Sunday Notes: Gleyber-Like, Carlos Narváez Has Exceeded Expectations in Boston
Carlos Narváez has far exceeded expectations this season. Acquired by the Red Sox from the Yankees last winter in exchange for 22-year-old pitching prospect Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, Narváez went into spring training hoping to earn a job as Boston’s backup catcher. He did much more than that. The 26-year-old backstop went on to claim the starting job, and he heads into the final day of the regular season with 15 home runs and a 97 wRC+ over 446 plate appearances. A plus defender, Narváez has 12 defensive runs saved and 2.7 WAR.
Back in spring training, Alex Cora said something about the still-unproven — just six games of MLB experience — native of Maracay, Venezuela that caught my attention.
“He had a great offseason, playing in winter ball,” the Red Sox manager told a group of reporters, including yours truly. “Learned a lot about the offensive side of it. Very Gleyber-like as far as his swing. He can stay inside the ball and drive it.”
I stored away those quotes, thinking they might be worth revisiting if Narváez were to not only make the team, but also end up contributing with the bat. Six months later, I did just that. Reminding him of what he’d said in Fort Myers, I asked Cora if Narváez still has a Gleyber Torres-like swing.
“Not this year’s Gleyber,” Cora replied. “Now Gleyber pulls the ball. But with Narvy, he’s able to stay inside pitches and shoot it the other way. Early in the season he did an outstanding job with two strikes, then he got tired a little bit and was trying to do too much, but lately he’s been able to shoot the ball the other way… When he gets something soft in the zone, he’s able to hit it in the air to the pull side.”
Shortly after getting Cora’s thoughts, I approached the Boston catcher for his own. Does Narváez feel that he and the Yankees-turned-Tigers infielder are similar?
“We have similar approaches,” Narváez told me. “When I’m at my best, I use the opposite field very well, especially late in counts. Our swings are a little different, but I know Gleyber and his approach — I played with him last year — and that’s pretty similar. We understand to stay inside the baseball.”
Cora had also said during the spring that he’d like to see Narváez drive the ball to left-center field in order to take advantage of his home ballpark. Does the rookie catcher feel that he’s been doing an adequate job of assailing the Green Monster?
“I take my shots sometimes,” said Naráaez, who has hit 12 of his 15 home runs to the pull side, two more to center, and another one to right (around Pesky’s Pole, no less). “That’s usually with hanging pitches or when I’m ahead in counts. But I always go back to my approach. I’m better when I use the opposite field.”
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Andre Thornton went 11 for 19 against Burt Hooton.
Rick Manning went 11 for 22 against Ken Holtzman.
Bobby Avila went 11 for 23 against Hal Newhouser.
Buddy Bell went 11 for 26 against Bill Singer.
Mike Hargrove went 11 for 27 against Dan Petry.
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Brad Ausmus managed the Detroit Tigers in 2014 when the AL Central club finished 90-72 and edged out the Kansas City Royals for first place by one game. How did that Tigers team compare to this year’s squad, which heads into the final day of the regular season with 87 wins and (just barely) a ticket to October baseball. I asked Ausmus that question two weekends ago, at which time the since-scuffling Tabbies had 84 wins and a seemingly comfortable hold on a division title.
“In 2014 it was more of a star-laden lineup,” the now-New York Yankees bench coach said of the squad that went on to be swept by the Baltimore Orioles in the ALDS. “You had Miguel Cabrera. You had Ian Kinsler, Torii Hunter, Victor Martinez, J.D. Martinez started blossoming. So, it was a roster with a lot of stars. Justin Verlander. Max Scherzer. A lot of very well-known baseball players.
“The current roster does have some stars — Tarik Skubal. Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson — but they also have a very flexible roster where they can mix and match. They can put platoon lineups out there. There aren’t many household names, but there are a few guys who will probably become more household names. A couple of the young pitchers, Jackson Jobe and Reese Olson, have a chance to be stars. Again, in 2014 we had a ton of household names. There is more than one way to go about having a winning roster.”
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How do the 2025 Tigers compare to last year’s 86-76 squad that captured a Wild Card berth, then went on to lose to the Cleveland Guardians in the ALDS? I asked that question to broadcast analyst Andy Dirks.
