Thirty fascinating stats, oddities, facts, curios, notes, observations, considerations, ironies, improbabilities, and singular achievements from the back corridors of the mind of a baseball historian

Saturday 4/19/25

* The MVP became what we know it as today starting in 1931 (before that you couldn't win what was called the MVP in consecutive years). The Red Sox had at least one MVP winner in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s. The same cannot be said about the Yankees or Cardinals, storied teams that have also been around almost since the start. That Red Sox streak is likely to end this decade. Trivia-wise (for the baseball historian that is; most people, of course, wouldn't have a clue what Red Sox players won MVPs, save the players in their own lifetimes), the decade of the 1950s is the stumper here. Most would likely guess Ted Williams, which would be wrong. Jackie Jensen won the 1958 AL MVP. He'd be good again in 1959, not play in 1960, and have his last season in 1961.

* Jensen pulled off the hard-to-achieve feat of leading the league in RBI three times and never leading it in home runs. Multiple RBI champs are almost always at least one-time home run kings, unless we're going back to the Dead Ball era. But wait: Stan Musial twice led the league RBI and and never in home runs. I'd imagine Jensen, though, is the only player to have thrice led the league in RBI and no times in homers in the modern era.

* The 1959 pennant-winning Chicago White Sox had the top three players that year in MVP voting in Nellie Fox, Luis Aparicio (who also got first place votes), and Early Wynn. Voters were likely sick of the Yankees and over-rewarded the White Sox for breaking up the Bronx Bomber monotony. The manner in which they played also helped. The 1966 Baltimore Orioles also had the top three finishers in MVP voting (Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell). I'm not sure if these are the only two times this has happened, but I believe it may be.

* On June 25, 1976, Rangers shortstop Toby Harrah played the entirety of two games of a doubleheader against the White Sox without having a single fielding chance, which is a record. He had a big first game, going 3 for 5 with a grand slam and 5 RBI. The next year, Harrah and teammate Bump Wills hit back-to-back inside-the-park home runs against the Yankees in the Bronx. If you have seen those clips, you may have asked yourself just what the hell the Yankees outfielders were doing.

* Praise for Jim Palmer tends to end with the 1970s, a decade in which the Orioles pitcher was dominant. When we think of Palmer in the 1980s, we think of him hanging around, being a part of a final championship in 1983 but more as a passenger, and then his aborted comeback bid. And also underwear commercials. But consider the 1982 season, in which Milwaukee's Pete Vukovich won the AL Cy Young, despite a 1.502 WHIP. They didn't keep that stat back then, but I'm skeptical that any Cy Young award winner has ever had a higher WHIP than Vukovich. His ERA was 3.34, which was respectable, but he was pitching out of jams regularly year. Half a dozen different outcomes--that is, three singles here, three doubles there--and he might have had a very different season. He tied for the league lead in wins, and the Brewers had what was seen as a special season. They were fun, they had big stars, they banged the wall--as their nickname went--and they were a relative surprise (they'd had a nice year in 1981, but 1982 was their fireworks year) and a cool story. It's never rankled me like it has other baseball historians and the like who bemoan Vukovich winning this award. There weren't great candidates that season. But you know who may have won it if voters then use the criteria that voters do now? Jim Palmer. How would people look at him then? Actually, it probably would have been Dave Stieb--who was 17-14 with a 3.25 ERA, which is fine, but not amazing, but he had a WAR of 7.6. Stieb might have won two Cy Young awards if they were given for the reasons they are now. For people who like to argue about the Hall of Fame, Stieb is akin to the pitcher's version of Bobby Grich.

* An unlikely league leader: Bob Stanley led the American League in ERA+ at 140 in 1982. The Snapper. Stanley stared 9 game in 1979 and 5 in 1980, but he was primarily a relief pitcher in his career and all of his work in 1982 was out of the bullpen. Relievers, of course, normally don't throw enough innings to quality for things like ERA titles of any kind, but Stanley tossed 168.1 innings that year. He compiled a record of 12-7 with 14 saves and an ERA of 3.10.

* Another unlikely pitching leader from 1982: The White Sox' Floyd Bannister had the most strikeouts in the AL with 209.

* When Eddie Matthews retired at the end of the 1968 season, little argument could be made that he was not the best third baseman in baseball history up until that time. He had hit 512 home runs. And yet, it took Eddie Matthews five tries on the Hall of Fame ballot to gain induction to Cooperstown.

