Oakland relief ace Dennis Eckersley won the MVP Award, becoming the
fourth reliever to do so. It's easy to see why he won the award; no position
player performed well in all of the Triple Crown categories, leaving the door open
for Eckersley's own fine credentials to be honoured. Among the sluggers, the best was probably Frank
Thomas; his home run numbers were not as big as we have come to expect from
him, but Thomas was still the best hitter in the league, leading the league in both OPS and runs produced.
The top home run hitters
were Juan Gonzalez and Mark McGwire. Gonzalez was only 22 years old; though
he was still an undisciplined hitter, Juan showed the awesome power that
would win him two MVP Awards later in the decade. Mark McGwire, meanwhile,
was pulling his career out of a rut. It is hard to believe, but in 1991
Big Mac had hit rock bottom, batting .201 with only 22 homers, despite
playing a full season. He made some adjustments and came back with a big
year; McGwire would then miss almost two full seasons with injury, before
coming back and dominating the latter part of the decade.
One of the stars who led
the Jays to the World Series was Joe Carter. Before he arrived in Toronto, Carter had been involved in a series of big trades. He began his career with the Cubs, but was dealt to the Indians in 1984 in the deal that sent Cy Young winner Rick Sutcliffe to Chicago. He became a star with the Indians, and played in Cleveland for six years. Carter was traded to the Padres in 1990 in the deal that sent Rookie Of The Year Sandy Alomar Jr. to Cleveland. He played one year in San Diego, and then was packaged to Toronto along with Roberto Alomar in a monster deal that saw Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez dealt to the Pades.
The deal brought instant success to Toronto, starting with a division title in 1991, and then two World Series championships. Joe was one of the premier
RBI men in the game; he led the league in RBI in 1986, and ten times
in his career topped the 100-RBI mark. In 1993, Carter delivered one of the biggest hits in baseball history when he became only the second player to ever end a World Series with a home run. He found a home in Toronto and played for seven years with the Blue Jays. In total, Joe played
for 16 seasons; he hit 396 lifetime homers, had over 2100 hits, over
1400 RBI, and stole 231 bases in his career.
Among the players, the top vote-getters were Kirby Puckett and Carter.
I think that Frank Thomas was better than either of them, and I think that
Roberto Alomar was better than his teammate, Carter. Alomar was only 24
years old, and was in his fifth season. He was great with the bat, and
also established himself as the premier defensive player in the league.
I have heard Alomar described on more than one occasion as the best
defensive second baseman in baseball history. This is unlikely; Robbie has
great range in the field, but is ordinary at turning the double play. Nevertheless,
the total package makes him my MVP choice for this season.
The best infielder in the
league next to Alomar was another second baseman, Carlos Baerga. Carlos
was 23 years old, and had his first big season with the Indians. Remarkably,
both Alomar and Baerga had only recently played with the Padres, who traded them both away. Baerga
was dealt to Cleveland in 1990 in exchange for Joe Carter; a year later,
Carter and Alomar were dealt to the Blue Jays. And last I checked, the
Padres did not have Rogers Hornsby playing second base at the time.
