Which Dodgers award winners were the most unlikely?

Formed in 1883, the Dodgers organization has a long and storied past. From the days at Ebbett’s Field in Brooklyn to their cross-country move out west to Los Angeles, the Dodgers have fielded some of the best teams in baseball history.

Over the course of their 137-year history, the team has featured some of the best players of all-time. Likewise, the Dodgers have seen their fair share of award winners among that bunch. That includes 44 players that appear in the Hall of Fame (15 wearing the Dodgers cap), 14 Most Valuable Player winners, 12 Cy Youngs, 18 Rookie of the Year honorees, and even 10 Comeback Players of the Year.

But while the Dodgers have been recognized vastly among their peers, there have been a few instances where the award winners may not have been the best choice. That will always be a problem as long as the awards are voted on by human voters (in this case the media) who may or may not be biased to some degree.

Let’s take a look at a few such instances where a member of the Dodgers took home the hardware that likely should have gone to a more worthy recipient.

1974 National League MVP

The 1974 award season may have seen truly head-scratching voting when it came to the Most Valuable Player awards in both leagues. When the dust settled, the American Leauge award was given to Jeff Burroughs of the Texas Rangers and the National League equivalent went to Steve Garvey of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Garvey enjoyed a solid season for Los Angeles in 1974, slashing .312/.342/.469 with 21 home runs and 111 RBI, and was one of three Dodgers to finish in the top 5 for the award. He would win the vote on the back of an 80% share for the ballot, including 13 first-place votes.

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However, Garvey doesn’t even rank within the top-30 in terms of fWAR (3.8) for the 1974 season and even trails five other Dodgers in the category for the season. Two of those, Mike Marshall (4.2 fWAR) and the recently departed Jimmy Wynn (7.4) finished 3rd and 5th in the balloting respectively.

No, the award likely should have gone to one of the trio of Mike Schmidt, Joe Morgan, or Johnny Bench, all future Hall of Famers.

Schmidt of the Phillies was in just his third season in the league and experienced his first breakout season in 1974. In 162 games, Schmidt hit .282/.395/.546 with a National League Leading 36 home runs, 108 runs scored, and 116 RBI. Coupled with his stellar defense at third, Schmidt would be worth 9.4. fWAR and a wRC+ of 157.

Teammates Bench and Morgan of the Reds were no slouches either. Bench would hit .280/.363/.507 with 33 home runs and an MLB-leading 139 RBI, good enough for an 8.0 fWAR and 142 wRC+. Morgan would add .293/.427/.494 with 22 home runs, 67 RBI, 107 runs scored, and 58 stolen bases, good for an 8.6 fWAR and a 162 wRC+.

Unbelievably, none of these players even finished in the top-five for the award, and not one of them received a first-place vote.

1962 National League Most Valuable Player

There was a time in baseball when the world fell in love with the stolen base. In the 1980s and 1990s, the likes of Rickey Henderson and Vince Coleman were chasing the single-season record with fervor, putting up stolen base numbers at a rate that hadn’t been seen in a decade in an attempt to pass the great Lou Brock.

None of that would have mattered if Maury Wills hadn’t set the modern-day record in 1962, breaking Ty Cobbs‘ mark that had stood since 1915. Wills used that to streak toward the record book, and an MVP award.

After making his first All-Star appearance in 1961 and finishing 9th in the MVP vote in the process, Wills quickly rose to the top of the heap in 1962 by hitting .299/.347/.373 with 130 runs scored and the new record of 104 stolen bases. The voters rewarded Wills with a 75% share of the MVP votes, including eight first-place votes, just edging out the second-place finisher by 3% and one first-place vote.

While the stolen base title was indeed impressive, the value of Wills’ contributions to the game was a 5.3 fWAR (11th in the NL), anchored heavily by his baserunning (BsR of 15.6) and defense at shortstop. However, his lack of power at the plate (just 29 of his 208 hits went for extra bases) left him with just a wRC+ of 103, barely above average.

Meanwhile, the second-place finisher put up a season of .304/.384/.615 with 49 home runs, 141 RBI, and 130 runs scored of his own. Coupled with his own stellar defense in center field, this player was worth 10.5 fWAR and a wRC+ of 163. So while the 104 stolen bases were impressive, this player was the true winner of the 1962 National League MVP award.

Dodgers fans should be familiar with this player. He was a nemesis known as Willie Mays.

2011 National League Cy Young Award

Current Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw has put together a Hall of Fame-worthy career through the 2020 season. That included three individual Cy Young Awards and the 2014 National League Most Valuable Player.

While there is no debating Kershaw’s Cy Young wins in 2013 and 2014, or even his MVP choice in 2014, there is less certainty around his award in 2011.

The 2011 National League Cy Young award essentially came down to two players; Kershaw and Philadelphia Phillies ace Roy Halladay. Kershaw, as usual, was excellent and tied for the National League lead with 21 wins and put up a 2.28 ERA, a 2.47 FIP, and a 9.57 K/9 over 233.1 innings of work for the Dodgers. That resulted in an fWAR of 7.3 on the season.

Not to be outdone, Halladay threw 233.2 innings on the season, including eight complete games, 18 wins, a 2.35 ERA, a 2.20 FIP, a K/9 of 8.47, and a National League-leading fWAR of 8.7. The biggest difference in wins above replacement value being Halladay’s stellar control (1.35 BB/9 vs Kershaw’s mark of 2.08) and his ability to keep the ball in the park (0.39 HR/9 vs 0.58).

However, what makes Kershaw’s win even more amazing isn’t the fact that he took the award over Halladay, but that he did so by such a wide margin. Kershaw received a 92% share of the ballots versus Halladay’s 59%, and Kershaw also took home 27 of the 32 first-place votes, with Halladay getting four, and Ian Kennedy of the San Diego Padres got the remaining vote. Halladay may have been hurt a bit by teammate Cliff Lee‘s own candidacy, with Lee appearing on 40% of the ballot, but that doesn’t explain the large margin in first-place votes.

So while an argument could be made for either candidate, advanced statistics favor Halladay and he ultimately deserved the win by a hair. The voters obviously saw it much differently.