1993 al mvp

[GiambiJuice]

How did Thomas manage to win the award unanimously that year?? I can't for the life of me understand it.

Olerud probably had the better season, played the same position and added excellent defense. Led the league in batting average and OBP, clobbering Thomas in both categories. I know Thomas had more home runs and RBI, but Olerud beat him in just about every major category. I'm not saying Olerud should have won, but I would have expected the voting to be close.

FWIW Thomas was 10th in WAR among players who received MVP votes. Has any other player won the award unanimously with such a low WAR total compared to the field?

[Phantom Dreamer]

Be honest, no one talked about WAR in 1993. Batting average, HR and RBIs were the big thing.

[GiambiJuice]

Be honest, no one talked about WAR in 1993. Batting average, HR and RBIs were the big thing.

Yeah, I know. But Olerud destroyed Thomas in BA by almost 50 points. I'm surprised he didn't get a few first place votes.

[willshad]

I think, as far as MVP voting goes, it is better to do well in the second half of the season instead of the first half. Not only is the 'good' half then fresher in the voters' minds, but also it seems as if the guy had a season not quite as good as he could have had if he was SO good in the first half, but merely 'good' in the second half. Sure, Olerud finished with great numbers....363 .473 .599. Yet, if we compare that to how he stood at the season's midpoint, it pales in comparison. He was actually around .400 .500 .700 for much of the season, so he slumped towards the end. Contrast that to a guy like Buster Posey this year, who was amazing the second half, after a so-so first half. Had he done well in the first half instead, he may not have won the MVP

Thomas, however, hit .336 .446 .668 the second half, much better than Olerud.

[dgarza]

White Sox pulling into 1st for the first time 10 year might have something to do with the voting.

[brett]

I think, as far as MVP voting goes, it is better to do well in the second half of the season instead of the first half.

Its funny. While an obviously poor second half can hurt, I always thought that a strong start helped in the voting because the player with a strong first half will tend to hang around the top of the leaderboards for more of the season.

[brett]

Honestly I think people were hesitant to go for a guy who had no history of greatness, and Thomas was an early Saber poster boy. Early offense only sabermetrics like TPR, OPS, and net aggregate bases had him as a saber MVP favorite in '91 and '92. Another thing is that he was, as a hitter basically mirroring what Barry Bonds did in the NL and I just think that position and defense and baserunning were ignored. Thomas himself said that he was surprised to win it (especially unanimously) because he thought that his '91 and '92 seasons were better at least for an MVP case. I certainly thought he was MVP back then. Prior to '93 in the AL (and Bonds in '92 in the NL) who were the previous last guys with .400 OB% and .600 slugging%. On base percentage was actually really starting to get noticed by the voters around '91-'93.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Olerud was over .400 late as August 2nd which is incredible. He tailed off after that hitting "only" .337 after August 2nd.

[swingman24]

I also guess that the voters looked at Olerud and saw that he had Alomar, Molitor, and Carter in the lineup with him while Thomas was pretty much on his own. So they penalized Olerud for hitting in a better lineup.

[drstrangelove]

If someone builds a multivariate model for how the voters select the MVP, my guess is RBIs and team position will get an inordinate amount of + correlation while refusing interviews and being rude to writers will get a large amount of negative correlation. Trying to make sense out of it by looking at other stats will be frustrating.