Well, what have we learned from this not-so-little exercise?

First, let’s check out the multiple winners, according to me:

Eight: Lefty Grove

Five: Walter Johnson

Four: Grover Cleveland Alexander, Robin Roberts, Warren Spahn, Dazzy Vance

Three: Bob Feller, Carl Hubbel, Sandy Koufax, Bob Lemon, Hal Newhouser, Bucky Walters

Two: Jim Bunning, Ed Cicotte, Mort Cooper, Stan Coveleski, Dizzy Dean, Red Faber, Lefty Gomez, Christy Mathewson, Billy Pierce, George Uhle, Hippo Vaughn

Casual fans would surely recognize a lot of those names. More serious fans would recognize pitchers like Lefty Gomez and Bob Lemon. But Hippo Vaughn? Mort Cooper? A major part of the fun of doing a project like this is finding all the overlooked stars. Or stars like Lefty Grove whose greatness is rarely acknowledged. He utterly dominated his era – but it also happened to be an era when offense was supreme, so his career Earned Run Average is noticeably higher than it is for other all-time greats. So he’s left out of such “GOAT” discussions.

I note that Feller and Johnson could have easily picked up one or two more awards. Christy Mathewson would have earned more if the award started earlier. I also note that the best pitchers tended to be among those with the most wins. If really good pitchers win a lot of games, shouldn’t the converse be true – that pitchers who win a lot of games are really good?

One should also note that the Twins in the 1960s were really good! Two “Cy Young” Award winners – and they could have easily had a third. Plus Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva on offense…. The Cardinals in the early 1940s are another “dynasty” worthy of some respect – four pennants and three World Series wins in five years….

I’m sure if I did this again, I’d change my mind on more than a few winners. I’m also sure you’ll disagree with me. Who would you pick instead?

Almost immediately after the death of Cy Young, MLB Commissioner Ford Frick was able to convince everyone that there needed to be an award for the best pitcher in baseball – one that was named in his honor.

They only gave out one, though. So I get to pick a winner for the other league.

And no, I’m not going to discuss the actual winners. You can read about them yourself.

1956

AL: There are three contenders this year: Whitey Ford (19-6, 2.47 ERA (leading the majors)), and the Indians’ Herb Score (20-9, 2.53 ERA) and Early Wynn (20-9, 2.72 ERA). Score gets my vote with 263 Ks (9.5 per 9 innings) to lead the majors.

NL: Don Newcombe won the NL MVP award, too.

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With more important things going on, a lot of players – stars and regulars (e.g. Bob Feller) found themselves working for Uncle Sam in some way. Baseball as a whole had to make compromises in order to keep going. So for the next few years, there will be some unusual names popping up. Doesn’t mean they didn’t deserve the honor, though.

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(No wonder I hadn’t seen any “Likes” for Part 1 – I loaded it into Drafts, but forgot to publish it! So you get TWO posts today! Hooray.)

You may have noted that although I considered the short-lived Federal League, there’s no sign of the Negro Leagues. This was deliberate. I felt that since Major League Baseball didn’t recognize their existence as “real” leagues at the time, they would never have thought of giving awards to those players when the Negro Leagues were active. There’s also the possibility that the Negro Leagues themselves may have given out individual achievement awards (I haven’t checked).

In any case, I leave it as an exercise to the reader to find players in the Negro Leagues worthy of receiving a Most Valuable Player or “Best Pitcher” award. Now that the stats are on Baseball Reference (thanks in large part to the researchers at Seamheads), it shouldn’t be too hard.

1931

AL: Lefty Grove was even better this year with a 31-4 record and 2.06 ERA. Only 175 Ks, but he still led the majors in all of those categories. If that’s good enough for the MVP award….

NL: A much closer race. The Cardinal’s Paul Derringer had the league’s best record at 18-8, but teammate Bill Hallahan led the league in strikeouts with 159, and his 19-9 record was almost the same. Bill Walker of the Giants led the league in ERA with 2.26, and his record of 16-9 wasn’t too shabby. I’ll go with Walker thanks to his major league leading 6 shutouts.

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After the death of Cy Young in 1955, Major League Baseball decided to honor the greatest pitcher of all time by naming an award after him, and giving it to the best pitcher in the game (according to a poll of writers). It was soon doubled to cover both leagues.

But like the World Series Most Valuable Player Award, there were a lot of years and pitchers before the award was instituted.

So, what better way to kill some time in the off-season than wonder who might have won the award if it began in 1912, the year after Cy Young retired?

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Once the World Series was over (congratulations to the Nationals, by the way), baseball fans immediately turned their attention to specualting on the awards. There’s plenty of prizes and trophies to be handed out, but most fans only worry about the “Big Three”: Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, and Most Valuable Player.

The general consensus this year was that Pete Alonso of the Mets and Yordan Alvarez of the Astros would take home the Rookie of the Year awards, and their teammates Jacob deGrom and either Justin Verlander or Gerrit Cole would be honored with the Cy Young Award. The MVP “races” are a lot closer, with the Angel’s Mike Trout and the Astro’s Alex Bregman “battling” in the American League, and Cody Bellinger of the Dodgers and Christian Yelich of the Brewers as the leading candidates in the National League.

Well, we already know the Rookies of the Year and Cy Young winners – the general consensus was correct for both, with Verlander getting the Cy Young nod in the AL. The MVP award will be announced next week.

You’ll note that in each league, the same team collected the two prizes given so far. I wondered how often does it happen where the same team has more than one of the three major award winners. I went and looked – and naturally, you’re going to read about it (if you click on the “More” thing below).

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There’s a great race in the National League that’s going to make September really exciting. No, not the NL West division race, nor the NL Wild Card race. But the battle for the Cy Young Award. There are three prime candidates to choose from. Jacob deGrom of the Mets, Aaron Nola of the Phillies, and Max Scherzer of the Nationals. The decision is probably going to come down to what you think counts the most in considering an “outstanding pitcher”.

(NOTE: All stats current as of 9/6/18, prior to the start of the day’s games. Numbers in parentheses indicate their ranking in the NL)

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This year, the National League has two solid contenders for their Most Valuable Player award: Right fielder Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins and pitcher Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Just as three years ago when Justin Verlander won the AL MVP, there’s a lot of the same old debate as to whether or not pitchers should even be allowed to be eligible for the Most Valuable Player award.

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