![]() Trout probably could have made this list four times, but we'll go with his most notable miss. His 1994 suspension for using a corked bat may have also been in voters' minds when they gave the honor to Vaughn, who was far more respected as a person and had an excellent season in his own right. There's no doubt that Belle's many off-field issues, including sparring sessions with the media, had a lot to do with how this vote played out. Focus On Sport / Getty Images Sport / Getty But when the ballots were counted, Belle lost out to Vaughn in one of the closest votes in MVP history. And he did it all in a strike-shortened campaign. He became the first player to get 100 extra-base hits in a single season since the 1940s. He also crafted the first - and still only - 50-homer, 50-double season in MLB history and led the AL in runs scored and RBIs. 317/.401/.690 to lead the resurgent Cleveland club to its first pennant in 41 years, but that's only the start. Martinez's '99 season is still unfathomable in some ways. But that was also par for the course in 1999's offense-heavy environment. He turned in one of the best offensive seasons ever for a catcher, with a. Some voters certainly found him worthy, as he earned more first-place votes (eight) than Rodriguez (seven), but the Texas Rangers catcher won out by 13 points. The pitching Triple Crown winner racked up 313 strikeouts, posted the lowest WHIP and highest WAR in AL/NL history, posted the lowest ERA and FIP of the modern era, and - perhaps most incredibly given this was during the height of the steroid era - allowed just nine homers in 213 1/3 innings. Martinez wasn't just special in 1999 - he was otherworldly. To win an MVP as a pitcher, you need to do something extraordinarily special. If ever there was a year for a tie, this was it. Sosa was a worthy MVP candidate with 66 homers of his own, and he also led the majors in runs scored (134) and RBIs (158). The reason: Sosa's surge got the Cubs into the playoffs, while McGwire hit all those homers in a lost season for the St. But while Big Mac ended up in the record books (for only three years), it was Sosa who earned the MVP in a walk, receiving 30 of 32 first-place votes. 299/.470/.752 slash line that was far superior to Sosa's despite the Chicago Cubs star hitting over. The great home run chase of 1998 helped revive baseball, and of course, the MVP race was between the titans who obliterated the single-season record. Mark McGwire - 1998 Sporting News Archive / Sporting News / Getty Hopefully, Guerrero's fortunes are less like those of Judge who narrowly lost out on MVP in his rookie year and has yet to earn the honor, and more like Mike Trout who came up short in his first year to Miguel Cabrera but now has three trophies on his mantle. The only problem: He did it in the same league as the modern-day Babe Ruth. Guerrero led all of baseball in homers, runs scored, and total bases, came reasonably close to winning the Triple Crown, and topped the AL with a. But, it certainly makes Judge's loss seem worse, as the New York Yankees slugger paced the AL with 128 runs scored, 127 walks, 52 homers, and 8.3 WAR as a rookie. It's a season now mired in controversy, and we'll likely never know the real impact that sign-stealing had on Altuve's MVP-caliber performance. Mike Stobe / Getty Images Sport / GettyĪltuve led the league in hits and batting average while guiding the Houston Astros to their first World Series title. ![]() Like most entries on this list, Judge would have been a deserving MVP winner, but the actual winner deserved it too. Nevertheless, it's wild to think how close Bonds came to having two separate runs of four straight MVP nods. The tiebreaker was probably Pendleton's Atlanta Braves going worst-to-first, and batting average was still considered the most relevant offensive stat. But he narrowly lost the MVP vote to Pendleton, who won the batting title after leading the Senior Circuit in hits but was otherwise inferior to Bonds. ![]() ![]() He was the only NL player to surpass 7.0 WAR, won a Gold Glove in left field, and struck out just 73 times in 634 plate appearances. Richard Mackson / Sports Illustrated / Gettyīonds followed up his 1990 NL MVP season by hitting. Bonds' second-place finish following his 1991 campaign with the Pittsburgh Pirates stands out as the biggest snub of his career. Bonds was far and away the best player in baseball for over a decade, and he probably should have won more than seven MVPs. ![]()
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