I think Tony Oliva was a much more deserving player than Kaat. He didn’t have the counting numbers a lot of voters look for, as injuries derailed his career, but Oliva, unlike Kaat, was an elite player. Tony Oliva was MVP runner up twice, finished 4th another time, 6th yet another, and had a 10th place finish. He had three other top 20 finishes. Oliva win three batting titles, led his league in runs once, in hits five times, doubles four times, SLG, total bases, sac flies and intentional base on balls once each.
And he wax a strong defensive outfielder, with +56 Rtot in his career, and an average of +6 per 1,200 defensive innings. He won only one Gold Glove, but I think that’s more the product of his playing right field in the American League at the same time Al Kaline did. There were only three Gold Gloves handed out in each league for the outfield, and Oliva was up against Kaline, Carl Yastrzemski and Paul Blair. Those guys were going to be awfully tough to beat out.
As a rule of thumb, I’d much rather honor great players who had shorter careers than those who played for a really long time, but never really achieving greatness.
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