The Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player Award (MVP) is an annual Major League Baseball (MLB) award, given to one outstanding player in the American League and one in the National League. Since 1931, it has been awarded by the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA). The winners receive the Kenesaw Mountain Landis Memorial Baseball Award, which became the official name of the award in 1944, in honor of the first MLB commissioner, who served from 1920 until his death on November 25, 1944.
MVP voting takes place before the postseason, but the results are not announced until after the World Series. The BBWAA began by polling three writers in each league city in 1938, reducing that number to two per league city in 1961. The BBWAA does not offer a clear-cut definition of what "most valuable" means, instead leaving the judgment to the individual voters.
First basemen, with 34 winners, have won the most MVPs among infielders, followed by second basemen (16), third basemen (15), and shortstops (15). Of the 25 pitchers who have won the award, 15 are right-handed while 10 are left-handed. Walter Johnson, Carl Hubbell, and Hal Newhouser are the only pitchers who have won multiple times, Newhouser winning consecutively in 1944 and 1945.
Hank Greenberg, Stan Musial, Alex Rodriguez, and Robin Yount have won at different positions, while Rodriguez is the only player who has won the award with two different teams at two different positions. Barry Bonds has won the most often (seven times) and the most consecutively (2001-04). Jimmie Foxx was the first player to win multiple times; 9 players have won three times, and 19 have won twice. Frank Robinson is the only player to win the award in both the American and National Leagues.
The award's only tie occurred in the National League in 1979, when Keith Hernandez and Willie Stargell received an equal number of points. There have been 18 unanimous winners, who received all the first-place votes. The New York Yankees have the most winning players with 22, followed by the St. Louis Cardinals with 17 winners. The award has never been presented to a member of the following three teams: Arizona Diamondbacks, New York Mets, and Tampa Bay Rays. The most recent recipients are José Altuve in the American League and Giancarlo Stanton in the National League.
In recent decades, pitchers have rarely won the award. When Justin Verlander won the AL award in 2011, he became the first pitcher in either league to be named the MVP since Dennis Eckersley in 1992. Verlander also became the first starting pitcher to win this award since Roger Clemens had accomplished the feat in 1986. The National League went even longer without an MVP award to a pitcher--after Bob Gibson won in 1968, no pitcher in that league was named MVP until Clayton Kershaw in 2014.
Video Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player Award
Chalmers Award (1911-1914)
Before the 1910 season, Hugh Chalmers of Chalmers Automobile announced he would present a Chalmers Model 30 automobile to the player with the highest batting average in Major League Baseball at the end of the season. The 1910 race for best average in the American League was between the Detroit Tigers' widely disliked Ty Cobb and Nap Lajoie of the Cleveland Indians. On the last day of the season, Lajoie overtook Cobb's batting average with seven bunt hits against the St. Louis Browns. American League President Ban Johnson said a recalculation showed that Cobb had won the race anyway, and Chalmers ended up awarding cars to both players.
The following season, Chalmers created the Chalmers Award. A committee of baseball writers were to convene after the season to determine the "most important and useful player to the club and to the league". Since the award was not as effective at advertising as Chalmers had hoped, it was discontinued after 1914.
Maps Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player Award
League Awards (1922-1929)
In 1922 the American League created a new award to honor "the baseball player who is of the greatest all-around service to his club". Winners, voted on by a committee of eight baseball writers chaired by James Crusinberry, received a bronze medal and a cash prize. Voters were required to select one player from each team and player-coaches and prior award winners were ineligible. These incredible flaws resulted in Babe Ruth only winning 1 MVP as the award was dropped after 1928. Under the All-Star Formula, Ruth would have won the MVP in 1920, 1921, 1923, 1925, 1928 and 1930 [citation needed]. The National League award, without these restrictions, lasted from 1924 to 1929.
Baseball Writers' Association of America's Most Valuable Player (1931-present)
The BBWAA first awarded the modern MVP after the 1931 season, adopting the format the National League used to distribute its league award. One writer in each city with a team filled out a ten-place ballot, with ten points for the recipient of a first-place vote, nine for a second-place vote, and so on. In 1938, the BBWAA raised the number of voters to three per city and gave 14 points for a first-place vote. The only significant change since then occurred in 1961, when the number of voters was reduced to two per league city.
Key
See also
- "Esurance MLB Awards" Best Major Leaguer (in MLB; all positions) (there are also Best Hitter and Best Pitcher awards (in MLB))
- "Players Choice Awards" Player of the Year (in MLB; all positions) (there are also Outstanding Player and Outstanding Pitcher awards (in each league))
- Baseball America Major League Player of the Year (in MLB; all positions)
- Baseball Digest Player of the Year (in MLB; position players only; from 1969 to 1993, included all positions; in 1994, a separate Pitcher of the Year award was added)
- Best Major League Baseball Player ESPY Award (in MLB; all positions)
- The Sporting News Most Valuable Player Award (in each league) (discontinued in 1946)
- Sporting News Player of the Year (in MLB; position players only)
- List of Major League Baseball awards
- Baseball awards
Notes
- a A player is considered inactive if he has announced his retirement or not played for a full season.
- b A unanimous victory indicates that the player received all possible first-place votes.
- c Torre is a member of the Hall of Fame, but not as a player. He was inducted in 2014 as a manager.
- d Hernandez and Stargell both received 216 points in the 1979 voting.
References
External links
- Most Valuable Player MVP Awards & Cy Young Awards Winners (1911-present) (and "Multiple Winners of the MVP and Cy Young Awards"). Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved 2016-11-07.
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