AUTHOR: Ryan Armbrust DATE: 5:13:00 AM ----- BODY:
So Justin Morneau won the AL MVP. I don't have a huge problem with that. I think Joe Mauer should have probably won it, based on his higher OPS and excellent play at the key defensive position of catcher. As much as I dislike the cult of worship of Derek Jeter, his passable defense and excellent offense this year put him in a position that he would have also made a good MVP. I think I need to go cleanse myself after typing that. Anyway, my friend Tony, a Twins fan, asked an interesting question. He pointed out that Justin Morneau wasn't selected to the All-Star game this year, but he was voted the MVP. He wondered how many times that has happened. As best I can tell, it's only happened ten times since the All-Star game was begun in 1933. I'll see if I can figure out why. Here's the lineup: (and a fairly good one it would be, if assembled as a fantasy team) 
Justin Morneau  2006
Chipper Jones   1999
Juan Gonzalez   1996
Terry Pendleton 1991
Robin Yount     1989
Kirk Gibson     1988
Willie Stargell 1979
Dave Parker     1978
Don Newcombe    1956
Hank Greenberg  1935
We'll start with Morneau, and work backwards. 2006 - Justin Morneau - Twins - 1B This one seems pretty easy. In the All-Star game this year, the host city was Pittsburgh, meaning NL rules; hence no DH. When you look at the excellent crop of 1B/DH options that the AL brought to the table in July (David Ortiz, Jim Thome, Travis Hafner, etc...), it's easy to see why Morneau was excluded. He was hitting .300/.352/.587 with 23 HR at that point, but he had started the season by hitting .236/.297/.450 with 11 HR through his first 53 games, by the time most voting had taken place. 1999 - Chipper Jones - Braves - 3B One of the more infamous All-Star snubs of recent memory, Chipper Jones somehow was not selected for the midsummer classic the only time he won the NL MVP. Jones should have been the third baseman on that team, but for Matt Williams. Jones was hitting .313/.422/.589 with 21 HR at that point, but Williams edged him with a line of .318/.355/.581 and 23 HR. Jones had a far superior OBP that distanced him from the otherwise similar numbers Williams put up, but that was before the dawn of on-base-percentage as a valued statistic. 1996 - Juan Gonzalez - Rangers - RF As of July 7, 1996, Juan Gonzalez was hitting .320/.381/.652 with 22 HR. But with Brady Anderson in the midst of his steroid-powered inexplicable 50 HR season, Albert Belle at the 40-50 HR, 1.000+ OPS peak of his career, Jay Buhner having the best year of his career, Joe Carter still getting mileage from his World Series heroics, and Kenny Lofton hitting well over .300 while on his way to 325 bases in his first five years in baseball... the outfield was rather crowded, and Gonzalez was the odd man out. 1991 - Terry Pendleton - Braves - 3B The original Braves 3B All-Star snub, Pendleton had a great start to the year, hitting .324/.377/.512 with 8 HR at the All-Star break. He had the unfortunate luck to have his best year at the same time as Chris Sabo and Howard Johnson, though, the NL 3B selected to the team. Sabo was only hitting .269/.345/.463 with 12 HR at that point, and was still riding the tide of the previous year's World Series win. Johnson had 19 home runs, third best in baseball, which is the kind of stat that will get you voted onto an All-Star team. 1989 - Robin Yount - Brewers - CF Robin Yount has a great year in 1989. He was solidified in his new position of center field, having moved there for good in 1986, and was making great progress towards 3,000 hits and the hall-of-fame. As of the All-Star Break, he was hitting .299/.369/.468 and had 10 HR. However, there were some notable outfielders that year that overshadowed him. Jose Canseco had just injected become the first 40/40 man the previous season, Bo Jackson was at the height of Bo-Knows-how-to-play-baseball, Kirby Puckett hadn't hit any lower than .328 in his previous few seasons, Devon White was cementing his reputation as a perennial Gold Glove outfielder, and Ruben Sierra would end up finishing second in the AL MVP vote. This may sound like a broken record, but the reason Yount didn't make the team was more due to others having great years, instead of him starting out slowly or a voter backlash. 