Despite Being Really Bad For Years, Phillies Have Won Some Awards

Remember when Ryan Howard wont he MVP award? Yeah, that was awesome. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-US PRESSWIRE

You know what’s been a LOT of fun over the last few weeks? The American League MVP debate.

Yeah, it’s been a blast.

As everyone who has a Twitter account, television, radio or carrier pigeon knows by now, the race is down to two individuals, Anaheim’s Mike Trout and Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera.

I won’t spend time here continuing this mind-numbingly redundant debate, simply because all the points have already been made.

The sabermatricianally-minded love Trout’s overall game, his speed, his defense and his staggeringly high WAR. The traditional voters swoon over Cabrera’s Triple Crown and the fact he led the Tigers to the playoffs.

(The correct answer for AL MVP is Trout of course, but I’m not going to string anyone up by their eyelashes if they vote for Cabrera, either. I’ll leave that to Keith Law.)

Thursday’s MVP announcement will undoubtedly be controversial, and anyone tired of the debate may want to stay off their Twitter-machines for about six or seven hours this afternoon.

So instead of re-litigating the Trout-Cabrera debate, let’s look back at past Phillies MVP winners, including the last two, which were controversial in and of themselves.

(Get ready for some more tables, guys. Happily, there are no pie charts.)

2007 – Jimmy Rolllins Beats Out Holliday

The high water mark of Jimmy Rollins’ career challenged Lenny Dykstra’s 1993 season as the best overall year by a leadoff hitter in Phillies history. Jimmy’s .875 OPS, OPS+ of 119, 30 HRs, 94 RBIs, 20 3Bs, and 139 runs were all career highs, as was his 6.0 WAR.

However, as the above chart indicates, much of Jimmy’s MVP efforts were boosted by his comments before the season that the Phillies were “the team to beat,” and the Phils’ crazy, last-minute charge to the playoffs. Matt Holliday also benefited from the Rockies’ final-month playoff push, finished second in the voting despite a WAR of 5.8 that was lower than five of the players beneath him in the Top 10. Albert Pujols’ 2007 season was probably the best statistical season in the NL, leading to an NL-best 8.5 WAR. However, he only finished 9th in the 2007 MVP voting, mainly because his Cardinals missed the playoffs.

I’m not sure what the voters were smoking in 2007.

Still, Rollins’ 2007 was the best ever by a Phillies shortstop and truly was the high-water mark of his career. And as we all know by now, the BBWAA’s criteria for what makes an MVP is pretty vague, and everyone has different criteria for what defines a player as “most valuable.”

Incidentally, Aaron Rowand finished 22nd in the MVP voting that year. I forgot he hit 27 HRs and hit .309 that year. See? That’s why I post these charts! They’re super-duper helpful!

2006 – Howard Over Pujols

The 2006 NL MVP vote is perhaps the race that most closely mirrors what we’ve seen with this year’s AL debate. You have Howard, who had a ridiculous power season with 58 HRs and 149 RBI and an OPS of 1.084, aided by a career-high batting average of .313 (it’s impossible to believe Howard ever had a batting average that high, but those were in the pre-shift days). And you have Pujols, who finished second in HRs and RBIs (49 and 139, respectively), with a slightly better OPS of 1.102. Offensively, it was a close call.

However, Pujols’ all-around game, mainly his defense, should have given him the edge of Howard. Pujols’ WAR in ’06 was a crazy-good 8.2, compared to Howard’s 5.0. Also, traditional MVP voters typically give bonus points to the player that led his team to the playoffs.

Albert did. Ryan didn’t.

So, why did Howard win? There are only two conceivable reasons. Pujols fatigue, and the never-ending love of the RBI.

Pujols had won the award the previous season, and had finished in the Top 5 in each of the four years before that. Voters are always looking to elevate the next person, and in 2006, Howard was the shiny new toy. Howard’s RBI total was also insanely high, and voters have always loved voting for the league leaders in HRs and RBIs. It’s why so many of them are hot to trot for Miguel Cabrera this year.

At the end of the day, the voters missed on this one, but every Phillies fan was happy they did.

1986 – Mike Schmidt’s Last Hurrah

It’s amazing that a New York Met didn’t win the award in ’86, considering they won 108 games and finished ahead of the second-place Phillies in the NL East by a scant 21.5 games. But if you look at the numbers, the voters largely got this one right.

