Postseason MVPs Through History
The best way to get a complete picture of each astrological sign’s true talent level is by analyzing regular season performance, since that’s where you get the largest sample size. But when it comes to playoff time, what we really want to know is, which players from which signs are most likely to help your team win the World Series. Since there are roughly twice as many MLB roster spots as there are signs of the zodiac, it’s likely that a championship team will include at least one contributor from each stop on the karmic wheel. But to get an idea of the most impactful players from each Fall Classic, we have the Willie Mays World Series MVP Award.
MLB started giving out this award in 1955, with the first recipient being Libra left handed pitcher Johnny Podres. The award was renamed in honor of Willie Mays in 2017, despite the fact that the legendary Taurus centerfielder never took home the trophy himself. However, as the above infographic shows, Mays’s Taurus sign-mates have won the second-most World Series MVP awards in history. Leo is in the lead, by the slimmest of margins, with the Bulls and the Lions standing as the only signs with double-digit winners.
If you’re very good at counting numbers, you might notice that there are 68 total WS MVP’s listed above, even though there have only been 65 World Serieses between 2020 and 1955. (I’m not including 2021, for the obvious reason that a World Series MVP has yet to be named.) That’s because the award went to multiple players in two different years. Pitchers Randy Johnson (Virgo) and Curt Schilling (Scorpio) shared the honors for the 2001 Diamondbacks, while Ron Cey (Aquarius), Pedro Guerrero (Cancer), and Steve Yeager (Sagittarius) had to make do with a three-way split for the 1981 Dodgers. Either way, these shared winners do not impact the totals of the two overall leaders.
However, these totals ARE impacted by players who have won the award multiple times. The most recent player to do so is another legendary Taurus outfielder, Reggie “Mr. October” Jackson, who won WS MVP in 1973 with the Athletics, and then again in 1977 with the Yankees. The only other repeat winners are Scorpio Bob Gibson (in 1964 and 1967) and Capricorn Sandy Koufax (in 1963 and 1965), for the Cardinals and Dodgers, respectively – the only teams they played for in their Hall of Fame careers.
But to get a more complete picture of postseason excellence, we can expand our search to Championship Series MVP awards. The National League started handing out these awards in 1977, while the American League didn’t pick up on the trend for another three years, starting in 1980. If you notice that the tally is off again, that’s because the NLCS MVP was shared between two players three different times: 1990, 2016, and 2017. But more importantly, the updated infographic shows that when you combine all three postseason MVP awards, Taurus jumps into a slim lead over Virgo and Capricorn, with Leo falling into a tie for third place.
With the addition of these new awards, it became possible for the same player to win two of them in the same season. This has happened eight times in history, with a player winning the Championship Series MVP, followed directly by the World Series MVP. Most recently, this anomaly occurred just last year, when Taurus Corey Seager accomplished the feat. Virgo pitcher Orel Hershiser also did it in 1988, followed by a CS MVP award in 1995, which makes him one of only three players to win three postseason MVP awards. The other is Pisces Dave Stewart, who won the WS MVP in 1989, followed by two ALCS MVPs in 1990 and 1993.
I left the 2021 Championship Series MVPs out of this tally, since it remains to be seen who will win the World Series MVP, and I didn’t want to include an incomplete postseason. By the time my next post goes up, though, the World Series will be completed, and I’ll be looking ahead to the offseason future of the Fantasy Astrology Baseball League.