Cleveland Indians: 4 players in Tribe history that should’ve won AL MVP
By Chad Porto
The Cleveland Indians have had a hard time getting the accolades they deserve, and these are just four times a player got robbed of the AL MVP award.
Here’s today’s theme; the Cleveland Indians market is why the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award has rarely come to the corner of Carnegie and Ontario. There’s no other way to describe the sheer disrespect some of the games greatest hitters have been treated by MVP voters. It’s just been a travesty.
That’s not to say that every year an Indians player deserves to win, because that’s not true. Yet, in the last 30 years, there have been four players, and several more seasons, where the Indians dang sure should’ve brought home some hardware.
No Indians player has won the AL MVP (or any MVP technically) since 1953. If you think the Indians haven’t had MVP worthy caliber players in the last 67 years, boy, do we have news for you. That’s why looking at four Indians players who got robbed of the regular season hardware.
Honorable Mention
Before we get to the four names, let’s take a look at two players who had great years but maybe fell just short. First up is 2014 and Michael Brantley. Brantley finished third and had a strong case to warrant consideration for the MVP. The only problem is that while Brantley had comparable stats to winner Mike Trout, his team actually was really good that year; winning 98 games. Even if Brantley had a better year than Trout, he’d still be falling in second behind Victor Martinez who lost out as well. Trout was the right pick but Brantley was still really impressive.
It’s a shame to say but Jim Thome never finished higher than sixth in AL MVP voting. What’s even sadder to say is that Thome’s best year, he only finished seventh. The Cleveland icon hit .304, with 52 home runs and 118 RBI’s. He had arguably the second-best all-around season of anyone not named Alex Rodrigeuz and he was a PED player. That said, this was the year Miguel Tejada clutch-hit his way to an MVP award. While Tejada was a PED player too, his late-season heroics was more than enough to give him the award, at the time. Even if the PED players were removed from the equation and Thomes home team wasn’t penalized yearly for such awards like the MVP, it’d be fair to argue against him winning in 2002. The Indians were just a bad team. Any team that has a losing record should have all of their players disqualified for the MVP award. It should only ever go to a player on a winning club.
How are you the most valuable player if your team is terrible?