1988 - Kirk Gibson - Dodgers - OF/gimp Is there a more overrated hall-of-fame candidate than Kirk "I live on only through Vin Scully" Gibson? I may be biased, as an A's fan, but I think that Gibson's MVP was undeserved, and he didn't really even deserve to make an All-Star team. In fact, he never in his career was voted onto one. Selected for the outfield on that team were Vince Coleman (after stealing 100+ bases in each of his previous three years), Andre Dawson (after hitting 49 HR and winning the MVP the last year), Darryl Strawberry (pre-drug problems), Andy Van Slyke (.850+ OPS in 1987 and 1988), and Rafael Palmeiro (hit .307 as a 23 year old for Chicago, 2nd in the NL). In 1988, Gibson hit .290 with 25 HR, and he was the MVP? Strawberry led the league in OPS and HR, while Andres Galarraga led total bases. Both would have been better choices than Gibson, as they led him in nearly every statistical category. 1979 - Willie Stargell - Pirates - OF Willie Stargell tied with Keith Hernandez on the vote for 1979. Hernandez led the league in batting average, but Stargell had three times as many home runs to make up for his lower average. For some reason, the 1979 team had seven outfielders on it. Lou Brock, Dave Parker and Dave Winfield were all pretty much locks. To complete the set of three Daves, Dave Kingman was also a qualified choice. That leaves us with Jack Clark, Lee Mazzilli and Gary Matthews as picks over Stargell. Matthews had the highest batting average and most home runs of his career in 1979, while Mazzilli and Clark had only decent years, by most standards. I'm really not sure why Stargell wasn't picked, as he was near the end of a very good career and a household name at that point. 1978 - Dave Parker - Pirates - OF Like the Braves 3B in the 1990's, the Pirates OF in the late 70's was a bit of an aberration in MVP -- All-Star coincidences. Parker would be voted to the All-Star game the following year, but in 1978, it appears that the voting for the game was somewhat non-sensical. The All-Star voting in the late 70's was widely criticized by players and fans, and Johnny Bench, who was named the starting catcher even though he had spent the previous month on the DL, said, "The whole thing hands me a laugh. Two years after I'm dead I'll still be getting All-Star votes." 1956 - Don Newcombe - Dodgers - P The only pitcher to make the list, Newcombe had already won 11 games by the All-Star break in 1956. Of course, it's entirely possible that Newcombe wasn't picked because he was one of the first successful black pitchers in the majors. This was 1956, after all. But the manager of the NL team was Walter Alston, Newcombe's manager with Brooklyn and one of the people who helped Jackie Robinson break the color barrier. Perhaps Alston didn't want to play favorites, since he had already picked Roy Campanella, Jim Gilliam, Clem Labine and Duke Snider from the Dodgers. 1935 - Hank Greenberg - Tigers - 1B It would be easy to attribute the delay in All-Star appearances for Greenberg to anti-semitism, but that's not the case. Until 1946, the entire roster was selected by the team manager. Mickey Cochrane, the manager of the Tigers, didn't want to be accused of playing favorites, so even though Greenberg had 100 RBI by the All-Star break, Cochrane chose Jimmie Foxx and Lou Gehrig instead. Not bad choices, if you ask me.
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I think that it's very interesting that from 1933-1946, the managers picked the roster, and then until 1970, fans could only elect 8 players per team. In that 37 year period, there were only two MVPs who weren't All-Stars. In the 36 years since then, there have been eight. I don't think it's a coincidence that the managers were better at identifying deserving players than the fans. I'm not calling for an end to the fan voting, though. I'm all for it, in fact. I'd rather see the MVP some out of nowhere than end the tradition of stuffing ballots for your favorite players.
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