Is There Any Doubt? Some Say Yes!

Dave Paisley

In the NL, it's all too easy to anoint Mark McGwire as the obvious, unanimous, unilateral MVP and move on to more exciting things. However, one of the main unspoken criteria of past seasons has been that the MVP come from a team that makes the playoffs, or at least comes close. That hasn't been the case with the Cardinals all year, mostly due to their dire pitching situation, which leaves Mac hanging out there in limbo.

His main challenger has to be Sammy Sosa, of course, and even if the Cubs just miss the playoffs, there is a fair chance that the members of the Baseball Writiers Association of America will deem that the Cubs wouldn't have had a ghost of a chance without Sammy, making him ultimately more valuable to the Cubs than McGwire was to the Cards.

That covers the conventional wisdom of the day, but what of the numbers themselves? MVPs are typically chosen from among the leaders in the triple crown categories: average, home runs and RBI. I've taken the top five in each category and compiled the following list. Some players rank at the top of more than one category, leaving us with only ten, so I've added Mike Piazza for fun. He isn't in the top five of any category, but he just misses on batting average.

In addition to the triple crown stats, there's room for runs scored and OPS (On base percentage Plus Slugging average) and the list is sorted by descending order of OPS. The final column shows where each player ranks in the triple crown categories.
 

Player	POS	AB	AVG	HR	RBI	R	OPS	Categories Led
Mark McGwire	1B	460	.293	62	129	118	1.208	3 RBI, 1 HR
Larry Walker	OF	419	.357	22	64	106	1.068	1 AVG
Sammy Sosa	OF	582	.311	59	142	117	1.026	1 RBI, 2 HR
Moises Alou	OF	537	.315	38	122	100	1.003	4 RBI
Andres Galarraga	1B	515	.305	43	115	99	.998	5 HR
Greg Vaughn	OF	528	.280	48	114	107	.993	3 HR
Vinny Castilla	3B	594	.330	43	136	102	.978	2 RBI, 4 HR, 5 AVG
John Olerud	1B	510	.343	19	83	82	.971	2 AVG
Mike Piazza	C	512	.328	30	100	80	.958
Jason Kendall	C	494	.332	12	74	90	.898	4 AVG
Dante Bichette	OF	615	.338	21	119	91	.883	5 RBI, 3 AVG

It's no big surprise that Mac heads the list, and in addition he's third in RBI. The presence of three Rockies in the list is also no surprise. Even with Coors inflation, Larry Walker is having a pretty good year, but in much greater anonymity than in the past. Castilla and (particularly) Bichette are both hacks, and we'll pretty much ignore them anyway, except to note that Castilla is the only player in the top five of all three triple crown stats. There's Coors for you.

Which brings us to Mr. Sosa. Better average, more RBI, and a very comparable number of home runs. His OPS is way off McGwire's ungodly pace, but the voters won't care about that, and hey, Sammy's been in a playoff race all year. The more I think about it, and the more I hear broadcasters blather on about Sosa, the more convinced I am that he will probably win the award.

The rest of our contestants will be taking home some lovely parting gifts, but there's no shame in the kind of years that Alou, Vaughn and Galarraga are having.

Below that, we have John Olerud having a nice tidy year for the Mets, and Mike Piazza and Jason Kendall heading the catching contingent. We can forgive Piazza for being a little off from normal given his Gulliver's Travels kind of year, but the position differential isn't enough to propel him into contention.

So there you have it: I think Sosa wins in a close race, especially if the Cubs actually make the playoffs.

 

about the author

Dave Paisley caught Sosa's 62nd home run, and all he wants for it is a Unicorn. It's not like it's a million dollars or anything, although if you're a leprechaun you can try to swap him for your crock o' gold at drdjp@strikethree.com.