A Quick Fun Chart (NY & Boston)

Paul Semendinger
Nov 1
1 min read

by Paul Semendinger

***

When I wrote the upcoming book, The Greatest New York Yankees By Uniform Number, I created a host of tables and charts, some that will not be used in the final text. (This is a normal part of the editing process. It's like making a movie and leaving a scene on the cutting room floor.)

Here is one chart that will most likely be left out due to space limitations...

Red Sox MVP Seasons

(with a Yankee in second place)

Season	MVP	Runner-Up
1938	Jimmie Foxx	Bill Dickey
1949	Ted Williams	Phil Rizzuto
1958	Jackie Jensen	Bob Turley
1978	Jim Rice	Ron Guidry
1986	Roger Clemens	Don Mattingly

6 Comments

Robert Malchman

Nov 01

1938 was the right choice: Foxx 7.4 WAR, Dickey 5.0. (Hank Greenberg, 6.5, should have been the runner up.)

1949 also was the right choice: Williams 9.0, though Rizzuto (3.0) finishing second is a joke. Mel Parnell (8.0) should have been second. The Red Sox had four of the top 5 players by WAR that year and five of the top 7. The Sox put up 5.4 WAR more than New York, and yet still managed to lose the pennant to them by one game.

1958 was a total joke. Jensen had 4.9 WAR, Turley 3.6. Mickey Mantle had 8.7 and Frank Lary 6.7.

1978 actually enrages me. Rice had 7.6 WAR, Guidry 9.6. Without Guidry, New York doesn't w…

Edited

Paul Semendinger

Nov 01

Replying to

I did not do the reverse.

Don't forget they didn't have WAR back then.

Also, in 1978, Jim Rice had over 400 total bases. That was a big deal back then. It hadn't been done in the A.L. since the 1930s, I believe. That was huge.

I wanted Guidry to win it in 1978. He might have a HOF case if he did. And Rice maybe wouldn't. But, in context, Rice's season could be argued as more impressive by that measure which was what most people were saying at the time.

Alan B.

Nov 01

Guidry was about 20 years too early for pit hers (non traded) to really be considered for the MVP.

Paul, how does it feel to not be running tomorrow?

Robert Malchman

Nov 01

Replying to

And yet only 8 years later Clemens won. That actually was the right result, but Guidry should have won, both under value to the team's success and modern WAR calculation. For once, Alan, there really was anti-Yankee bias at work.

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