Disaster. Or, in words of one syllable, Pa. Thet. Ic.
It's bad enough that John Olerud landed at a .295 career BA (despite a
.398 career OBA), but Olerud also got jobbed out of the Silver Slugger in 1993, apparently.
Categories that Olerud led:
Doubles, Batting Average, OBP, OPS, OPS+, and even Intentional Walks.
But the award went to Frank Thomas, who led in absolutely nothing. (And only had a 156 OPS+ to Olerud's 186. Not even close.)
I grant you the Sox were a more-surprising division winner…except that Toronto was better (95 wins to 94, 4-1 in the LCS). Ridiculous.
Speaking of stolen awards, apparently even though Worthless Willie McGee had two batting titles to go with that MVP he stole from Doc, he ended up at .295 career as well. Sigh.
(OT: As far as "Mets getting jobbed out of MVPs", let's not forget Tom Seaver in 1969, who went 10-0 down the stretch after he and Koosman asked Gil to tighten the rotation so they could pitch more and made history, losing to…McCovey, who barely nosed out the power categories while leading the Giants to Yet Another 2nd Place. Yay.)
At least now I know they count all the MVPs, even Chalmers Awards. So that's progress.