MVP Winners of the 1930s and Early 40s - Part of an Ongoing Study by Shawn Weaver
While MVP voting had been going on for some time in fits and starts, the award now recognized as “official” is the award given by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) and started in 1931. Writers had voted on such an award before, and many such awards had been given, but this is the start of the official sanction by the offices of baseball which continues to this day. This relationship also led in part to the same group being given control of voting for the Hall of Fame, but that’s another story. In this essay, I will look at the worthiness of MVP winners in the BBWAA balloting, 1931-45.
Glossary: Win Shares is a creation of Bill James, meant to weigh all offensive, defensive, and pitching contributions of players to get one number for comparison purposes. WARP and WARP3 serve the same purpose, calculated somewhat differently, invented by Clay Davenport of Baseball Prospectus.
1931’s AL winner was Lefty Grove, the star pitcher for the pennant-winning Philadelphia A’s. Grove also led the league in Win Shares, although Babe Ruth bettered him in WARP3. In a time without a Cy Young Award, evidence is pretty good for Grove. Credit the writers here.
1931’s NL MVP was Frankie Frisch of the pennant-winning Cardinals. It would be a stretch to say Frisch was one of the top ten players in the league for the year. The writers were thrown because the Cardinals were a balanced pennant winner with no standout player, and the best player in the league was on a lousy team. Wally Berger and Bill Terry would both have been better choices.
1932 AL: Jimmie Foxx won the Triple Crown and also the MVP, in spite of his team’s second-place finish.
1932 NL: Chuck Klein became the first man to win with superficially better stats than the deserving guy, Mel Ott. But the Phillies were a surprising 4th, the Giants a disappointing 6th, and Klein won with numbers inflated by his home park. The NL writers are off to an inauspicious start.
1933 AL: Foxx won another Triple Crown and MVP, although the vote was closer than it should have been. A prejudice against repeat winners, against the rules in the old format, showed itself in the voting.
1933 NL: Carl Hubbell won an MVP as the Giants won a pennant, and he also led in WARP. Wally Berger led in Win Shares but Hubbell is a reasonable winner.
1934 AL: Lou Gehrig won the Triple Crown, but Mickey Cochrane won the pennant and the MVP. Cochrane wasn’t even the best player on his team. A bad choice here, but not unusual in the award’s history.
1934 NL: Dizzy Dean won the MVP even though Mel Ott and Arky Vaughan were arguably comparably valuable, but Dean’s spectacular stats and winning team were going to carry the day. It’s hard to fault the writers here.
1935 AL: Hank Greenberg won this unanimously. There were other comparable players, like Gehrig and Wes Ferrell, but Greenberg’s team won and the award is easily justified.
1935 NL: Gabby Hartnett won even though Arky Vaughan was easily the best player. Again, Hartnett’s team won and he was a sentimental favorite. Hartnett was one of the 10 best in the league, but probably not in the top 5.
1936 AL: Lou Gehrig was the best player and the MVP winner.
1936 NL: Hubbell gets another MVP although Ott was just as good a choice.
1937 AL: Charlie Gehringer squeaked out an odd win over the more deserving Joe DiMaggio. This selection is very odd, in that DiMaggio’s team won the pennant.
1937 NL: Joe Medwick won the Triple Crown, and the MVP in a close vote over Hartnett.
1938 AL: Foxx won, and although I think Greenberg was a better choice it was close. Not a bad choice.
1938 NL: Ernie Lombardi won the batting title and the MVP, although he was not one of the five best in the league. Mel Ott was robbed again. But the Giants didn’t win for the first time in three years, and the Reds made it to 4th after years in the second division.
1939 AL: DiMaggio was a deserving winner this time.
1939 NL: Bucky Walters was a deserving winner. Both leagues got it right.
1940 AL: Greenberg won again, and was one of the top players. Feller or DiMaggio might have been better, but the selection is easily defensible.
1940 NL: Frank McCormick was the third different Red to win in three years, but Johnny Mize should have won this one.
1941 AL: One of the most storied MVP races of all time, as Joe DiMaggio and his 56-game hitting streak beat out Ted Williams and his .406 average. The stats were pretty close, if you include DiMaggio’s defense, and his selection is a reasonable one especially considering his team won.
1941 NL: RBI man Dolph Camilli won, but teammate Pete Reiser would have been a better pick. Not the last time this would happen, by a long shot.
1942 AL: Ted Williams won the Triple Crown, but Joe Gordon won the MVP. Gordon was great, but the Splendid Splinter really got robbed in this year.
1942 NL: Mort Cooper won, but didn’t really deserve it. Teammate Enos Slaughter would have been a better choice, and so would have Mel Ott or Johnny Mize. Cooper’s 1.78 ERA was regarded as more impressive. The Cardinal’s great defense was most responsible for that great ERA.
1943 AL: Spud Chandler’s team won the pennant and he had a low ERA, so he won. Teammate Charlie Keller had a better year, and Luke Appling was even better than that. Another choice for superficial stats on a winning team.
1943 NL: Stan Musial was a deserving winner.
1944 AL: Hal Newhouser won even though teammate Dizzy Trout was probably better, but the margin was very close.
1944 NL: One of the strangest MVP picks of all time, as Marty Marion, the Cardinals’ spindly shortstop, won the award. Musial was deserving again, but the prejudice against repeat winners probably worked against him. Dixie Walker, Augie Galan, Bill Nicholson, and Bucky Walters were all better, as were about 25 other players, but the combination of a winning team and the repeat bugaboo gave the award to Marion somehow.
1945 AL: Hal Newhouser was a deserving winner.
1945 NL: The award went to batting champ Phil Cavarretta. The pick is debatable, as teammate Stan Hack was also deserving, but not egregious.
So in the first 15 years of the MVP voting, a total of 30 awards, I count seven as highly suspect, and several more where I would have made another choice. The pattern is usually to favor a player on the pennant-winning team, and often to give extra consideration to batting champs and sentimental favorite veterans. The pattern is not consistent, but there are trends. There is also a prejudice against repeat winners. Most of these trends have held true to the current day.