Mike Silva's New York Baseball Digest » Blog Archive » Best Overall Season: Ruth in 1923?

Best Overall Season: Ruth in 1923?


By Mike Silva ~ June 2nd, 2010. Filed under: Statistical Analysis.

An amazing fact is that Babe Ruth won only a single MVP award during his career and it was during the 1923 season.

Year Age G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB IBB Awards
1923 28 152 522 151 205 45 13 41 131 17 21 170 93 .393 .545 .764 1.309 239 399 MVP-1
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB IBB Awards
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/2/2010.

Recently Baseball Reference has added a bunch of advanced metrics to their site with WAR (Wins Above Replacement) being on of them. You know I don’t bow at the alter of WAR, but these stats make for some fun analysis and debate. According to WAR Ruth’s 1923 season was worth 14.7 Wins Above Replacement, the highest single season total in baseball history. This is higher than McGwire’s 98′, Bonds 2001, and than any season produced by Ted Williams, Mantle, DiMaggio, or Cobb.

I might have picked 1919 as one of Ruth’s best seasons for the simple reason he won 9 games and pitched to a 2.97 ERA while hitting 29 HR and driving in 114 RBI (OPS of 1.114).

One interesting side note is that Joe Morgan’s 1975 season made the (17/94/.327) was in the top 15 all time. You can see the entire list here.

Mike Silva is a freelance writer and radio host since March of 2007. This website is his own personal "digest" of New York Baseball He's also hosts NYBD Radio on Blog Talk Radio and 1240 AM WGBB. Check out his sports media commentary at www.sportsmediawatchdog.com. Check out his official website, www.mikesilvamedia.com
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1 Response to Best Overall Season: Ruth in 1923?

  1. Bill@TDS
    June 2nd, 2010 at 3:22 pm

    That Ruth only won one MVP award isn’t THAT amazing: there was no MVP award at all from the beginning of Ruth’s career until 1922, and that version of the award lasted (which lasted until ’29) made past winners ineligible. So Ruth could not have won in 1919-1921, and then once he did win in 1923, couldn’t win again until 1931 (when the modern MVP award came into being), by which point he was well past his prime. So the only non-win that might be surprising is 1922, which was an off season by Ruth’s standards (and the winner, George Sisler, hit .420).

    1923 is a good pick, but I think I’d stay with the more traditional 1921. The WAR edge is based mostly on Total Zone’s determination that Ruth saved a career high 19 runs in the field in ’23, and while I believe he was an underrated and above-average outfielder, I can’t buy that he was ever worth two wins with the glove in a single season.

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