Eddie Joost but still got first place votes? Is there a way to see where Williams ended up on those ballots?
You don't have to go back too far to find something close. Michael Young got a first place vote in 2011 despite only 2.7 bWAR for the Rangers that year. Young at least *looked* like a good player, hitting .338 with 106 RBI, but his defense was abysmal all over the infield that year, with a negative DRS at every IF position and an overall -1.8 WAR on defense.
Both Brad Lidge and Frankie Rodriguez got first place votes in 2008 - in fact Lidge got two of them(!). That was, I believe, the year in which Lidge never blew a Save, and K-Rod set the all time record with 62 Saves.
But the real kicker that year was Ryan Howard, who finished 2nd in the NL MVP to Pujols, with 12 first place votes and 308 total points, which is probably as good as anyone has ever done in the voting with only 1.8 bWAR to his credit! He led the NL in homers and RBI, but hit only .251 and was terrible as both a defender and a base runner.
Wondered why DiMaggio had such a low WAR, since his numbers were so good. Turns out it was due to an uncharacteristically poor defensive rating (-8 runs, only time in his career he was below 0).
Additional research is needed to determine who voted for whom...which, of course, may simply be impossible at this point. Once you have even a partial set of that detail, it may be possible to determine that there was some form of conspiracy afoot. There is an elevated left of odd voting behavior here that goes beyond mere cluelessness...
By best player on best team standards, Tommy Heinrich was the one that actually got robbed.
In 1934, Lou Gehrig won the triple crown and finished 5th, to three Detroit Tigers (they won the pennant that year) and a pitcher form his own team. Detroit players got 54% of all MVP points that year and took 4 of the top 6 spots. Not only did Gehrig win the triple crown, he also led the league in OBP and slugging. While we didn't have these then, we now know he had the highest WAR, offensive winning percentage, WPA, RE24, wOBA, wRC+ etc. He was basically the best by every measure of that time, and every measure of the future.
Not only that, but the two Tigers who were on the leaderboards in all those categories (Charlie Gehringer, Hank Greenberg - Gehringer was 2nd in WAR to Gehrig, although in was not that close) did not win, but came in 2nd and 6th respectively (The third tiger in the top 5 was pitcher Schoolboy Rowe. There was no CY then), losing out to their catcher Mickey Cochrane, who had what was a pedestrian season for him. (His 1934 season was the lowest WAR for him in any season between 1930 and 1935.
Cochrane also won the award in 1928, when he had something like his ninth best season with a team that did not win the pennant. Was he particularly loved by the voters? Were they actually biased against the Yankees? The Yankees won the pennant in 1928, Ruth hit 54 home runs, and Ruth and Gehrig finishe #1 and #2 in WAR. Neither one got any votes at all, and all the Yanks votes combined would have only finished third.
I find 1934, and Mickey Cochrane as a whole more of a mystery than Dimaggio over Williams in 1946. (Or in 1941, when the power of the hit streak gave Dimaggio the nod over the last .400 season - I think voters just liked Dimaggio) I wish someone could explain that one, and explain the popularity of Cochrane.
Great post--I believe that until 1930, no one could win the MVP more than once. So that may answer the 1928 part of your post.
I stand by my position that most valuable and most outstanding are not the same thing. I don't think the MVP hast to be the best player on the best team, but value is different than outstanding. It is also not the MWP (Most WAR Player). Mike Trout leads the world in WAR every year on what usually is a mediocre Angels team. This doesn't mean he shouldn't win MVP, but if Mookie Betts (when he played for Boston) is just a little off the Trout WAR pace, but Boston wins the division that may go to value.
If someone wants to give out the MWP that is fine, but until then, we can look at value as a concept. How much did Player A help his team perform during the season? Trout has 10 WAR, but the Angels won 79 games. Betts had 8 WAR and Boston won 100 games (those are examples, I did no research), it is reasonable to vote for Betts over Trout.
This is in contrast to the Cy Young which is given to the pitcher who had the best season. For that award team performance is irrelevant. Steve Carlton can win that for a 50 odd win Phillies team and it makes sense. That guy was clearly the best that season.
IMO, every team has an MVP. The league MVP doesn't have to be from the team that wins the division but it should go to a contender. As the old saying goes, we could've finished last without him. But, I'm old school and when they started handing out to the highest WAR guy basically, I stopped paying attention. Why vote? Just make it statistical and that goes for all of the awards. (Joe should've known he was going to set off the tedious arguments)
Bah, humbug, get off my lawn!
The flip side to "we could've finished last without him" is you also could've finished first (or contended) without him. Put Trout on Boston, and they probably don't win significantly more than the 100 games they won with Betts.
How valuable to a team is that guy if you took him away from that team. Not how "good" is a guy that if you added him to another team. That's the argument for "valuable" over "best" player in making the award. So the argument isn't not how much better would Boston have been by adding Trump but how well would they have done without Betts.
