In 1974 the National League MVP was Steve Garvey, and yet in Total Baseball, Garvey's TBR for that year is actually a negative number!! (-0.2) How could such a thing happen? Well -- the truth is that analyzing fielding stats is a pretty inscrutable task and there are many factors that TB's methodology doesn't take into account. They then compound the problem by giving their results more weight than they probably should. Garvey's -13 in that category is very bad. But how could his offense not pick up the slack?
In 1974 the NL's best player was probably Mike Schmidt, or perhaps Joe Morgan, but that's another story. On Garvey's team was a typical "unsung" player who was obviously more valuable than Garvey. I'm not trying to knock Garvey. I thought he was a good ballplayer, overrated in his day, because the media loves batting average and RBI's, but a very good player still. What I am saying is 1- He wasn't even the best player on his whole team & 2- Other than fielding, it was the outs he made which caused his overall TBR to not be sufficiently counterbalanced by his offense.
Garvey hit .312 and slugged .469 that year. He hit 21 HR's & knocked in 111 and his OBP was only .346. Why? He walked only 31 times! The N.L avg for OBP was .328 & the slugging avg was only .367. Definitely a pitcher's year. But remember- Garvey also played 1st base, the number one hitting position. His .469 slugging was being compared to other NL 1st basemen; players like Tony Perez, Willie McCovey and Lee May.
The Toy Cannon, Jimmie Wynn, who had played his entire career in the hitter-hating Astrodome, was then playing his first season in Dodger Stadium, also known for offensive paucity. It was his last truly good year. Jimmie hit .271 that year, but he also hit 32 HR's, batting in front of Garvey. He (Wynn) walked 108 times. That would be 77 more walks than Steve "MVP" Garvey. He also did this playing a much, much more valuable defensive position (CF), which from what I can gather, he played well. Wynn's OBP was .393 and he slugged .497. In other words, Wynn had an overwhelming lead on Garvey in getting on base and not making outs, he slugged 28 points higher and he played a major defensive spot in the field, something Garvey did not do. Is there anything else to consider? Baserunning you say? Well alright, ya got me! Wynn stole 18 bases in 33 attempts while Steve pilfered 5 of 9, so I'll give Garvey the edge there only because he had enough sense to not try so often. There's 11 extra outs Jimmie made vs Garvey. I believe most baseball observers at the time would have preferred to have Wynn running the bases though. Speed and quickness were never Garvey's forte.
So just what did the writers see? Did they see all those outs Garvey made compared to the guy hitting directly in front of him? Did they see defensive value at 1st base that TB doesn't calculate for? No, what they saw was (A) The Dodgers won the pennant. (B) Garvey hit .312 with 200 hits. (C) Garvey knocked in the most runs on the pennant winning club.
They never saw the outs he made. They didn't notice how the man in front of him kept innings alive by walking, giving Garvey a bunch of RBI opportunities. Garvey scored 95 runs, Wynn (in 6 less games) scored 104. Those walks helped Garvey's ability to score too, because they kept innings alive. Getting on base and not making outs has a ripple effect through an offense, and maybe the guy with the .393 OBP doesn't score the run or drive it in, but his walk helps to move a guy to 2nd with two outs for the RBI single Garvey strokes, or his walk is followed by Garvey's force out, then Garvey scores the run, or his walk loads the bags with 1 out and Garvey gets the sac fly, or the force at 2nd ground out RBI. So many things can happen because instead of 2 outs, runner on first, it's one out, men on 1st & 2nd. Or instead of one out, no one on, it's no outs, runner on 1st. That one at bat where a player gets on instead of making an out makes the offensive outlook for that inning look so much different.
If you look at Garvey vs Wynn 1974 and pick Garvey, you aren't looking close enough. And that's what the voters did at the end of 1974. They didn't look past the glitzy batting average and they didn't look at the main reason for Garvey's RBI total. The two players weren't even comparable. One was a true MVP candidate while the other was as good offensively as probably 12 to 15 other guys in the league.
» James Brewer has been a baseball fan for the past 40 years who just can't shut up when the conversation turns to the diamond.
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Posted August 30, 2002.
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