That didn't hurt his teammate Al Oliver who finished 3rd in MVP voting. It was more likely that the voters under valued defense. Oliver was the better offensive player, but a stiff on defense, while Carter was a gold glove winning catcher.

very good point. Some how I forgot about Al Oliver.

Sorry to bump my own thread, but we were talking about Steve Garvey in a thread on the front page, and I was looking at his MVP year in '74.

Garvey wasn’t even the best player on his team—that would be Jim Wynn.
More than a dozen players deserved the award more than Garvey, but none as much as Mike Schmidt.

Garvey's slash line: .312/.342/.469 with an OPS of .811 and an OPS+ of 130.
Garvey had 21 HRs and 111 RBIs.

Schmidt's slash line: .282/.395/.546 w/ an OPS of .941 and an OPS+ of 158.
Schmidt led the League in HRs with 36 as well as slugging.

Schmidt even stole 23 bases to Garvey's 5.

Schmidt was an outstanding fielder at third base, and Garvey, despite winning a Gold Glove, was a below average fielder at first base.

Schmidt's league leading WAR of 9.8 was more than double Garvey's 4.4.

And Schmidt came in 6th place in MVP voting.

I think I remember reading that Commissioner Ford Frick was so disturbed over the 1952 NL MVP voting, he worked towards creating the Cy Young Award. I am sure the Cubs would have been nothing were it not for their slugger, Hank Sauer. Be that as it may, the Phillies' great iron man, Robin Roberts, went 28-7 with the fourth place Phils.

Another snub was the 1969 National League MVP voting. I like Willie McCovey, who had a great season. Regardless, second place vote getter Tom Seaver had a brilliant season, and without Tom, the Mets would have been nothing. He was the player his teammates constantly looked to for confidence, inspiration, and leadership. Not taking anything away from Manager Hodges, but as far as the Met players go, their go-to teammate was Seaver.

What does it matter now, the voting occurred late in '69. There might have been some jealousy amongst the writers about all the adulation, attention, and glamour that was coming Seaver's way, what with his gorgeous loving wife, Nancy. --- Brian Powell

Point taken on Schmidt being the better player. That's a given I think.

Aside from the fact OPS+ and WAR were long from springing into existence to assess players on, I've gotta dispute the "Below Average Fielder at 1st Base" statement.

I'm not a Garvey mark by any means, but Garvey was 1st in the league in Range Factor and 2nd in the league in Fielding% at 1st Base. I'm not sure what else he's supposed to do to appease the WAR Gods.

It still kind of blows my mind that DH's get more of a benefit of the doubt in regards to Defensive WAR then 1st Basemen. A defensively average 1st Baseman who plays the field everyday is seen as a less valuable commodity defensively than a DH by the WAR metric.

The only defensive position on the field that sees more action than the 1st baseman is the Catcher. Yankees were blessed with a string of fantastic defensive 1st basemen in Don Mattingly, Tino Martinez and Mark Teixeira.

However between Martinez and Teixeira we were cursed with Jason Giambi. An Offensive juggernaut and an OBP god in his prime, but an absolute goofball at 1st base. When they couldn't push him into the DH hole, which was often, since the Yankees have always loved to employ multiple DH types every year, the entire infields morale would take a hit.

From the eye test anyways, it seems obvious to me, that an excellent 1st Baseman takes a lot of pressure off the rest of the infield.

The Dodgers won 102 games in 1974 and in those days, I think it was more likely for a player on a division winning team to be voted MVP even if someone else had better stats but was on a team that missed the playoffs.

Then it should have been Jim Wynn.

The AL was also a bad choice in 1974, there were numerous guys better than Jeff Burroughs that year, ignoring new analytics that determine this and just using the stats of that time.

RBI's were a much bigger deal then, then they are now...and he led the league in that category by quite a bit.

Doesn't explain why Johnny Bench didn't win it that year in the NL, but I think that, in combination with Texas surprisingly successful season, and the lack of defensive metrics (which kills Burroughs in the modern era), had a lot to do with him winning it that year.

Garvey led Wynn in hits and batting average by a lot and RBIs by 3 in 1974. Wynn had 11 more home runs and 9 more runs scored. Garvey was also a gold glove winner that year so he was considered to be a good fielder (apparently still up for debate now). Those were the stats considered most important back then. People weren't looking at OBP and OPS or other advanced metrics. Based on those stats, it's not surprising Garvey won the MVP over Wynn.