* Johnny Mize is the best player--by a lot--to be inducted by the Veterans Committee because the BBWAA had determined he wasn't good enough for the Hall of Fame. Ted Williams came up with a list of his twenty best-ever hitters in the 1990s. He had Johnny Mize at number fifteen. Mize hit .312 for his career. He led the league in doubles once, triples once, home runs four times (with a high of 51), RBI twice, batting average (.349) once, slugging four times, OPS+ twice, total bases thrice. His career OPS+ was 158. He had ten seasons in the top ten in both home runs and RBI, nine seasons in the top ten in OPS, nine seasons in the top ten in WAR, seven seasons in the top ten in batting average, nine seasons in the top ten in slugging percentage, ten seasons in the top ten in extra-base hits, nine seasons in the top ten in total bases. He was awesome. He also played on five World Series winners and--this is kind of big--missed his age 30, 31, and 32 seasons because of military service. The 51 home run year was his age 34 season. In other words, he missed what very well would have been his absolute best years. The moral here? People often have no clue.

* Babe Ruth's three best seasons, in order, are 1921, 1923, 1927. Some would put 1923 first but the raw totals of 1921 are too much to hold that season back. 1927 could be replaced with 1920. Ruth aged better than one might have thought going by his diet and the shape he kept himself in (or didn't). His OPS+ during his age thirty-five season was 209. It was 214 the next year. Ruth never won a Triple Crown.

* There were two times that someone tied Babe Ruth for the league lead in home runs. The second time was in 1931, when both he and Lou Gehrig smacked 41 homers. Ruth, Gehrig--the latter near the end, the former still going strong. Makes a certain amount of sense that those two would deadlock around then, right? And poetic sense. The other time was Ruth's first time leading the league in home runs, which was in 1918, when he had 11. Ruth was, of course, pitching then for the Red Sox. His opportunities were limited. Matching Ruth was Tilile Walker of the Philadelphia Athletics, who'd been on the Red Sox the two prior seasons. Walker hit 118 home runs in his career, a big number back then. Placed in the top ten in homers seven times. That was real power in the 1910s.

* In his long career, Robin Yount had only two top ten MVP finishes (Howard Johnson had three). In each of those years, he won the MVP. He only made three All-Star teams, with those nods coming in his age twenty-four, twenty-six, and twenty-seven seasons. He did not make the All-Star team the year he won his second MVP in 1989.

* Adrian Beltre only made the All-Star team four times in his long career. He did not make his first All-Star team until his age thirty-one season.

* Ted Williams won two Triple Crowns. He did not win the MVP in either year. It looks at first after-the-fact-statistical-glance like he won three Triple Crowns, leading the league in home runs in 1948 with 43 and RBI with 159 (in a tie with teammate Vern Stephens), and sharing a .343 batting average with George Kell, but Kell's .343 was higher than Williams' .343 and Kell took the batting title. Williams did win the MVP, though.

* Catchers who each scored 100 runs in a season one time: Yogi Berra, Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk.

* In his rookie year of 1972, Fisk led the American League in triples. The next season, he had none.

* Fisk received first-place MVP votes in two seasons: 1977 and 1983.

* The 1990 White Sox went 94-68. They were a strong club, who didn't make the playoffs because they played in the AL West and this was the dominant era of the Oakland A's and you had to win the division. But if there'd been a Wild Card--pretend there was in an alternate universe--the White Sox could have won it all and it wouldn't have been shocking. Do you know who their best player was? Fisk, as a catcher, in his age forty-two season. Think about that for a second. His WAR was 4.9. The next closest player on the team was at 3.9, and the closest position player at 3.2. Fisk placed fifteenth in MVP voting. He should have been in the top ten.

* Lance Parrish threw out three runners attempting to steal in the 1982 All-Star Game.

* The 1985 All-Star Game featured two catchers hitting clean-up: Lance Parrish for the AL, Gary Carter for the NL.

* People often complain about Bill Mazeroski being in the Hall of Fame, saying he's only there because he hit the greatest home run in baseball history--his Game 7 walk-off against the Yankees in the 1960--and because of Veterans Committee cronyism, but Mazeroski should absolutely be in the Hall of Fame. He was the greatest defensive second baseman of all-time and arguably the greatest defender at any position in the sport's history. But here's the number you really need to know: Mazeroski turned 1706 double plays in his career. To give you an idea of how big a number that is, shortstop Ozzie Smith turned 1590. Double plays are huge. They're kind of like turnovers in football. Their role is sizable in determining who wins and who loses.