“They hit more home runs,” said Dirks, who played in Detroit from 2011-2013 before moving into the booth a few years ago. “They’ve also been better against left-handed starting pitchers. Torkelson. The Gleyber Torres signing was huge against lefties. Jahmai Jones has been absolutely destroying left-handed pitching. The contributions have been pretty significant from the right-handed hitters.”
The numbers largely back that up. Tigers righties have combined for 87 home runs with a 103 wRC+ this season, whereas last year they hit 78 home runs with just an 83 wRC+.
Dirks also weighed in on the pitching.
“Reese Olson and Jackson Jobe being hurt definitely makes the rotation a little more difficult,” the former outfield said. “You’ve got Casey [Mize], [Jack] Flaherty, and Skubal, but there have been gaps to fill. Keider Montero has been up and down, which he was last year. And then last year they went to pitching chaos pretty exclusively. This year they haven’t done it as much.”
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A quiz:
Which player has recorded the most hits for the Chicago Cubs since the start of the 1960 season? (a hint: Sammy Sosa is the only Cub with more home runs over that span.)
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NEWS NOTES
Jean Hastings Ardell was honored with the 2025 SABR Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Achievement Award at last weekend’s SABR/WBC Women in Baseball Conference. More information can be found here.
Bob Oldis, a native of Preston, Iowa who played in 135 games while wearing the tools of ignorance for three teams across the 1953-1963 seasons, died last Sunday at age 97. All told, Oldis recorded 56 hits, including one home run, as a part-timer for the Washington Senators, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Philadelphia Phillies. He later coached under Gene Mauch.
Ed Acosta, a right-hander who appeared in three games for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1970, and in 54 games for the San Diego Padres over the next two seasons, died on September 18 at age 81. The Boquete, Panama native went 6-9 with one save and a 4.05 ERA.
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The answer to the quiz is Billy Williams, with 2,505 hits. Ryne Sandberg ranks second, with 2,385 hits.
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Back in mid-July, this column included Cincinnati Reds broadcaster John Sadak opining that catcher Jose Trevino had been the team’s most pleasant surprise to date. Left on the cutting-room floor from our then-conversation was what he told me about a pair of southpaws.
“Several of the pitchers have taken big strides,’ Sadak said. “I think the changeup is the under-the-radar pitch for the staff. This is the best changeup that Andrew Abbott has ever thrown. If you look at the metrics, his average-against has plummeted dramatically. He’s also using it more this year. The same for Nick Lododo. His changeup almost became his primary out-pitch at times. The breaking ball has always been what he’s known for, but his command of it wasn’t as clean early on, and he kind of morphed into a changeup/sinker guy for a few weeks. Those are two lefties that learn from each other.”
Lodolo will finish the regular season having thrown his changeup at a 21.9% clip, with opposing hitters logging a .196 BAA and a .315 slug against the offering. Abbott will have thrown his 19.6% of the times, with a .215 BAA and a .349 slug.
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How do the 2025 Cleveland Guardians compare to last year’s 92-69 squad that won the AL Central, only to subsequently lose to the Yankees in the ALCS? I asked that question to Jim Rosenhaus.
“They had to scramble more offensively,” the Guardians radio broadcaster said of this year’s team, which is postseason-bound for the seventh time in 10 years and heads into today’s finale with an 86-74 record. “A year ago, they had Josh Naylor putting up big numbers. David Fry put up big numbers. Lane Thomas put up good numbers. That’s the biggest difference. But recently, Bo Naylor has been hot. They got a home run from [George] Valera last night. So, different people are picking up the slack. [Kyle] Manzardo has had a good year. [Brayan] Rocchio has gotten hot the second half. At different points of the season, different guys have helped us score just enough to complement the pitching.
“We’re also deeper pitching-wise, coming down the stretch. The bullpen has been really good, and the starters are really deep. To go with a six-man rotation and having them all performing well, that’s pretty impressive. I don’t know that we had that depth a year ago.”
