Who is the worst player to win World Series MVP?

The Game Room
1

We’re having fun with the “worst Super Bowl MVP” thread so I thought it’d be fun to open this up. Who is the worst player to ever be MVP of the World Series?

Again, by this we are looking not for the least impressive Series performance by the MVP, but the player who might have had an amazing World Series but otherwise had the least impressive overall career.

For your reference, a list of all World Series MVPs. Note that they only started handing this out in 1955; World Series from 1903-1954 didn’t have an MVP. The rightmost colum is the World Series MVP.*

    • Now called the Willie Mays World Series MVP Award, which is odd becaue Willie never won one, and despite The Catch he actually never had a World Series where he played especially well.
2

I have to look it over, but Bucky Dent comes to mind immediately. He won in 1978. I’ll be back.

Oh crap, Larry Sherry won in 1959. I present his Hall of Fame stats to support his leastness. Larry Sherry Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More | Baseball-Reference.com

I forgot about Pat Borders, his HOF stats are very low, but as a catcher, he did his job well enough for a long time. Sherry, not so much. Pat Borders Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More | Baseball-Reference.com

3

Thread over.

4

Don Larsen. Thread re-opened.

5

Larsen was probably worse than Dent but Sherry is the leader so far.

6

Bucky Dent’s career hitting stats aren’t good, but Dent was a terrific defensive shortstop who played regularly for years because his glove was so good.

Steve Pearce is the only hitter to ever win World Series MVP who never even came close to playing enough to qualify for the batting title. (Neither did Rick Dempsey, a catcher, but Dempsey missed by a whisker one year.) He only played 766 games in his entire career. He was a decent hitter, but I’d argue he ranks below Dent.

Pat Borders is the lowest WAr player of all time to win it but honestly I think WAR is underestimating his defensive skill. He was a much better catcher than that, and a terrific handler of pitchers. I am strongly inclined to give catchers in general more credit than WAR does when the catchers demonstrably caught successful pitching staffs.

The reverse of that is that I am pretty sure the folks citing Larry Sherry or Don Larsen are on to something, because those guys had most of their value when they were being caught by Johnny Roseboro and Yogi Berra, men who, to say the least, knew a thing or five about catching and handling pitchers.

7

Dent really had himself a year in '78.

He won the WS MVP despite having only one XBH…a double. I doubt any hitter has ever won the MVP with less power output.

8

I had to look that up but Pete Rose in his WS MVP did get two XBH, a double and a triple. He was close!

9

My instinctive response to the thread title was David Eckstein who wasn’t nearly the best player for the 2006 Cardinals in that WS. But he had a decent enough career, so I guess he doesn’t meet what the OP was looking for.

10

Eckstein had a hell of a World Series. I’m not sure who would have been a better choice.

Chris Carpenter was great in his one start and maybe one could argue he did so much to win Game 3 that that alone merited the MVP but it seems weird to me to give a guy MVP for one start, I dunno.

Don’t forget Eckstein also had a terrific series with the glove.

11

Scott Rolen was who I had in mind. But yeah, Eck certainly had a great series.