Detroit Tigers: 3 instances Detroit players almost won Cy Young or MVP

As the 2020 AL Cy Young award winner is about to be announced, we look back at the Detroit Tigers who came runner up.

Throughout the team’s history, the Detroit Tigers have had some aces who were worthy enough to win the Cy Young award.  Denny McLain would the first Tigers pitcher to win the award back to back in 1968 and again in 1969.

For MVPs, Miguel Cabrera because the first MVP that was not a pitcher since Hank Greenberg in 1940 and the only positional player to win the award for Detroit back to back. His Triple Crown season of 2012 ranks up as one of the best seasons in Tigers history.

McLain put together two of the best seasons for a Tigers starter. In ’68, he went 31-6 with an ERA of 1.96 in 41 games started. So strange to think these days of pitching 336 innings in one season but that’s what he did for his first Cy Young. For his second season, he went 24-9 and finished tied with Cuban lefty Mike Cuellar for the Cy Young award.

Willie Hernandez would be the first lefty and reliever to win the award for the Tigers in 1984 with his screwball and a sparking ERA of 1.92 and like McLain in 1968, would also win MVP.

It wouldn’t be until 2011 when the Tigers would have another Cy Young award with Justin Verlander and then in 2013, Max Scherzer.  With the staff the Tigers had in the early 2010s, you would have expected a few more to come out of there. And they did, for other teams but that’s not the purpose of this article.

Who may win an award like the Cy Young or MVP next for the Detroit Tigers? If Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal continue to develop their game, they could be next or Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene.  For now, let’s look at three players who came close to winning either MVP or Cy Young but just fell short.

1. Mickey Lolich 1971 Cy Young

Winner: Vida Blue

Our fellow contributor Sebastian Oslund did a great job of highlighting Lolich’s 1971 season. Out of the shadow of Denny McLain, Lolich put up one of the best seasons in Detroit Tigers history and cemented him as one of the best left-handed pitchers to put on the uniform.

Lolich under manager Billy Martin would start in 45 games. When you hear that now, it is a bit of a “wow” moment but of course. different era of baseball. With his new cutter to add to his pitching arsenal,  Lolich would go 25-14 and with an ERA of 2.92, pitch 376 innings, and strikeout 308 batters. His 376 innings were the most by any pitcher since Glover Cleveland Alexander in 1917.

What is even more interesting it started a trend of four straight seasons in which he threw over 300 innings. Numbers-wise, he had more strikeouts and wins that Vida Blue did. (Blue had 24 wins and struck out 301 in 312 IP) Wins carried a lot more clout then but it was not the case in 1971. Voting wise, Lolich only received 9 first-place votes to Blue’s 14. As Sebastian wrote in his piece, Blue even thought that Lolich deserved the award.

Another number that stands out to me is how many batters Lolich faced that season. He faced 1,538 batters! Oddly enough, when the Oakland A’s and the Tigers played against each in the 1972 ALCS, Blue was pitching out of the bullpen while Lolich was starting so we never got to see these two titans face off against each other in the post-season.

Overall, it was perhaps the rise of Oakland as a powerhouse in the AL that may have played a factor for Blue to win the Cy Young over Lolich.

2. Alan Trammell 1987 MVP

Winner: George Bell

For a long time, until Alan Trammell got the nod to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame, the 1987 MVP race was held against Trammell because he didn’t have it on his resume. There have been several articles about Trammell’s 1987 season but the biggest takeaway I took was how many hits he had compared to Bell.

Granted, Bell had more home runs but he was not a good left-fielder, but it was the last month of the season in which I had a huge grip with the writers on what they were looking at in terms of the MVP race.

In September and into the first week of October, Trammell hit .417/.490/.677 with an OPS of 1.167, and outside of June in which he hit 9 home runs,  that final month would be his second-best output of power, with7. Now WAR was not a stat that was used then but overall, Trammell put up an 8.2 bWAR season compared to Bell’s 5.0.

George Bell won with 16 first-place votes compared to Trammell’s 12. Now, if this happened in this era with all the data available at your fingertips, I don’t think Bell would have won but 47 home runs while impressive, did not hold a candle to the value Trammell brought the Tigers in 1987 as a complete player. I am glad now history remembers how much Alan Trammell made an impact in 1987 without the MVP award but would have been nice to have on the trophy case.