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A random obscure former player snapshot:
Reggie Cleveland isn’t obscure if you were following baseball in the 1970s, but you likely aren’t familiar with him if that decade predates your fandom. The right-hander from Swift Current, Saskatchewan wasn’t a star, but he was a solid big-league starter (and occasionally reliever) from 1969-1981. Pitching for four teams, he went 105-106 with a 4.01 ERA, logging 25 saves along the way.
His best statistical season was 1973. That summer, Cleveland posted a record of 14-10 with a 3.01 ERA for the St. Louis Cardinals, after which he was traded to Boston as part of a six-player deal in December. Two years later, he went 13-9 for a Red Sox squad that went on to lose to an epic 1975 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. One of just nine players in MLB history to have been born in Saskatchewan, he has the fourth-highest win total among Canadian hurlers.
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FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The Netherlands beat Italy 6-5 yesterday to win this year’s European Baseball Championships. Czechia took home the bronze, outscoring Spain 9-2.
The Kia Tigers won’t repeat as KBO champions, as the Gwangju, South Korea-based club was eliminated from postseason contention this past Wednesday. Reigning MVP Do Yeong Kim’s missing much of the campaign with multiple injuries was a factor. The 21-year-old superstar played in just 30 games.
Patrick Wisdom has hit a team-best 33 home runs for Tigers. The 34-year-old third baseman is in his first KBO season after playing for the Chicago Cubs from 2020-2024.
Tatsuya Imai has a 1.77 ERA and a 2.00 FIP, as well as a 27.8% strikeout rate that ranks as the highest among qualified NPB pitchers. The 27-year-old Seibu Lions right-hander’s 182-and-two-thirds innings pitched is the most in Japan’s top league.
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The Pittsburgh Pirates took pitchers with their first two picks in this year’s amateur draft. Their next two selections were Murf Gray, a 21-year-old third baseman out of Fresno State, and Easton Carmichael, a 21-year-old catcher out of the University of Oklahoma. Asked if his team was prioritizing position players when they tabbed Gray and Carmichael, Pirates GM Ben Cherington said that wasn’t necessarily the case. At the same time, adding bats was clearly a draft-day objective.
“We’re mostly doing what the board is telling us to do, and when we got to those picks we felt like they were the best players available,” Cherington told me. “We know we have to acquire offense. It’s less likely that we’ll do that through free agency, so it has to come through trades, the draft, etcetera.”
Cherington called the Carmichael selection “betting on an athlete who we think can catch.” He described Gray as a physical athlete whose makeup and work ethic will help allow him to make needed adjustments.
The mention of adjustments, paired with the Pirates’ need to add offense, prompted a followup question: Have there been any changes to the hitting development program over the past year?
“The last 12 to 18 months, yes,” the GM replied. “I don’t want to get into too much detail, but there have been changes made, some where 2025 was the first year of implementation. We’re trying to be more precise and intentional about what we’re focusing on, level to level. What are the things we’re trying to improve, and when are we trying to improve them? What is the right time to be focusing on building a bigger, stronger, faster athlete? Then, when and how do we get them into more-nuanced skills, like swing decisions and adjustability?”
The Pirates have scored 579 runs this season, the fewest of any team. To say they need to continue to upgrade their hitting-development program is stating the obvious.
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FARM NOTES
The Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (Miami Marlins) outscored the Las Vegas Aviators (Athletics) 8-7 to win last night’s Triple-A championship game. Jacob Berry, whom Miami drafted sixth-overall in 2022 out of LSU, walked off the contest with a two-run homer.
The Binghamton Rumble Ponies (New York Mets) won the Double-A Eastern League’s championship series, topping the Erie SeaWolves (Detroit Tigers) in the best-of-three finals. The Reid Brignac-managed team went 90-46 in the regular season.
Dax Kilby slashed .353/.457/.441 with a 159 wRC+ over 81 plate appearances for the Low-A Tampa Tarpons. The 18-year-old shortstop was drafted 29th overall this summer by the New York Yankees out of a Newnan, Georgia high school.
Wehiwa Aloy slashed .288/.356/.500 with a 146 wRC+ over 80 plate appearances for the Low-A Delmarva Shorebirds. The 21-year-old shortstop was drafted 31st overall this summer by the Baltimore Orioles out of the University of Arkansas.
