Not Your Average MVP

In a previous post, I mentioned that Andruw Jones needs to get his average up if he wants to win MVP. He's hitting .277 now (thanks to two HRs yesterday, #37 is a career-high), but baseball stats are glaring, and I wonder if the voters will hold it against him. Especially with DLee and Pujols hitting .340+ and also making valuable contributions to their teams' success.

I was curious how Andruw's average compares to former NL MVPs, so I consulted the Baseball Almanac.

My hypothesis was, in fact, correct: In the last 10 years, the lowest batting average for any MVP, NL or AL, is .298, hit by ARod in 2003. Other than that, every single MVP winner since 1995 has hit .300 or better.


In fact, there have only been six players in the modern era in either league who have hit less than .280, and they all pre-date 1973: Johnny Bench (.270, 1972), Harmon Killebrew (.276, 1969), Zoilo Versalles (.273, 1965), Roger Maris (.269, 1961!), and Yogi Berra (.272, 1955), Hank Sauer (.270, 1952).

In case you're curious, the lowest batting average ever for an MVP is .267 by Marty Marion in 1944.

Gah! Don't you just love stats? Good link: http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/mvp_cya.shtml


Come on, Andruw...just get to .290!