1. Intro

The year 1999 is a significant year for MVP re-doers because Pedro Martinez came ever so close to winning the MVP for the first time since Dennis Eckersley in 1992, or for more mouth-gaping effect, for the first time since Roger Clemens in 1986 as a starting pitcher. He was so close to the honour, raking 8 first-place votes (which was more than the actual recipient Pudge Rodriguez), and tallying total of 239 points, only 13 points behind the Rangers catcher. This year’s MVP ballot raised a lot of eyebrows:

First,  is this a a fair way to determine an MVP award, a system in which one can get more first-place votes and still lose to those with just more second-place votes? Second, related to the first query, is the MVP ballot more about “how widely you are perceived as a ‘top 2 performer’ than it is about ‘how widely are you perceived as ‘the performer?”  And third, what the hell does a pitcher have to do in order to become the most valuable player in modern times? (Well, Verlander just answered that question, I think.)

Still as interesting as this highly-profiled case may be, today’s post is about the 1999 NL MVP award, another MVP ballot with some potential to intrigue people and lure them into meaningless should-a-would-a-could-a debates, but eventually shadowed by the heated post-ballot discussion regarding the AL MVP.

 

1999 NL MVP Voting

 

2. Why Chipper Jones?

The Braves third-baseman had put up a very respectable number and led his team to a remarkable season with 103 wins. His main appeal for the award was…

1) His second-half surge that helped his team clinch the title (24 HR in 70 games, slugging 0.693)
2) Nearly Pujols-like performace against the Mets, and other division rivals (15 HR in 47 games)
3) League leader in Offensive Wins Above Replacement (8.2), Runs Created (165).
4) 3rd in OPS (1.074), 3rd in Home Runs (45), 4th in TB (359).

The another significant reason why Chipper Jones won the award was, aside from his magnificent numbers, his performance against the Mets during the 3-game series on September 21, 1999, at Turner Field, Atlanta. The 27-year-old delivered 4 home runs and drove in 7 during the three-game series, knocking the Mets out of the race and also making sure that they get hammered too hard to get up and run again. His splendid performance spurred the Braves into the division title, and made his case towards the MVP ballot under the banner “Chipper Jones, the clutch hitter.” (probably this is one of the few cases in which a batter’s single-game performance actually had serious impact on the MVP ballot). In short, it was his ‘clutchness’ that got him the first and the last MVP trophy in his career.

3. Why not Chipper Jones?

I want to make a case for Jeff Bagwell, who, I think, was more deserving of the award than Jones, though not by a large margin. Bagwell makes his case by,

1.  Surprise, surprise, his defensive contribution to the team
2. Even more surprise, his stole 30 bags, unheard of from first basemen in the league
3. League leader in WAR, Offensive WAR, Walks, Runs, Times on Base.
4. 4th in OPS(1.045), 6th in RBI (126), 5th in HR (42).

In late and close situations, Jones batted whopping 0.417 while driving 15 runs in 84 AB. Bagwell batted 0.316, almost 100 points lower, yet drove in 20 runs in just 76 AB. Bagwell walked much more (39) than Jones (18) in late and close situations, which enables him to have even higher On-Base-Percentage (0.547) than Jones’ despite his batting average much lower than Jones’s (0.520). He grounded into a double play only once in those 84 AB. To sum these data up, he was more patient and cautious at the plate under pressure, whereas Jones aggressively tried to take advantage of the situation and actually came through.

This is not to say Jones was not a clutch hitter. He certainly had one of the best clutch seasons in 1999, but I just want to point out that Bagwell was also a clutch hitter in his own way throughout the season. His only fault was that he did not have anything close to 0.417 batting AVG to flaunt, which seems to be the recurring pattern throughout his career. Plus, remember that Jones is a switch-hitter, which means that he can always put pitchers at discomfort by batting the opposite side of the pitcher’s hand. This is actually one reason that Jones could afford to be aggressive at the plate, an advantage that Bagwell did not get to enjoy.

When it came to clutchness of a hitter, Bagwell’ 1999 had a lot to offer, most of which seem to have been overlooked by the MVP voters.