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Jumping back to the Tigers, Riley Greene was my preseason pick to capture AL MVP honors, and while that prediction won’t come to fruition — not with what Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh have been doing — he has had a good year. The Detroit Tigers outfielder has 36 home runs and 111 RBIs to go with a 121 wRC+ and 3.2 WAR.
How satisfied is he with the season he’s had?
“It’s been great,” said Greene, who is celebrating his 25th birthday today. “My goal was to show up and try to help this team win every single day, and I feel like I’ve done that. The strikeouts have been a little high (201 on the season), but other than that, I think it’s been pretty good. Of course, it can always be better.”
Greene told me that he doesn’t really look at his numbers during the season. As for the stat he most cares about, that would “probably be RBIs, because I’m helping the team score runs.”
What about any the of advanced stats?
“Nah. I don’t really understand the advanced stats, to be honest,” Greene said to that question. “I just play baseball.”
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
Oriole Park at Camden Yards will be relocating “the best press box in baseball” over the offseason. Rich Dubroff has the story at Baltimore Baseball.
Doug Glanville appreciates the days of expanded September rosters. He explained why that is at Welcome To Glanville.
The Athletic’s Dennis Lin addressed the decline of .300 hitters, and the value of batting average in today’s game.
The Providence Journal’s Joe McDonald covered the Pawtucket Red Sox when Buddy Bailey managed the Triple-A Club in the mid-1990s, and again in early 2000s. McDonald wrote a tribute to Bailey, who died earlier this week at age 68.
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
The Colorado Rockies joined the National League in 1993 and have since compiled a .456 winning percentage, the lowest among active franchises. Rockies hitters have combined for a .270 batting average, the highest among active franchises.
The Detroit Tigers have stolen 60 bases this season (the fewest of any team) and have been caught stealing 16 times. The New York Mets have stolen 145 bases and been caught stealing 18 times.
José Soriano has walked at least one batter in each of his last 50 starts, the longest active streak in the majors. Kodai Senga (42) and Gavin Williams (39) have the next longest streaks. (per the Cleveland Guardians press notes).
Carlos Rodón will finish the regular season with 203 strikeouts and 132 hits allowed. Per Stathead’s Katie Sharp, the left-hander is the first pitcher in Yankees history to have a season with at least 200 strikeouts and fewer than 140 hits allowed.
On today’s date in 1990, Jeff Stone plated Wade Boggs with a walk-off single to give the Boston Red Sox a 7-6 come-from-behind win over the Toronto Blue Jays. Had the Red Sox not rallied with two runs off of Tom Henke in the ninth, the Blue Jays would have tied them for first place with just five games remaining. The hit was the last of Stone’s major-league career, and his only one that season.
Ted Williams homered in the final plate appearances of his career on today’s date in 1960. The Splendid Splinter went deep at Fenway Park against Baltimore Orioles right-hander Jack Fisher to help lift the Red Sox to a 5-4 win. All told, Williams homered 521 times while logging a 187 wRC+ and 129.8 WAR.
Montreal Expos right-hander Greg Harris pitched ambidextrously against the Cincinnati Reds on today’s date in 1995, becoming the first pitcher to do so in the modern era. Harris walked the first of the two batters he faced while throwing left-handed — he also faced two as a righty — then got a 2-3 out on a chopper in front of the plate (Joe Siddall, who is now a broadcast analyst for the Toronto Blue Jay, was the catcher).
Players born on today’s date include Joey Nation, a southpaw whose big-league career comprised two appearances for the Chicago Cubs, the second of them on today’s date in 2000. Nation was the losing pitcher in both games, allowing a total of nine runs in 11-and-two-thirds innings. He did go 2-for-4 at the plate.
Also born on today’s date was Keiichi Yabu, a right-hander from Minami Muro-gun, Japan who appeared in 40 games for the Oakland Athletics in 2005, and in 60 games for the San Francisco Giants in 2008. Thirty-six years old when he made his MLB debut — he’d previously spent 11 seasons with the Hanshin Tigers — Yabu went 7-6 with one save and a 4.00 ERA over 68 innings. He pitched in Mexico in 2006 and 2007.
