MLB history: Listing the All-MVP Snub Team

When winners of the 2023 Most Valuable Player awards are announced next week, the honorees will join an elite list.

Since the Baseball Writers' Association of America began selecting Most Valuable Players for the American and National Leagues in 1931, only 140 different individuals have been deemed worthy of the honor at least once.

That’s about one-quarter of one percent of the estimated 56,000 MLB player seasons since that year.

For several seasons in the 1920s, the two leagues declared a Most Valuable Player, and prior to that between 1911 and 1914 an automobile company named one. Still, that only runs the count of recognized MVP winners to 157 for all of the game’s history.

And that in turn means that some of the game’s greatest stars (many of them certified Hall of Famers) have never been recognized with an MVP award.

Here’s a look at an All-Star team of MLB greats with a total of zero MVP awards among them

It would be an easy to argument to make that if this team were ever able to take the field, it would be a virtually unstoppable force.

The only position excluded from this team is pitcher, and only because MVP voters have so consistently (especially in recent years) undervalued pitching performance in the casting of MVP votes. No pitcher has even finished among the top three in MVP voting since Clayton Kershaw won the award in 2014.

With Monday’s announcement of MVP finalists — Shohei Ohtani, Marcus Semien and Corey Seager in the AL, Ronald Acuna Jr., Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts in the NL — that trend will reach a full decade when this year’s winners are announced.

Players whose career primes occurred before the creation of the MVP (stars such as Honus Wagner) are also excluded because while they did not win an award, they certainly would have had one existed.

Here’s the team.

Catcher. Gary Carter was an 11-time All Star with the Montreal Expos and New York Mets for most of the 1970s and 1980s. He led the NL in RBIs in 1984, and piled up a 70.1 career WAR across 19 seasons. For his accomplishments Carter was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2003.

Yet he never did manage to claim an MVP. Carter came close twice, finishing second behind Mike Schmidt in 1980 and third in the Mets’ 1986 championship season behind Schmidt and Houston first baseman Glenn Davis.

First base. Over a 23-season career mostly as a force in the Cincinnati lineup, Tony Perez created a Hall of Fame resume. He hit .280 with 379 home runs and 1,652 RBI. Perez hit 40 home runs with 129 RBI in 1970, his third of seven plus-100 RBI seasons. With a career WAR of 54.0, he won election to the Hall in 2000.

But Perez never had any luck with MVP voters. Somewhat amazingly, he only received MVP votes in seven of his 23 seasons, coming no closer than third (behind teammate Johnny Bench and Billy Williams) in that brilliant 1970 season.

Second base. Craig Biggio spent his full 20-season career with the Houston Astros, earning seven All-Star selections. He piled up 65.4 career WAR, four times topping .300 in batting average and .400 in on base average.

Yet somehow, Biggio only really gained MVP support twice. In 1997, he finished a distant fourth behind Larry Walker, Mike Piazza and teammate Jeff Bagwell, and, one year later, he was fifth behind Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Moises Alou and Greg Vaughn.

Shortstop. Arky Vaughan may be the least-known great player in baseball history. A  shortstop mostly for the Pittsburgh Pirates across 14 seasons in the 1930s and 1940s, Vaughan’s fame was damaged by the fact that he never played a postseason game.

Vaughan had some spectacular seasons, including a league-leading .385 average in 1935, a career .318 average, and a career .889 OPS. He piled up a 77.9 WAR and gained enshrinement in 1985.

Yet only twice did Vaughan even get serious MVP consideration. He was third (behind Gabby Hartnett and Dizzy Dean) in that fabulous 1935 season and third again in 1938, this time trailing Ernie Lombardi and Bill Lee.

Third base. MVP voters seem to find it extraordinarily easy to look past great third basemen. Among present or future Hall of Famers at that position who never won an MVP award, Adrian Beltre, Wade Boggs and Ron Santo stand out.

Yet none of those three had the career enjoyed by Eddie Mathews, third baseman of the Milwaukee Braves in the 1950s and 1960s. Mathews won home run titles in 1953 and again in 1959, five times drove in more than 100 runs, and retired with 512 home runs and an .885 OPS.

Mathews twice came frustratingly close to carrying home the MVP. As a second-year player in1953, he got three of the 24 first-place votes and finished second overall behind Roy Campanella. Six years later in 1959, Campanella finished runner-up again, this time to Ernie Banks, receiving five of the 21 first-place votes.

Mathews retired with a total of 96.0 WAR, the most for any position player who never won an MVP award.