It was Schmidt’s third career MVP award, a league record before Barry Bonds came along and obliterated it. Schmidt’s season was just a stellar all-around effort for him at 36 years old. One can only hope some of the Phils’ aging veterans have a season or two like this in them over the next few years. Schmidt’s 5.8 WAR and league-leading 37 HRs and 119 RBIs gave him the edge over Houston’s Glenn Davis, who led his team to a first place finish in the NL West.

Honestly, the voters probably reached back for a bit of nostalgia with this pick, knowing it would be Mike’s last hurrah. Interestingly, the player with the best WAR in the NL in ’86 was Astros pitcher Mike Scott, however, he finished only 10th in the voting.

(By the way, LOL at Dave Parker’s -0.1 WAR for the Reds while finishing in 5th. ALL HAIL THE RBI!!!)

1981 – Schmidt Wins Strike-Shortened Season

Listen, 1981 was just weird. The players’ strike split the season into two halves, and numbers were knocked out of whack as a result. Schmidt was probably living off his career year the season before, resulting in the second of his three MVPs. Still, it appears as if the award was justified, thanks to Michael Jack’s league-best 7.5 WAR, narrowly edging out Montreal’s Andre Dawson.

Three other Phils finished in the top 13 that year, with Steve Carlton at 9, Pete Rose at 10 and The Sarge (!!!), Gary Matthews, at #13.

1980 – Schmidt’s Career Year

The first MVP of Mike Schmidt’s career was a reward for his best season, culminating in the team’s first-ever world championship. His numbers speak for themselves… 48 HRs, 121 RBIs, 1.004 OPS, all NL-highs. And his 8.6 WAR as an NL-best among all position players.

Interestingly, the only NL player with a better WAR than Schmidt’s was Steve Carlton, whose ridiculous Cy Young season resulted in a 9.8 WAR, which put him fifth in the voting. Obviously, voters traditionally have not liked to give this award to pitchers (although the next winner would sorta prove me wrong on that).

Bake McBride finished in the top 10, with the Tugger getting enough votes to land him at #16.

1950 – Kostanty Steals One

The year of the Whiz Kids was a fun, one-year wonder of a season. But of all the players on that team full of kids, it was pitcher Jim Konstanty who took home one of the unlikeliest MVP awards in NL history. And the vote wasn’t even close, with Konstanty earning 18 of the 24 first-place votes, beating out a no-name St. Louis scrub named Stan Musial.

Seriously, how did this happen? How did Musial’s 1.034 OPS and 6.9 WAR beat out Konstanty? How did Eddie Stanky’s 7.8 WAR finish third? If this had happened in the age of Twitter, everyone would have lost their collective crap over this.

The Whiz Kids were well represented in ’50, with eight Phillies in the top 36. Interestingly, Richie Ashburn was not among them.

1932 – Chuck Klein Harmed Many Baseballs

Klein was the Phillies’ first-ever MVP award winner, and is a guy not many contemporary Phillies fans know a lot about. But simply put,the dude was an absolute beast.

Chase Utley’s trophy case is still a bit light. Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

Klein posted an OPS of at least 1.025 from 1929-1933 and finished second in the MVP vote in ’31 and ’33, winning the Triple Crown in ’33.

It should be noted, however, that Klein’s numbers were inflated by the dimensions at The Baker Bowl, with its 60-foot high, corrugated tin right field wall only 280 feet from home plate down the right field line, making it a very nice target for left handed hitters like Klein.

Still, in one five-year stretch, Chucky was regarded as one of the greatest hitters in the National League, posting numbers the likes of which weren’t seen again until the steroid era reared its ugly head.

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It should be noted that the best player of this current Phillies era, Chase Utley, will probably retire without having won an MVP award, which is just sad. What’s even sadder is that he’s never even really come close. Despite five straight years with a WAR of 7.0 or better (2005-2009) Utley never finished better than 7th in the MVP voting. Much of that can be due to the other-worldly seasons that Rollins and Howard had in their MVP years, living in the era of Pujols, and some injuries that torpedoed potential MVP seasons before they could be finished.

Lenny Dykstra’s 1993 season was also worthy of consideration, where he posted a .902 OPS, with 143 runs scored and 37 stolen bases, making it one of the best seasons by a leadoff hitter not named Rickey Henderson in the last 25 years. However, the voters got this one right, as Lenny was clearly outproduced by the Giants’ Barry Bonds, who compiled a WAR of 9.7, far superior to Dykstra’s 6.6. Bonds was also light years better as a defender, and his OPS of 1.136 was flat-out ridiculous. At the time, I though Lenny got jobbed. Now, it’s pretty easy to see just how superior Bonds’ ’93 season really was.