William Thomas pitched professionally from 1926-1952, logging 383 wins while taking the mound over 1,000 times. The right-hander’s many teams included the Brownsville Charros, Charleroi Babes, Hollywood Stars, Owensboro Oilers, and Wheeling Stogies. He played exclusively down on the farm.
David Laurila grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and now writes about baseball from his home in Cambridge, Mass. He authored the Prospectus Q&A series at Baseball Prospectus from December 2006-May 2011 before being claimed off waivers by FanGraphs. He can be followed on Twitter @DavidLaurilaQA.
Your answer doesn’t match your question. Billy Williams retired in 1976, so how can he have the most hits for the Cubbies since the 1990 season?
Yeah that was confusing. I went with Mark Grace who I believe is the correct post-1990 answer.
The actual answer to the question as stated is Sosa himself, which makes the hint wrong. Although I guessed Grace, who doesn’t fit the hint. Rizzo is second in HR since 1990 and third in hits.
You’re right that it’s Sosa. But the hint obviously made Sosa an “impossible” guess
Oops. Really bad typo there. Corrected to 1960. Thanks for the heads up.
Checking in late so I didn’t see the 1990 typo. For the corrected 1960 question, I did get the answer which has be one of Banks, Williams, Santo, Sandberg or Grace. There are literally no other choices. I decided too much of Banks’ career was pre-1960 and too much of Grace’s career was after he left the Cubs and Santo’s career was a little too short to be the answer (Santo also built a lot of his value off HR and BB, neither of which reflect a guy stacking up knocks). I easily could have gone with of either of Sandberg or Williams but recollected that Williams had a LOT of hits when he retired so went with him.
Clue made it easy today.
Without that, I may have guessed Mark Grace or Sandberg.
Had the quiz been written correctly when I saw it this morning, I would have guessed Ernie Banks. Always think of his career starting later than it did (1953).
Reggie Cleveland’s main claim to fame is the Bill Simmons “Reggie Cleveland All Stars”: players who’s names sound like they would be a different race/ethnicity.
Which is totally politically incorrect, of course, & something that would never get traction today but, it was literally the first thing I thought of.
I definitely had a baseball card of him when I was a kid. And as a Cleveland fan, I thought it was weird that he didn’t pitch for Cleveland.
So did I. I remember a few 1976-78 Topps cards with him on Boston.
Other than that, though..I don’t remember anything about him, other than what I mentioned above.
Pretty good career for someone who went undrafted.
Was he eligible to be drafted though? He signed in 1965 which was also the first year of the draft (no idea if he signed before or after). He was also Canadian and I have no idea if Canadians were part of the draft at that point.
He is joined with Troy O’Leary in that red Sox group..
I saw the quiz after the correction and got it instantly. Billy Williams is Top 3-5 in almost every offensive category in Cubs history and if you start it in 1960 it cuts off Ernie Banks’ best years (as well as the old timers before integration). An extremely underrated player, he was still raking in his early 30s. Perfect hard-to-guess answer for a quiz.
I just couldn’t remember how many good years Billy Williams had before 1960 which led me to a coin flip between him and Ryno. Glad I went with Billy Williams!
Glad you finally remembered Billy Williams, cause I know he’s tripped you up on past quizzes (I think he’s been a quiz answer at least 3 times).
I was wondering how I was so confident about that answer!
Mainly due to the clue, I correctly guessed Billy Williams.
Being a late riser, by the time I got to the question it read “1960,” so Williams was the easy answer. Dude was a beast – career .376 career wOBA/132 wRC+/426 HRs/60.4 fWAR/63.7 bWAR – how is he not a HOFer?
He is a HOF’er. Took him a while, but, he’s in.
Oops. Thanks for the correction.
In Dan’s chat on Thursday, I asked (too late to make the chat) “wouldn’t it be something if Judge hit 12 HR’s the next 4 games to pass Raleigh in HR’s?”
He hasn’t done that, but, has he taken back the MVP race with his finish this weekend?? Esp if NYY passes Toronto?
Last 4 games- 8 for 14, 4 HR, 4 BB..That’ll play.
Seems pretty clear to me who the best / most valuable player is and his recent performance reinforces it. But I am convinced that Raleigh is going to win it. Anyone who has to write a column about it is going to have a hard time finding an interesting story to write about with Judge that they didn’t write about the last two times. while there is plenty to write about with Raleigh.
