Crushing Bookends

Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge are your NL and AL MVPs, respectively. Nellie Fox need not apply, or Jose Altuve. Or Andrew McCutcheon or Mookie Betts. Or Dustin Pedroia. Players under 6’ tall can and do win the MVP, just not often. Betts (5’10”) was the last to do that, in 2018 for the Red Sox (and they traded him why, again?). Basically, though, MVP voters dig the long ball, and, odds are, the taller/bigger you are, the better your chance of being named MVP. Even small guys have to muscle up. Altuve (5’6”) hit 24 homers during his MVP year for the Astros in 2017 while Pedroia managed seventeen when he won the honors for the Red Sox in 2008. Now, take a step back in the time machine to look at two other short guys who won the award. Nellie Fox (5’10”) won MVP honors for the White Sox in 1959, with all of two longballs. A year later, Dick Groat (5’11”) of the Pirates had himself an MVP season with, yup, two homeruns. Judge hit 53 this season, in case you’re wondering, and Ohtani 55. Long story short, the baseball played by the likes of Fox and Groat has fallen into disfavor, abandoned in the name of launch angle and exit velo. There’s a lot of baseball talent residing in players south of 6’. Good luck in having teams notice. Which will make the chances of a woman breaking the grass ceiling that much harder.