Okay, let’s talk about it.
When I wrote last week about the 1960 Cy Young Award probably going to the wrong person, I got a comment about the National League MVP Award from the same season being even worse. Then, when I mentioned it again in the usual Friday Stuff wrap-up, I got another comment about the MVP Award. So let’s go ahead and take a closer look.
Here was the initial comment:
First and foremost, thanks to Paul for commenting. Any and all comments that spark further conversation are always welcome.
Second, he’s right that Dick Groat wasn’t as good in 1960 as either Willie Mays or Ernie Banks. Strictly from the perspective of the stats they posted in 1960, both Mays and Banks had better years than Groat, and it wasn’t particularly close, either. I’ll throw in Henry Aaron as well. He had his usual remarkable season in 1960, and it helps illustrate the on-field disparity between Groat and the other top candidates:
That makes things pretty clear. All three future Hall of Famers were better in 1960 than Dick Groat.
But…
I kinda see why he won the award, and it has everything to do with narratives, team accomplishments, and putting weight on different statistics.
Batting average carried a lot more weight among baseball writers, players, and fans in 1960 than it does now. To that point in history, more MVP awards had been given to players who only led the league in batting (12) than to those who only led the league in RBI (5) or home runs (1). You had to lead the league in both homers and RBI (15 MVP winners) to have a better shot of winning the MVP than someone who led in batting average alone. With the National League having a different leader in each of three Triple Crown stats in 1960 (Groat in batting average, Banks in home runs, and Aaron in RBI), the chances of the other two beating out Groat dropped dramatically just based on the voting pattern of the award up to that point in its history.
And to win the batting title as a shortstop was a rare accomplishment that carried even more weight for Groat. Before he did it in 1960, the only shortstops to bat .325 and win a batting title in the same season were:
Lou Boudreau
Luke Appling (twice)
Arky Vaughan
Honus Wagner (seven times)
Jack Glasscock, way back in 1890.
That narrative, the shortstop “field general” who also happened to be on his way to a batting title, was a powerful one to the writers who would decide on the award. That Groat was doing this as the captain of an unexpectedly good team was a further bonus to his case for the MVP.
As I noted last week, no one expected much of the Pirates in 1960, so observers started looking for reasons why the team got off to a hot start. Pittsburgh was 11-3 at the end of April and Groat was batting .345. That was noticed. They moved into a first place tie on May 29 and took the lead all by themselves the next day, with Groat going a combined 7-for-10 in those two games. That was noticed, too. They never trailed again for the rest of the season as they won their first pennant since before Groat was born, and he batted .342 from May 29 to the end of the season. The writers took note of that, too.
Articles appeared as early as April 18 about Groat’s hot start and his status as one of Pittsburgh’s “money hitters.” His record-tying 6-for-6 performance on May 13 got him more attention. By early August he was being credited as the Pirate who “holds the team together,” and a nationally syndicated column from Associated Press writer Joe Reichler touted Groat as an MVP candidate. He was the Pirates “sparkplug,” who demonstrated “inspirational leadership,” and was a “brainy player - the kind the late John McGraw would have loved.”
None of Groat’s main competitors for the award had a similar narrative going for them. It didn’t help Banks’ case that he’d won the last two MVP awards and voters were probably reluctant to give him three in a row while he was playing for a team that was a game out of last place. Likewise, Mays’ Giants hovered around .500 much of the year and were just 55-63 after May 27.
Aaron’s team was the opposite. The Braves were just a .500 team at the end of May before finishing the year with a 72-50 record in the final four months and finished in second place, but Aaron himself had enormous drops from the prior year in his hits and batting average. If he could only finish 3rd in the 1959 MVP voting after hitting .355, how could he be expected to win it the next year when he batted just .292?
That was the logic at the time. The Pirates were a good story, and so was Groat. He genuinely had a really good year, and was the best player on the best team. As Paul pointed out, correctly, it was Banks that won the Gold Glove at shortstop, but the truth is that Groat was better than Banks defensively that year. He led the league with 2.6 Defensive WAR (Banks was still very good at 2.0), to go along with the best range and most Total Zone Runs among all shortstops. Plus he had that batting title. In many years his 6.1 WAR total would be very much in the discussion for the MVP. In fact, as I’ve written before, Nellie Fox won the American League MVP just one year earlier with the same WAR total, and it was a perfectly defensible selection. There have been far worse MVP winners over the years (*cough* Jeff Burroughs *cough*) than Dick Groat in 1960.
Would I have voted for Groat to win the award, looking back at the season sixty-four years later? No.
But do I understand why the voters of 1960 gave it to him? Yes, I do. It wasn’t the choice I would have made, but it wasn’t as egregiously bad as it looks now, and it really isn’t in the running for the title of Worst MVP Decision ever.
NL MVP awards between 1954 and 1965, when Mays won his awards, were mostly an exercise in, "Who can we give the award to besides Willie Mays?" Willie could arguably have won all those awards, but that's not how the voting works.