IMO we have become numb to Judge’s accomplishments. He is the best hitter outside of the steroid years since the 1950s and if he keeps doing this he will have a claim as the best hitter of all time. And he’s probably a 60 defender in the corner outfield. This is something I thought we would never see and we are treating it like business as usual.
You can’t go to the “which team would be lost without him?” argument either, because they’re pretty equal that way.
An incomplete list of the best seasons to not win MVP from 1962 to 2024. It seems likely that Raleigh will beat Judge, and Judge will definitely be on there if Raleigh wins. Interestingly, Judge is responsible for bumping two of these guys off with his mega-years in 2022 and 2024. I’ll put the fWAR ranking (or where it would have been if they were a position player) in parentheses afterwards (and for pitchers, the RA9-WAR too). Ordered from “least impressive” to most.
1969: Rico Petrocelli, 9.6 fWAR (30th). He hit 40 home runs and batted .297 while playing shortstop (quite well) but this went to Harmon Killebrew, who was better offensively but didn’t offer nearly the same value on defense. This one could have also gone to Reggie Jackson (8.9 fWAR) because he hit just as well as Killebrew and played better defense, but Killebrew’s team won the division. Jackson and Petrocelli got zero first place votes between them.
1973: Darrell Evans, 9.7 fWAR (28th). He hit 41 homers and lost it to Pete Rose, who wasn’t even the best player on his own team that year (Joe Morgan had 9.5 fWAR). Yes, Pete Rose had a .338 batting average and that is shiny, but he only hit 5 homers and didn’t even have the highest batting average in MLB that year (Rod Carew hit .350). Joe Morgan only got one first place vote and Darrell Evans only got a 3% vote share. There were a ton of outstanding NL players that year with Evans, Morgan, Stargell, Bobby Bonds, Pete Rose, and Cesar Cedeno, and I understand why Evans didn’t get it because the Braves had a losing record, but Rose had so much less power than Morgan it’s hard to understand how everyone decided on Rose. Although they gave Morgan the MVP in both 1975 and 1976, so clearly they saw how good he was eventually.
1996: Ken Griffey Jr, 9.7 fWAR (26th). This one winds up high up on the list of worst MVP decisions ever, since they gave it to Juan Gonzalez despite Griffey’s obviously superior year as a defender and similar offensive stats. They probably didn’t know how much better Griffey was, but they should have known Griffey was at least a 70 defender that year in CF and Gonzalez was clearly no better than a 40 in RF.
1985: Rickey Henderson, 9.7 fWAR (27th). They gave it to Rickey’s teammate Don Mattingly because he had a 10 point advantage in batting average and hit an additional 11 homers, overlooking Rickey’s stellar defense in left field and 80 steals (and his huge OBP, which writers didn’t care about as much then). This was probably because of the cult of the RBI (Mattingly led the league with 145) but since Rickey had an even larger lead in runs than Mattingly did in RBI I find it hard to justify this even without talking about Rickey’s huge OBP advantage. Also, Rickey Henderson was easily the coolest baseball player of his era, maybe ever.
1984: Cal Ripken Jr, 9.8 fWAR (25th). They gave it to a reliever. Willie Hernandez was excellent and might have even deserved the Cy Young he won that year, but with the bias against pitchers in the MVP award in general to make an exception for Hernandez was crazy. But they had given it to Cal Ripken Jr the previous year, and the next best position player in the AL was either Lloyd Moseby or Alan Trammell.
2012 and 2013: Mike Trout, 10.1 fWAR both years (17th, 18th). The MVP debate that catalyzed new school methods versus old-school triple crown winners. Trout and Cabrera are both getting into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot but every time I hear someone say “WAR shouldn’t automatically determine the MVP” I get mentally transported back to these years.
2022: Shohei Ohtani, 3.6 hitting fWAR, 5.6 pitching fWAR (6.2 RA9-WAR), total fWAR 9.2 (45th), or with pitching RA9-WAR it would be 9.8 (24th). Not the highest WAR total on this list but this was one of the all-time best seasons because nobody had pitched that well while hitting full time…ever? But Ohtani’s best pitching season happened the year Judge hit 62 homers and put up 11.1 fWAR.
