Chicago Cubs: Sammy Sosa had no business winning 1998 NL MVP

Turning in one of the best single-season performances in Chicago Cubs history in 1998, Sammy Sosa received NL MVP honors. But he didn’t deserve them.

Probably my favorite part of being a fan of the Chicago Cubs – and baseball, as a whole – in today’s world is the constantly evolving way we look at the game. I’m only 28 and there have been momentuous shifts in how we, as fans, evaluate and judge the performance of our favorite players.

I’m a big reader. I’m currently attempting to read 52 books this year (I’ve admittedly fallen off the pace a bit this summer, at just 30 of 52 nearing the end of August) – and a pretty good chunk of my reading list included baseball books.

My latest selection, Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution by Brian Kenny, is one of my favorites. Why? Because it seriously challenged some long-standing beliefs for me – including how I viewed the 1998 campaign that, as we all know, ended in Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa winning the National League MVP.

Sosa finished the year with 66 home runs – breaking Roger Maris‘ previous single-season record of 61. Of course, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire did even more – blasting 70 long-balls on the year. But that didn’t matter to the BBWAA – Slammin’ Sammy received 30 of 32 first-place votes, earning the first and only Most Valuable Player honors of his career.

Chicago Cubs: By almost every measure, McGwire outperformed Sosa

Before I delve into Mark McGwire’s 1998 season, you need to know this: I value on-base percentage over batting average and while RBI totals look good on the back of a baseball card, I think there are better ways to measure a player’s impact.

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While Sosa led the league in runs, total bases and runs batted in, the slugging Cardinals first baseman cleaned up in most of the other offensive categories. He led the National League in on-base percentage (.470), slugging percentage (.752), OPS (1.222), home runs (70), walks (162), OPS+ (216) and WPA (9.6).

He also finished second in runs, RBI and total bases – to Sosa. If not for those three categories, he’d have dominated almost every significant offensive statistic. So what gives? How did the Cardinals outfielder not only miss out on NL MVP honors – but lose in a landslide to Sosa, who, again, collected 98 percent of first-place votes?

If you take the time to read Kenny’s book (which I strongly suggest you do), he offers up several reasons – a couple of which I’ll touch on here. First, the BBWAA is an antiquated body that has no business deciding who’s the most valuable player in each league (that rings more true now than it did in 1998 given the sheer scope of the information now available to writers). Most of these individuals saw a staggering 66 home runs and 158 runs batted on a guy who led his team to October for the first time in nearly a decade. What does all that add up to? A Most Valuable Player.

Chicago Cubs: People need to learn to trust the numbers

In what I personally consider to be critical offensive measures (on-base percentage, OPS+, WPA and WAR) – McGwire thoroughly outplayed Sosa in 1998. Despite the Cubs outfielder hitting .308 to McGwire’s .299, the St. Louis slugger got on base at a clip 93 points higher over the course of the season (.470 to .377) and narrowly missed topping Sosa’s slugging percentage by a full 100 points (.752 to .647).

If you look at WAR (which takes into account defense and baserunning, two things I’d hardly consider McGwire among the game’s best at, even in his prime), he still came out on top (7.5 to 6.5). WPA (win probability added) – perhaps the best measure of how clutch a player was – paints an even more dire picture for Sosa backers. McGwire clocks in at 9.6 – while Sosa comes in at 6.3.

I get it, I really do. These aren’t the baseball card numbers we all looked at back then (and some of us don’t even today). But that doesn’t change the fact that, by almost every statistical measure, Mark McGwire, not Sammy Sosa was the best player in the National League in 1998 – and it had nothing to do with the fact he hit four more home runs than his NL Central counterpart.

It came down to a simple truth: he was a better all-around player.