1984 NL & AL MVPs

[Senser81]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1122688/1/index.htm

Read an old SI article about the 1984 award winners. The author has Keith Hernandez and Dan Quisenberry winning the MVPs, which I found absurd. The author pointed to Hernandez's great fielding at 1B, but failed to mention that Sandberg won the GG at 2B.

I went and looked at the actual voting...Sandberg was the runaway NL winner (Hernandez had 1 first place vote...hmm), but some of the other names on the receiving votes list were funny (Juan Samuel??). The AL MVP voting was strange. Willie Hernandez won, but Quisenberry finished 3rd. Kent Hrbek was the highest position player at #2 for the woeful Twins. So you had 2 relief pitchers in the top 3 for MVP, and Quisenberry actually had 12 more saves than Hernandez (44 to 32). So my questions are:

1) Would you have awarded the NL MVP to Hernandez? Did he have a chance?

2) Who would you have given the AL MVP to?

3) Has there ever been another year in which 2 of the top 3 MVP vote-getters were relievers?

4) How many times has a reliever NOT led his league in saves and won an MVP or Cy Young?

5) Do you think Quisenberry's much larger save total should have put him above Hernandez?

[EmpireWF]

Sandberg did have better overall numbers (Keith had RBI, walks and OBP) and the Cubs were the best team in the NL. Would've been a stretch to leapfrog him and give it to Hernandez.

AL should've gone to Mattingly. Only player with over 200 hits, was the batting champion, was tied with Murray for league best OPS. Relievers and the MVP? Yuck.

And no, there had/has never been a year with relievers taking 2 of the top spots in MVP voting.

[Goober]

I would have voted for Mike Schmidt and Dwight Evans.

[manchild24]

those are some crazy numbers from 84. How about Rock Raines with 75 SB, tony armas with 43 jacks, gwynn hitting 351 and Samuel's numbers arent that crazy for MVP consideration. 191 hits, 105 runs scored 15 hrs, 72 SBs. Dems some nice fantasy numbers too

[Sven Draconian]

Cal Ripken-

He posted a 9.9 WAR. That ranks 20th since 1960. That number is tied with Bonds (MVP), Rickey Henderson (twice; 1 MVP, 1 3rd place), Roger Hornsby (no MVP award in 1917) and Ted Williams (2nd place; but he won it in 1946 and there was still lingering bias about giving a player back to back MVP awards).

At 9.8 WAR you have Larry Walker (won it) and Santo (2nd place). At 9.7 you get another Bonds win, a Carew win, a Pujols win. Williams finished 2nd, Robinson and Schmidty finished 6th.

Here are Ripkens numbers:
.304/.374/.510 146 OPS+, 37 doubles, 7 triples, 27 HR, 86 RBI.
The year before, when he did win the MVP, his numbers were....

.318/.371/.518, 144 OPS+ (47 doubles, 27 HR 102 RBI).

[strahanfan92]

Cal Ripken-

He posted a 9.9 WAR. That ranks 20th since 1960. That number is tied with Bonds (MVP), Rickey Henderson (twice; 1 MVP, 1 3rd place), Roger Hornsby (no MVP award in 1917) and Ted Williams (2nd place; but he won it in 1946 and there was still lingering bias about giving a player back to back MVP awards).

At 9.8 WAR you have Larry Walker (won it) and Santo (2nd place). At 9.7 you get another Bonds win, a Carew win, a Pujols win. Williams finished 2nd, Robinson and Schmidty finished 6th.

Here are Ripkens numbers:
.304/.374/.510 146 OPS+, 37 doubles, 7 triples, 27 HR, 86 RBI.
The year before, when he did win the MVP, his numbers were....

.318/.371/.518, 144 OPS+ (47 doubles, 27 HR 102 RBI).

http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/awards_1984.shtml

Crazy that with the best WAR in all of baseball, he came in 27th place for AL MVP.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Cal Ripken-

He posted a 9.9 WAR. That ranks 20th since 1960. That number is tied with Bonds (MVP), Rickey Henderson (twice; 1 MVP, 1 3rd place), Roger Hornsby (no MVP award in 1917) and Ted Williams (2nd place; but he won it in 1946 and there was still lingering bias about giving a player back to back MVP awards).

At 9.8 WAR you have Larry Walker (won it) and Santo (2nd place). At 9.7 you get another Bonds win, a Carew win, a Pujols win. Williams finished 2nd, Robinson and Schmidty finished 6th.

Here are Ripkens numbers:
.304/.374/.510 146 OPS+, 37 doubles, 7 triples, 27 HR, 86 RBI.
The year before, when he did win the MVP, his numbers were....

.318/.371/.518, 144 OPS+ (47 doubles, 27 HR 102 RBI).

Those 86 ribbies sunk him. This was the height of emphasis on the RBI.