1999 and 2000: Pedro Martinez, 11.6 fWAR (4th) and 10.1 RA9-WAR (18th) in 1999, 9.4 fWAR (39th) and 12.2 RA9-WAR (3rd) in 2000. Take your pick, depending on your preferred flavor of WAR one of these two is the most dominant pitching season of all time. Somehow Pudge Rodriguez won it in 1999 and Jason Giambi in 2000. Pedro lost these because he was a pitcher, that’s the only reason.
2024: Bobby Witt Jr, 10.5 fWAR (11th). Bobby Witt Jr had arguably the best season for a shortstop outside of the steroid era and post-integration, and it doesn’t matter. Because Aaron Judge has arguably the best hitting season of the entire post-integration, non-steroid era regardless of position, slashing .326 / .458 / .701. Some echoes of 2024 in this year’s voting race, with Raleigh in there for Witt, except that neither Raleigh nor Judge are as good as the top two in 2024.
1962, 1963, and 1964: Willie Mays got 9.8 fWAR in 1963 and 10.5 fWAR in 1962 and 1964 and he didn’t win it any of those times. In 1963 they gave it to Sandy Koufax, and Sandy Koufax was so good that year it’s hard to blame them (9.2 fWAR, 11.3 RA9-WAR). But somehow Mays only won 2 MVPs despite leading the NL in position player WAR…nine times? I am losing track. It’s not like people didn’t know how good he was, everyone knew he was one of the greatest defensive center fielders of all time and he was averaging a .305 batting average with 45 homers over that three year stretch. I have to assume that they were bored with him like we are with Judge.
Thanks for this list. I agree with you that Raleigh is likely to win even though Judge has been better. Some of it is voter fatigue (has happened in the past), but having Raleigh put up a historic season is going to have voters looking for a way to recognize it. Interestingly there is a much bigger gap in bWar than fWar.
bWAR doesn’t include framing and fWAR does. It makes a big difference in Raleigh’s favor.
Willie Mays is one of those player pages you can’t stop looking at his player pages. He led the majors in bWAR 10 times over a 13 year period and only won 2 MVPs (& only finished 2nd twice).
His WAR isn’t in the same tier as the ones you mention but 1987 Alan Trammell 8.2 WAR vs. George Bell 5.0WAR (but 134 RBIs!) was also a shame. At least Trammell made it close.
I read somewhere Tatsuya Imai is going to get posted. He should score a deal much better than Senga’s although how much more is a good question.
Kilby is from Newnan, not Newman.
With all due respect for the remarkable run that the Guardians have made, I, one of the most avid Red Sox fans on the planet, would much rather see the Red Sox face them in the wild card series than the Yankees or Blue Jays so, incredibly, I am actually rooting for the Red Sox to lose this afternoon and the Guardians to win so the Red Sox drop to the #6 seed and draw the Guardians. This bizarre scenario is obviously the first time since that fateful day in 1948 when I first entered Fenway Park that I have ever hoped the Red Sox would lose, a span of approximately 12,300 games.
I’m a Guardians fan and I get that. I think the starting pitching is better/deeper than last year. The bullpen isn’t quite as good but hopefully Vogt learned a bit last year and will better utilize the pen this year. But that offense???
BTW, just read that the Guardians have the lowest batting average ever for a playoff team, besting the 1906 White Sox. Ouch!
I had tickets to see the Sox in 1979. Yaz was stuck on 2999. I rooted against him for 3 days and was in the bleachers when he got number 3000. I felt I should have gotten partial credit for Joe Fitzgerald column , its lonely out here on the Yaz watch.
Love these articles you always get interesting quotes from players, coaches and managers.
I’m surprised David passed up the chance to cite some of the minor-league teams that William Thomas, the birthday guy who never reached the majors but pitched until he was 47, played for. I though he’d for sure go for the Charleroi Babes, the Beaumont Exporters and the Wheeling Stogies.
I never saw the typo which made this one of the easiest quizzes. He was overshadowed by Ernie Banks for much of his career but is a worthy Hall of Famer