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How men on hitting can make an MVP.....

Yeah the MVP award crieteria as currently voted is flawed and filled with contradictins, but I just wanted to check on something that my father swore to.

This is the case of Nellie Fox and the 1959 MVP award. My old man swore that he came through 'all the time' in crucial times during the season, and was often instrumental in getting in that important run in the close games that the Sox were often in. He swore that he was an MVP for that reason.

Often times people's memory is clouded. Was my fathers memory clouded in this case?

Nellie Fox in 1959 had a line of...306/.380/.389. His counting totals were 34 doubles, 2 triples, 2 HR, and 70 RBI.

Looking at how he hit with men on...

NOBODY ON 398 at bats
MEN ON ......226 at bats.

NOBODY ON .271 AVG, 327 OB%, .332 SLG%
MEN ON........367 AVG, .464 OB%. 494 SLG%
RISP.............383 AVG, .497 OB%, .527 SLG%


He was Mickey Mantle with men on and RISP! Those are drastic improvements. As can be seen he only made an out roughly HALF THE TIME with RISP.

One of the more interesting things come across in Nellie Fox's batting splits that season.

NOBODY ON BASE.....0 RBI
MEN ON BASE..........70 RBI

That is just odd seeing that.

I didn't compare him to any other hitters of the league to do a real MVP case. I just wanted to show how different the value of the player is when just looking at his totals, as opposed to breaking it down to the real situations of baseball. If somebody just looks at his overall hitting line, it isn't that impressive. But when you look at when he got the hits, it shows how much he was vital to scoring runs and winning games.

Comments

  • JoeBanzaiJoeBanzai Posts: 11,794 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Nellie was a great player. I know you don't put a high importance on strikeouts, but I noticed he was the number 1 hardest guy to strike out for 10 straight years! He had 2 more 1st place and 2 second place finishes. He never struck out more than 18 times in a season.

    He also appears on a baseball card with my guy Killebrew.....Topps 1964 "ALL-STAR VETS".

    JoeBanzai

    2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
  • yawie99yawie99 Posts: 2,575 ✭✭✭
    Was anyone else as perplexed as me by the title of this thread? At least before actually reading the content. Curious syntax, Skin, but interesting numbers on Fox.
    imageimageimageimageimageimage
  • rbeatonrbeaton Posts: 631


    << <i>One of the more interesting things come across in Nellie Fox's batting splits that season.

    NOBODY ON BASE.....0 RBI
    MEN ON BASE..........70 RBI

    That is just odd seeing that.

    >>

    Why is that odd? The only way to get an RBI with nobody on base is to hit a home run; and he only hit 2 of those all year (both times with men on). BTW, where are you getting the data?

    Robert
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  • Yawie, I just read the title, and it reads as if the guys who are on base are the ones hitting. image It is a bit confusing the way it is worded.

    Joe, no I don't place as much emphasis on whiffing as a lot of fans do, but it is a factor(just not quite as large as a lot expect it). I don't have the amount of times on hand that Nellie moved up runners with outs, but however many times it is, is a benefit. Plus he avoided hitting into a lot of Double Plays with all of his contact. SO his contact probably has more value than most(especially since he almost never did strike out)

    rbeaton, it is odd in the difference between the two RBI totals. A guy with zero RBI with nobody would probably be expected to have around 40 RBI...and he has this 70 sitting there. Of course, that is attributed to his men on hitting, and extreme contact ability.
    Just looks strange.

    Retrosheet.org has the splits info. From the home page, look on the left, click on PLAYERS, and it will show a directory to find the player. When you get to the player, click on the word "splits" next to his year for the splits for that season. Click on the word "splits" at the bottom of the totals for his career splits totals.

    If you want a boxscore or play by play account of any game from 1960 on, just click on the word "daily" in the players bio. It will show a log of all the games and its date. You can click on any one of those for the boxscore, and a play by play account of what happened in the game.
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