Man, not that Lynch isn't a common surname or anything, but I also nearly blogged about the same thing last night. Weird.

Anyways, if you go by VORP or WARP, as I am wont to do, Clemente is absolutely crushed by at least six other candidates: Willie Mays, Eddie Matthews, Ken Boyer, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, and Frank Robinson, in some order. Honestly, the Willie Mays comparison really hurts Clemente because Mays handily bests Clemente in all offensive categories and there's just no way that Clemente in RF could compare with Mays in his prime in CF. Groat is also likely to be superior to Clemente, depending on how you account for their defense and how you adjust for position.

I know much of the decision has to do with the fact that Pittsburgh won the pennant and the desire to pick an MVP from Pittsburgh for that reason, but even then, the historian (George Will, I believe) who made the comment about there not being seven more valuable National Leaguers is either:
(a) technically right, but with no point as Clemente is not even close to the above six,
(b) completely right, using a definition of value that disallows players not playing for a "contender" (Pittsburgh won by seven games, only two others were within 13),
(c) totally, obviously wrong.

I'm going with (c). I mean, if your argument is that Clemente was slighted because he finished 8th but should have finished 7th, that's a ridiculous point. And if your argument is that Clemente was slighted because only a player on a contender should win and Pittsburgh was the only contending team, then your quarrel isn't about Clemente, it's about what "value" is.

What a bizarre debate. I would like to add that it is beyond ridiculous that Aaron and Matthews finished 10 and 11 in the MVP vote while playing for the second place team. That is really absurd. They were monsters that year.

Great post, fellow Lynch!

Frankly, had the Pirates not won the World Series, it’s not inconceivable to believe that neither Hoak nor Clemente would have finished in the top 10. Vern Law won the Cy Young Award that year (and maybe he wouldn’t have otherwise),

This is perhaps a nitpicking point, but doesn't Lynch mean "pennant" rather than "World Series"? I always thought that the MVP and CYA ballots were submitted before the end of the World Series, in order to re-emphasize that these are supposed to be regular season awards.

I like the point about bias for players at certain positions.

Groat and Hoak got extra votes for leadership.

I think Clemente was over valuing his defense and hustle. He was more talented than Groat or Hoak but he didn't have a noticeably better season.

If Clemente would have reversed his 1960 and 61 stats then he would have something to complain about.


1960 was the year Clemente came into his prime. He could have beaten out Bobby Richardson for WS MVP.

I admit that I am too young to have seen Clemente, and I don't know nearly as much about him as I should, but my impression of him has taken a hit. Not only did he apparently make a public scene about not winning an individual award,* but he did it in a year in which a teammate of his won it. Even if his goal was to illustrate some anti-Latino sentiment in the media, his sour-grapes position was sure a poor time to demonstrate it.

*Not a fan of individual awards in a team sport to begin with, especially in a sport like baseball where having the single best individual player provides so little assurance of team success.

On edit: I like the point about bias for players at certain positions.

Really? I thought it was backwards. It seems to me that the positions on the left naturally draw the most talented players since they are more demanding and require more skills, so it stands to reason that it's talent more than positional bias that draws more votes to players in those postions.

Man, not that Lynch isn't a common surname or anything, but I also nearly blogged about the same thing last night. Weird...Great post, fellow Lynch!

That is weird! Maybe we're long lost twins who were put up for adoption when we were babies and grew up in two completely different environments, yet we still think alike (clearly I've been watching too much 20/20).

This is perhaps a nitpicking point, but doesn't Lynch mean "pennant" rather than "World Series"? I always thought that the MVP and CYA ballots were submitted before the end of the World Series, in order to re-emphasize that these are supposed to be regular season awards.

Good point. I'll have to look that up.

Really? I thought it was backwards. It seems to me that the positions on the left naturally draw the most talented players since they are more demanding and require more skills, so it stands to reason that it's talent more than positional bias that draws more votes to players in those postions

You also make a good point, but I don't think you can call guys like Groat, Phil Rizzuto, Marty Marion, Bob O'Farrell, Roger Peckinpaugh, Lou Boudreau, Larry Doyle, Johnny Evers, and Joe Gordon more talented than the other players who were up for consideration for the MVP. The above named were talented, to be sure, but it looks like they received extra consideration for playing an up-the-middle position for a World Series or pennant winning team. I'd like to take a look at the different evaluation tools (Win Shares, VORP, WARP, etc.) to see how often the player with the most (or best) is voted MVP. Does anyone know if there's already been a study done that shows the likelihood of a player being named MVP depending on certain criteria (shortstop on a World Series winning team having a better chance than a first baseman, for example)?

Looks like 1967 is the year he SHOULD have won the MVP.

I watched the program the other night, finally. I had it recorded to DVR so was able to just pick a time when I could watch it with my youngest son, age 11. Although I knew of course it would be a very romanticized version of events, I was glad to use the program as a chance to take the lessons of perseverance and self sacrifice and emphasize those to my son.

I don't think Clemente felt he should have won the award, just that he should have placed higher than 8th. He was wrong, and so was Will. But so what? As we have learned, heroes and great men are human too. Half the founding fathers were slave owners. Martin Luther King cheated on his wife. And Roberto Clemente was vain and prickly. For me, it doesn't diminish one iota the great things they did in life.

I will still chime in that Groat and Hoak got a lot of votes for scrappiness and leadership ability.

Nothing wrong with that. I can see Groat getting MVP and Hoak probably got a lot of votes because his acquisition from Cincinnati is given a lot of credit for turing the Bucs from losers to winners.

I don't think Clemente was really a whiner, he just answered questions forthrightly rather than with press speak.