Okay, but I am not sure the purpose of this thread is to make excuses for poor decisions/reconstruct the reasons for the poor decisions, that occurred back in the day. I am not at all surprised Garvey won the MVP (for all the reasons you have provided and more), I am just saying he didn't deserve to win the MVP for a variety of reasons.

Yes, it was often customary to hand over the MVP to a player on a team that won a lot of games and had a lot of hits. But that doesn't make it the right decision.

There's always a reason, but it isn't a good reason. Carew, Dick Allen, there are several better choices that don't use modern analytics to make their case and were better with the traditional stats.

It is an opinion. Some people value batting average and RBI more than OBP especially for a middle of the lineup guy. The team that wins is the one that scores the most runs, not the one that gets the most runners on base, or has the highest OPS+ or WAR. At some point, real production should trump theoretical stats.

Of course, but I'll come up with reasons anyways. :D

Dick Allen missed a boatload of games for a 4th place team, likely didn't even pass the eye test defensively by that point in his career at 1st Base, and was also busy cementing his bad boy status by then.

Carew. It has almost always been very hard for high average, low power guys like him, Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, etc...to get MVP votes. Even when he did win the award in 1977, Al Cowens somehow got within sniffing distance of him in the voting, even though Carew batted .388, while playing almost every game that year, and dominating in several other non-power categories for the season.

I think it could also be argued, that the team that scores the most runs, almost always, ALSO got the most runners on base, and has the highest OPS+ and WAR rates for their players.....or close to it, at least.

Okay, but I am not just talking about "theoretical stats." Mike Schmidt led the League in HRs (15 more than Garvey) and had more RBIs and Runs than Steve Garvey. Just because LA won a lot of games, doesn't mean you should just hand the trophy over to Garvey when you have Jim Wynn on their team. Let's not forget that LA also had the Cy Young winner and 2 of the other top 4 Cy Young winners on the team. So its not like Garvey was a one-man show.

The Reds finished 4 games behind the Dodges for 2nd in the NL West. You could have easily given the MVP award to Johnny Bench, who had one of the best years of his career, with 33 HRs and a league leading 129 RBIs, while playing a Gold Glove catcher.

Are you seriously arguing that Steve Garvey deserved the MVP in '74?

Garvey did not lead the league in a single offensive category in 1974. It’s not hypothetical stats that show this was a bad call. There’s not a single stat that supports the choice.

Agreed. Vote just shows that, as someone pointed out, there used to be a huge emphasis on whether the player was on a division winning team. Dodgers won their division and Phils were 8 games back. Doesn’t help that Schmidt was a relatively new name in 1974. But yeah, by just about any metric, he was better.

Two of the least deserving MVPs ever have to be Roger Peckinpaugh in 1925 and Marty Marion in 1944.

Yes, they both played a valuable position in shortstop, and both played for pennant winners, but their hitting was abysmal, and neither was the best player on their team.

Peckinpaugh's slash line was .294/.367/.379 with 4 HRs and 64 RBIs. His OPS+ was 91 and WAR was a measly 2.7. Amazingly, he only appeared in 126 games. About 20 people deserved the MVP more than he did. Certainly Harry Heilmann and Al Simmons were more deserving. Heilmann's slash line was .393/.457/.569 with 13 HRs, 134 RBIs and an OPS+ of 161. Simmons' slashed .387/.419/.599 with 24 HRs, 129 RBIs and OPS+ of 149. Also, Simmons had more than twice as many hits with his leading 253 to Peckinpaugh's paltry 124 hits.

Marty Marion's slash line in 1944 was .267/.324/.362 with 6 HRs, 63 RBIs and an OPS+ of 90. His teammate, a guy named Stan Musial slashed .347/.440/.549 with 12 HRs and 94 RBIs. Musial had a League leading 197 hits to Marion's 135 and had an OPS+ of 174. Yet Musial finished 4th in the voting.

Apparently it was customary to just hand over the MVP to the shortstop of the pennant winner, regardless how awful he was at hitting.

An issue I have always thought about was 1979 when there was not one...but two....MVPs. (Hernandez and Stargell).
The 'M' in MVP is for MOST.
How do you have two MOSTS?

Was just looking at 1984, and I think even the runner-up was even questionable with Hrbek getting second place. Eddie Murray and Mattingly had great seasons in 84 but finished 4th and 5th in the voting.

George Brett should have been a 3 time MVP. He deserved the award in 76 and 85. Munson got it in 76 and Mattingly in 85. Mattingly should have won in 86.

Jack Clark should have been the MVP hands down. He missed time due to an injury and that cost him. He was the main reason the Cardinals won that year. That and Doc Gooden's drug problem and the injuries to the Mets' pitching staff.