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Daniel Murphy went on an unprecedented power binge and in doing so earned himself the most valuable player award for the NLCS. Will his homerun barrage usher in a new age of Murph, or will that NLCS MVP become nothing more than a curiosity in the years to come? Post season awards don’t always end of up in the hands of the guys we remember the most, here are 7 guys you probably forgot won a World Series MVP since 1980, number four will really make you scratch your head.
7. David Eckstein – 2006 St Louis Cardinals
Stat Line: 23 PA, .364/.391/.500, 3 2B, 4 RBI
You might be hard pressed to come up with a list of things that Derek Jeter and David Eckstien have in common, if your mind immediately went to “they both have one World Series MVP on their resume” you are probably over qualified to be reading this list. In post season baseball, where players become larger than life isn’t it refreshing to remember that David Eckstien, a normal sized human being, stood taller than everyone else. Even though Scott Rolen and Yadia Molina both put together better slash lines than Eck’s .364/.391/.500, keep in mind that normal sized human being David Eckstein hustled getting those stats.
6. Scott Brosius – 1998 New York Yankees
Stat Line: 17 PA, .471/.471/.824, 2 HR, 6 RBI, 3 R
The 1998 Yankees won 114 regular season games and are widely considered to be one of the greatest baseball teams of all time. This is the best Yankees team of the Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, and Mariano Rivera core four era. So of course an all time greatest team in the history of baseball’s best player in the World Series was Scott Brosius.
5. Frank Viola – 1987 Minnesota Twins
Stat Line: 3 GS, 2-1, 19.1 IP, 16:3 K:BB, 3.72 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 1 HR
If you were a kid, a lucky one, who grew up with a Nintendo in the late 80s, you probably played RBI Baseball. And if you were one of those kids who played a lot of video games you probably remember the left handed pitcher for the '86 Minnesota team as Viola. If you never made the connection before, that small 8 bit left hander was Frank Viola. While appearing video games in the 80s didn’t carry the same kind of prestige that making the cover of Madden does today, Frank Viola would follow up on that early digital debut by winning the 1987 World Series MVP.
4. Troy Glaus – 2002 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Stat Line: 30 PA, .385/.467/.846, 3 2B, 3 HR, 8 RBI, 7 R
Barry Bonds had a .700 on base percentage in the 2002 World Series. Let that sink in, 70% of the time he came to the plate he reached base. That’s the kind of stat destroying monster that Barry Bonds was at the turn of this newest century. If not for the fact that the Giants lost the series in 7 games, the MVP was quite clear. There is precedent, however tenuous, to award a player from the losing team the MVP. In 1960 Bobby Richardson won it despite his Yankees, you know, losing to the Pirates, thus becoming the first and last MVP chosen from the losing side. Troy Glaus though? Sure he won and so did his Angels, but you probably forgot about both those things.
3. David Freese – 2011 St. Louis Cardinals
Stat Line: 28 PA, .348/.464/.696, 3 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 7 RBI, 4 R, 5:3 BB:k,
For a couple of weeks back in 2011 David Freese transformed from just another one of those anonymous pretty good but not great players that seem to be in infinite supply in St. Louis, into Roy Hobbs. Walk off home runs in the postseason will do that for you. Freese actually followed up on his post season run producing theatrics with a solid all star season in 2012. That magic that has all but abandoned him though, in his 6 post season appearances since then he’s hit under .200 in 5 of them.
2. Tom Glavine – 1995 Atlanta Braves
Stat Line: 2 GS, 2-0, 14 IP, 11:6 K:BB, 4 Hits, 1.29 ERA, .71 WHIP, 1 HR
The 1995 season is an odd duck and the Braves an odd franchise. We all have at least a vague conception that the Braves must have won a lot of games in the 90s, winning 9 straight division titles from 1991-99 necessitates that. But you probably forgot just how much winning was going on in Atlanta; 4 seasons with more than 100 wins, 925 total wins, and 5 World Series appearances in the 90s alone. 9 straight postseason appearances and 5 World Series appearances in one decade, and yet their only World Championship was the year after the ’94 strike when no one was paying attention.
1. Paul Molitor – 1993 Toronto Blue Jays
Stat Line: 28 PA, .500/.571/1.000, 2 2B, 2 3B, 2 HR, 8 RBI, 10 R, 1 SB
Baseball as we know has more unwritten rules than written rules, and last time I looked the baseball rulebook checked in at 117 pages. Still you’d have to agree that unwritten rule #1 would read something like if you hit a walkoff home run to win the World Series, and do so in unrestrained joyous fashion, then you shall be awarded World Series MVP. Because of this no one is going to fault you for thinking that Joe Carter won it that year. Rather it was The Ignitor Paul Molitor in his first year north of the border who put together a .500/.571/1.000 slash line to go along with 10 runs scored and 8 driven to take the honor. Not a bad off season free agent signing eh?