I don't think he thought lightly of his team mates but he wasn't chummy with a lot of them either. Mazeroski doesn't speak much about Clemente so I don't think they were close (he was Clemente's team mate longer than any one, yet neither Maz, Vernon Law or Virdon where interviewed in film.)

According to David Maraniss' biography, Clemente didn't really expect to win the award, but he was hurt that he didn't finish any higher than 8th. Maraniss quotes Clemente as saying, "The writers make me feel bad when you don't even get considered."

According to David Maraniss' biography, Clemente didn't really expect to win the award, but he was hurt that he didn't finish any higher than 8th. Maraniss quotes Clemente as saying, "The writers make me feel bad when you don't even get considered."

That much of Maraniss's addressing of this episode was fine. Where Maraniss then got off track was in his implication that Clemente genuinely had gotten hosed, and deserved, if not to win the MVP, to at least be a very top contender.

Clemente probably was robbed in 1960. Good arguments made. This web site, which has lots of baseball history (how have I missed this site!?) ranks Clemente BEHIND Al Kaline in all-time rankings at right field . While there, check out the shortstop rankings - fuel for debate.

Thoughts?

Slap

"The writers make me feel bad when you don't even get considered."

When you garner enough votes for 8th place, I think you've been considered.

I just reread the passage in Clemente on the 1960 MVP vote, and I don't see that implication at all, Steve. Maraniss says right out that Clemente knew he wouldn't win in.

Clemente, on why his 1961 season will be better than his '60.

I had a very bad winter. I eat the wrong food or too much food or not enough food. I don't know. Now I feel good, real good. I still watch my diet. No fries. I am now healthy. This year I play much better.

From Arnie Hano.

Maraniss says right out that Clemente knew he wouldn't win it.

Yes, but Maraniss presents the strong implication that Clemente should have won it, or at least that his 8th-place finish was far lower than it ought to have been.

As other have pointed out, Clemente wasn't expecting to win. Clemente was expecting a high finish - and what hurt the most was finishing well behind Don Hoak. Most of Clemente's disparaging comments about that vote in later years had to do with his position relative to Hoak.

-- MWE

When you garner enough votes for 8th place, I think you've been considered.

Not to mention that he did get one vote for 1st, too.

-- MWE

what hurt the most was finishing well behind Don Hoak. Most of Clemente's disparaging comments about that vote in later years had to do with his position relative to Hoak.

That seems to be the case, yes. And while Clemente is entitled to his opinion, and can hardly be expected to be very objective in his view, it remains that Hoak had a better year than Clemente in 1960.

Clemente BEHIND Al Kaline in all-time rankings at right field

Where else would you put him?

Where else would you put him?

Ahead, but only slightly. They were pretty close to dead-even.

If the writers didn't "consider" a player on the Pirates, it was Mazeroski who had one of his better offensive seasons and didn't receive any votes (which probably underscores that the votes came in before the outcome of the World Series).

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2008/04/01/wb-clemente-vs-kaline/

This whole thing Clemente/Kaline thing came up recently in a Posnanski post

EDIT: Gonfalon beat me to it. But I'm better at the HTML thing ;-)

I think you have to take things like this with a grain of salt. At this distance, it's ridiculous for us to judge Clemente based on what he said about his treatment by the press. I don't think breaking out the VORP and WARP is appropriate here. Sure, his specific argument here may be slightly off but if no one in 1960 had any idea what WARP was; Dick Groat wasn't any kind of MVP.

To the larger point, that Clemente was probably treated unfairly by the press, is almost certainly true. To cite just one simple thing, it's hard for me to imagine an era where you would Anglicize a name like Roberto just to make everyone more comfortable about him.

To the larger point, that Clemente was probably treated unfairly by the press, is almost certainly true.

It isn't almost certainly true. It is certainly true.

But that fact has nothing to do with explaining the 1960 MVP voting results. His 8th place showing isn't unfair at all; it's just about spot-on with what a VORP/WARP analysis would have indicated had one been performed at the time.

Dick Groat wasn't any kind of MVP.

Now wait a second. You can't say this and argue (justifiably IMHO) against using VORP/WARP at this remove.

Groat led the league in hitting. And, yes, back in those days "hitting" referred to BA. Writers at that time loved BA as a benchmark. He was also considered a good defensive SS. On the pennant winner. That combination will draw a lot of attention (see also Nellie Fox in 1959 and Maury Wills in 1962). Groat also finished 2nd in MVP in 1963 so it wasn't exactly a "fluke".

Using the standards of the day, Groat was a reasonable choice.

On the bias charge -- you never know, but it certainly wasn't "racial" bias (as the Census Bureau would currently define it) as African-Americans regularly won the NL award throughout the 50s. Anti-Latin (an "ethnicity") bias is possible, but apparently they were over it by 65 (Versailles) and then Clemente (66) and Cepeda (67). It's interesting that we didn't see a run of Latin MVPs until 96 with Gonzalez followed by Sosa (98), Gonzalez (98), IROD (99), Tejada (02) then (if you want to count him as Latin) AROD 3 times. There might have been more Latin "sluggers" (Minoso, Clemente, Cepeda, Carty, F Alou) during the 50s and 60s than the 70s and 80s (Cedeno, Jose Cruz, P Guerrero) which seems odd.

it's hard for me to imagine an era where you would Anglicize a name like Roberto just to make everyone more comfortable about him.

Hmmmm, what about an era when on nearly every newspaper comments section that deals with the Presidential campaign, you can always count of at least a half dozen people who will be sure to spell out "Barack HUSSEIN Obama," before saying that "we really DON'T KNOW who he is." With capitals in the original.

Yeah, we've really come a hell of a long way in that respect. You squeeze a balloon in one place, and it just pops up in another.