* The Oakland Athletics of the late 1980s and early 1990s were both a juggernaut--we associate power with the idea of a juggernaut--and a juggernaut that-never-quite-was, as they only won a single World Series despite featuring Rickey Henderson (for some of that time) and the Bash Brothers in Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire (for all of it). That World Series title came in 1989. Quick...who led that A's squad in RBI? Canseco? Nope. McGwire? no. Dave Parker. That'll stump just about everyone.

* Cal Ripken wins the AL Rookie of the Year award in 1982 and then the MVP in 1983 with his with his Baltimore Orioles also winning the World Series. Ripken then has a 10 WAR season in 1984. Yes, the stat hadn't been formulated at the time, but if you're playing 10 WAR baseball, that ought to stand out to everyone. Despite this, Ripken finished twenty-seventh in AL MVP voting in 1984. Dave Kingman finished thirteenth. Two other Orioles finished ahead of Ripken (Eddie Murray was fourth, Mike Boddicker twenty-fifth). Ripken led the AL in offensive WAR and defensive WAR. That's how dominant he was. Lloyd Moseby finished second in WAR at 7.3.

* Having a career WAR/162 of 5 or higher is hard to do. You see some guys who did it who maybe you wouldn't have expected it from and you're like, "Whoa." For instance: Alan Trammell was right at 5 WAR for his career per 162 games. Pee Wee Reese: 5.1. I've said a number of times that Reese is among the most underrated players in baseball history. There's a spot for him in the top 100.

* People like to say, "Ichiro Suzuki was so amazing, should have been a unanimous first ballot Hall of Famer, if you don't think so, you're a this and that you don't know baseball." Singles are the empty calories of baseball. If you have no pop, if you hit no doubles, if you don't walk, and you just hit singles, your value can only be so much. In 2004, Suzuki hit .372. Wow, right? Slow down. He had 24 doubles, 5 triples, and 8 home runs. That's right--only 37 extra-base hits. That's pretty...ineffectual. He walked 49 times.

* The 1986 pennant-winning--and, alas, World Series-choking--Boston Red Sox had three players in their everyday line-up with a negative WAR for the season: First baseman Bill Buckner (despite his 102 RBI), shortstop Rey Quiñones, and center fielder (it's still weird to me that he was a center fielder) Tony Armas. Now, I know what you might say--they traded for Spike Owen, and he became the team's regular shortstop. Well, he had a negative WAR, too. In that same deal, the Sox landed Dave Henderson who took over as their center fielder. Closer Bob Stanley also had a negative WAR (there's some writing on the wall). It's unusual to see a team be this successful with such a high percentage of negative WAR regulars. Then again, that's some indication of why things went as they ultimately did.

* Then again, WAR is often bizarre. Consider pitcher Tom Hall and the year he had with the 1972 pennant-winning Cincinnati Reds: He went 10-1 over 124.1 innings as both a reliever and a starter with a 2.61 ERA, a 1.070 WHIP, a shutout in one of his 7 starts, and 134 strikeouts. Seems pretty good, right? His WAR for the year: .9.

* Tris Speaker led the league once in home runs, RBI, and batting average. Impressive, but perhaps not especially unusual. What was unusual is that these were all in different seasons. Speaker's 10 home runs tied him with Frank "Home Run" Baker for tops in the league in 1912, his .386 average gave him the batting crown over Ty Cobb in 1916, and his 130 RBI--in his age thirty-five season, no less--placed him atop the leader board in a tie with that Ruth guy--who missed time--in 1923.

* Brian Roberts was a good big league player. Finished with a career OPS+ of 101, made a couple All-Star teams, averaged 3.4 WAR/162. But Brian Roberts was a great doubles hitter. It was easily his best skill and his doubles numbers stood out in a major way. He led the league once with 56 doubles (!) and had additional seasons of 51 and 50. He's the only three-time 50-doubles-in-a season guy who is not in the Hall of Fame. He also had seasons with 45 and 42 doubles.

* Von Hayes led the NL in doubles in 1986, which isn't so strange--all kinds of guys can be doubles leaders. Superstars, stars, players having career years, guys like Brian Roberts. That same season, though, Hayes also led the league in runs scored, which tends to be a superstar thing and makes for a bigger feather in the cap.