Jeff Bagwell’s Men-on stat, 1999

 

Chipper Jones’ Men-on Stats, 1999

1. Bagwell exhibited .331/.516/730 in RISP, which is better than Jones’ .313/.470/.612 just about in every way.

2. 73.3% of Jones’ unusual 45 home runs were solo shots (33/45) whereas only 20 out of Bagwell’s usual 42 homers were solo, slightly below 50% mark.

3. Bagwell’s season batting average was just about 0.304, not-too-fancy. But he batted 0.331 in 148 AB when RISP, which is what a lot of people would describe as so-called ‘clutch.’ Jones’ RISP batting average, however, was only .313 in 134 AB, which was even lower than his .319 season batting average, ranked 10th in the league. Hmm…

4. When you compare Men-on stats, Chipper Jones stayed at mediocre .280/.429/.508, which isn’t too far from the numbers that Colorado Rockies team average posted that year (.288/.348/.472, though OBP gap is a bit stretchy, you get my point.) In the same situational split, Bagwell hit .303/.460/.605, which seems like MVP caliber number in any given year.

The following is an article from San Francisco Chronicle on September 28, 1999, by Henry Schulman, written a few days after Jones’ terrific performance.

……Unlike last year, when it was a two-horse race between Sosa and McGwire, the National League MVP balloting in 1999 promised to be a scramble.

That is, until one of the candidates stepped up in a monster pressure situation and came through with a Herculean performance.

When Jones, the Atlanta Braves’ switch-hitting slugger, hit four home runs in three games in a showdown series against the New York Mets last week, he secured the trophy, which he might have won anyway. In the first game of that series, he homered from both sides of the plate to give New York its only runs in a 2-1 victory.

Now that’s clutch….

….Furthermore, he is hitting .415 in what Stats Inc. describes as “late and close” at-bats, generally those from the seventh inning on, when your team is either behind or ahead by one run. In comparison, Bagwell’s late-and- close is .324, Williams is at .289 and Sosa .307.

Beyond the numbers, Jones picked his team up in a year of significant injuries to teammates Brian Jordan and Javy Lopez, not to mention the cancer that cost Andres Galarraga the entire season.

Let me confess now that this article was what drove me to write this long analysis of an MVP balloting that took place 12 years ago, which probably no one remembers, not even Bagwell fans. I am in agreement with all the things that he wrote in the article above except the part that reads “he secured the trophy, which he might have won anyway.”

4. Why Bagwell then?

Bagwell was more reliable first baseman in 1999 than Jones was at third. He played every single game in 1999, committing 8 errors in over 1400 innings. True that Jones’ position by nature is more challenging, but given Bagwell’s defensive reliability and Jones’ relative mediocrity at the hot corner, it is hard to argue that Bagwell didn’t get to win the award because Jones had the positional challenge that Bagwell did not have to overcome. Perhaps it is a different story if Bagwell was a DH or incompetent LF while Jones had something close to Gold Glove caliber at 3B or a shortstop (provided that other numbers stayed equal). Then I probably wouldn’t be writing this.

The Braves lineup behind Jones was actually quite strong even with the absence of Andres Galarraga. Brian Jordan drove in 115, Andruw Jones’ WAR marked 7.0 which was the same as Chipper’s, Ryan Klesko and Bret Boone combined 41 home runs. More importantly, the team had Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz-Millwood anchored in the rotation. This is a team that would have done quite alright without Jones.

Lastyly, Bagwell played 81 games in Astrodome, the architectural marvel designed to kill hitters. The dome’s ambiance had the reputation for not carrying the ball well (lowest HR factor from 96-98), not to mention the poor visibility that frequently made the batter complain about (Why do you think Jose Lima suddenly won 21 games and struck out 187 batters in a single season?) Following is Bagwell’s home and away split in 1999, which just about wraps up my argument.

5. Addendum

Jones beat other MVP candidates by quite sizable margin, which I do not think should have been the case (Refer to the ballot result at the top.) He swept 29 first place votes, while Bagwell only got 1. I think Bagwell deserved better result, if not the award itself, and that’s really all I have to say.