If you meant Trout instead of Betts, there's no way of knowing that but you know that the Angels could've easily been a non-contender without him.
Sorry, I don't think I explained that very well. If you take away an "MVP" type player from a contender, you still replace that player with another player's production. That production may be less (8 WAR vs 2-5 WAR for instance), but I would argue that team is still a contender. I don't think we should judge a player's value based on how good the players around him were in a particular season.
Your point about a player's value shouldn't depend on the players around him is a good one. The idea that you can replace one player with an imagined or real comparable player who would perform a certain way in the same circumstances I can't buy. These are human beings and there are many variables.
Perhaps they should change the name or get rid of it altogether and give out a WAR title like a batting or HR title. Neither will probably happen and they probably like the controversy and conversation generated. I'm not really into individual awards and find "awards season" a snooze.
Ditto. I don't really get into awards much either.
George McQuinn, Eddie Joost, and Lou Boudreau are all mentioned in the classic song Van Lingle Mungo, by Dave Frishberg. So if anyone is a fan then perhaps they should not be forgiven for not knowing McQuinn after all....;)
Eddie Joost was the same story as George McGuinn in a sense. The Philadelphia Athletics improved from 49 wins in 1946 to 78 wins in 1947. Joost was the most notable change between the two teams. Joost had spent 1946 in the minors with the Cardinals before the Athletics acquired him. Therefore, at least some writers reasoned, he was primarily responsible for the large improvement.
I'm not saying I agree of course. Just trying to figure out why a 1947 MVP voter might have seen it that way.
Fangraphs says Joost had a 94 wRC+ in 1947, which is fine (not MVP quality but fine) for a shortstop. 2.6 WAR Fangraphs says. I'd be surprised if that is the worst recipient of MVP first place votes if one uses WAR as the yardstick.
That's a good example of the value of WAR. It's good for comparing one player to another but it's not the complete picture of a player. It should be a factor but kept in perspective especially when comparing players of different eras.
The first place votes for McQuinn and (especially) Joost seem almost criminal now, but *seven* first place votes for Joe Page?? I'm convinced that the writers at that time simply did not know what to do with relievers. I explored this a little when you wrote about Robin Roberts losing the NL MVP in 1952 back in January, and I thought that had more to do with Wilhelm and Joe Black siphoning off votes than it did with anything else that year.
http://www.boyofsummer.net/2020/01/how-did-robin-roberts-lose-nl-mvp-in.html
It's worth noting that the 1947 Yankees did not have an especially strong pitching staff, despite leading the AL in ERA. Ten different pitchers made at least five starts, and only three made 20 or more (Allie Reynolds, Spec Shea and Bill Bevens, in his last season as a major leaguer, it would turn out). Page finished 44 games, but nobody else on the team even finished 10, and nobody with an ERA under 4.00 finished 5, which means that anybody else they tried out in that role maybe blew it. Perhaps the view was that Page was the glue holding all those wins together, helping finish out what Shea and Bevens and the 39-year old Bobo Newsom and not-yet-perennial 20-game winner Vic Raschi could not? That doesn't mean he deserved those votes, necessarily, but it kinda explains them.
Brilliant.
Joost had fewer total bases (178) than Williams had hits (181). Heck, Williams almost catches him with just walks (162). This is a fun rabbit hole :-)
I guess George McQuinn shows Joe and Mike's comments about Yankee magic reviving careers extended much further back than I thought, although George retired after his brief Yankee resurgence rather than disappearing on some other team's roster never to be heard from again.
He came back and played/managed in Quebec for three seasons after that, so somebody heard from him. ;-)
Has there ever been a player who had as bad as season as Eddie Joost but still got first place votes? Is there a way to see where Williams ended up on those ballots?
You don't have to go back too far to find something close. Michael Young got a first place vote in 2011 despite only 2.7 bWAR for the Rangers that year. Young at least *looked* like a good player, hitting .338 with 106 RBI, but his defense was abysmal all over the infield that year, with a negative DRS at every IF position and an overall -1.8 WAR on defense.
Both Brad Lidge and Frankie Rodriguez got first place votes in 2008 - in fact Lidge got two of them(!). That was, I believe, the year in which Lidge never blew a Save, and K-Rod set the all time record with 62 Saves.
But the real kicker that year was Ryan Howard, who finished 2nd in the NL MVP to Pujols, with 12 first place votes and 308 total points, which is probably as good as anyone has ever done in the voting with only 1.8 bWAR to his credit! He led the NL in homers and RBI, but hit only .251 and was terrible as both a defender and a base runner.
Wondered why DiMaggio had such a low WAR, since his numbers were so good. Turns out it was due to an uncharacteristically poor defensive rating (-8 runs, only time in his career he was below 0).
Great insights, thanks
Additional research is needed to determine who voted for whom...which, of course, may simply be impossible at this point. Once you have even a partial set of that detail, it may be possible to determine that there was some form of conspiracy afoot. There is an elevated left of odd voting behavior here that goes beyond mere cluelessness...