A return from war brought a flood of players, battle-tested and war-hardened, back to the game. A certain toughness permeated the air. The baseball played immediately postwar was a very exciting brand, but would soon descend during the 1950s into some of the dullest baseball ever seen. The St. Louis Cardinals, with their hordes of ballplayers collected before the war returning to the fold, returned to the pennant, but it would also be their last pennant and World Series win for 18 years. They finished just two games ahead of Brooklyn in a terrific pennant race. Former St. Louis GM Branch Rickey had moved to Brooklyn, and would soon be working his magic there. Chicago was third and Boston was 4th. Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and New York made up the second division.
Stan Musial easily won the batting title with a .365 mark. Musial also led in slugging and OPS, although Eddie Stanky edged him in on-base. Musial led with 124 runs, 228 hits, 50 doubles, and 20 triples. Ralph Kiner edged Johnny Mize 23 homers to 22, and Enos Slaughter led with 130 RBI. Pete Reiser led with 34 steals.
Howie Pollet led with 21 wins, followed by Johnny Sain at 20. The same order prevailed at ERA, with Pollet at 2.10 and Sain at 2.21. Johnny Schmitz had 135 strikeouts to Kirby Higbe's 134. Ken Raffensberger led with 6 saves.
Win Shares leaders, players; Stan Musial (St. Louis) 44, Enos Slaughter (St. Louis) 29, Eddie Stanky (Brooklyn) 28, Dixie Walker (Brooklyn) 27, Pee Wee Reese (Brooklyn), Del Ennis (Philadelphia) and Whitey Kurowski (St. Louis) 26, Tommy Holmes (Boston) and Phil Cavarretta (Chicago) 25, Johnny Mize (New York) and Johnny Wyrostek (Philadelphia) 22.
Win Shares leaders, pitchers; Howie Pollet (St. Louis) 27, Johnny Sain (Boston) 26, Harry Brecheen (St. Louis) 20, Fritz Ostermueller (Pittsburgh) 19, Joe Beggs (Cincinnati) 17, Johnny Schmitz and Hank Wyse (Chicago) and Murry Dickson (St. Louis) 16, Joe Hatten (Brooklyn) 15.
WARP3 scores: Musial 9.8, Stanky 6.0, Reese 5.9, Mize 5.8, Cavarretta 5.3, Kurowski 5.1, Slaughter 5.0, Walker 4.6, Holmes 4.5, Ennis 4.4 (rookie), Johnny Hopp (Boston) 4.3, Pete Reiser (Brooklyn) 4.0.
Pitchers, Sain 6.4, Pollet 5.8, Brecheen 5.0, Schmitz 4.2, Ostermueller 3.9 (best year), Schoolboy Rowe (Philadelphia) 3.8, Hatten 3.7 (rookie), Ewell Blackwell (Cincinnati) 3.5, Wyse 3.3, Beggs 3.1 (best year).
WAR (fWAR), position players: Musial 9.6, Stanky and Reese 6.3, Cavarretta 5.5, Kurowski 5.4, Slaughter 5.3, Ennis 5.1, Walker and Holmes 4.8, Hopp 4.5, Herman and Marion 4.1, Hatton 3.6, Blattner and Wyrostek 3.5. Pitchers (bWAR): Sain 6.4, Pollet 5.8, Brecheen 5.0, Schmitz 4.2, Ostermueller 3.9, Rowe 3.8, Hatten 3.7, Blackwell 3.5, Wyse 3.5, Beggs 3.1, Cooper 3.0.
Actual award winners, MVP top 19:
Rk Name Team 1st Place Points Max Points Share| AB H HR BA OPS SB| W-L IP ERA WHIP SO SV
+--+----------------+----+-----+------+------+-----+-----+------+---+-----+------+
1 Stan Musial STL 22 319 336 0.95 | 624 228 16 .365 1.021 7
2 Dixie Walker BRO 0 159 336 0.47 | 576 184 9 .319 .839 14
3 Enos Slaughter STL 2 144 336 0.43 | 609 183 18 .300 .838 9
4 Howie Pollet STL 0 116 336 0.35 | 87 14 0 .161 .422 0| 21-10 266 2.10 1.180 107 5
5 Johnny Sain BSN 0 95 336 0.28 | 94 28 0 .298 .638 0| 20-14 265 2.21 1.177 129 2
6 Pee Wee Reese BRO 0 79 336 0.24 | 542 154 5 .284 .762 10
7 Eddie Stanky BRO 0 67 336 0.20 | 483 132 0 .273 .788 8
8 Del Ennis PHI 0 61 336 0.18 | 540 169 17 .313 .849 5
9 Pete Reiser BRO 0 58 336 0.17 | 423 117 11 .277 .789 34
10 Phil Cavarretta CHC 0 49 336 0.15 | 510 150 8 .294 .836 2
11 Buddy Kerr NYG 0 37 336 0.11 | 497 124 6 .249 .662 7
12 Johnny Hopp BSN 0 34 336 0.10 | 445 148 3 .333 .827 21
13 Eddie Waitkus CHC 0 21 336 0.06 | 441 134 4 .304 .748 3
14 Bruce Edwards BRO 0 20 336 0.06 | 292 78 1 .267 .704 1
15 Kirby Higbe BRO 0 18 336 0.05 | 77 10 0 .130 .286 0| 17-8 211 3.03 1.353 134 1
16 Harry Brecheen STL 0 14 336 0.04 | 83 11 0 .133 .307 0| 15-15 231 2.49 1.206 117 3
16 Johnny Mize NYG 0 14 336 0.04 | 377 127 22 .337 1.013 3
18 Grady Hatton CIN 0 12 336 0.04 | 436 118 14 .271 .791 6
19 Tommy Holmes BSN 0 11 336 0.03 | 568 176 6 .310 .801 7
Top player: Stan Musial, and the only surprise is that he did not get a unanimous vote. Slaughter snuck in their with two first-place votes. "Country" was good, but Musial led the league in average, runs, hits, doubles, triples, and total bases, and led in OPS with a 1021 to second-place Kurowski's 853. Or looked at another way, Musial's OPS+ was 183, while Del Ennis finished 2nd in that at 143. It was a dominant performance, but Slaughter led the league in RBI, foreshadowing the overreliance on that stat.
#1 Stan Musial, #2 Enos Slaughter, #3 Eddie Stanky, #4 Pee Wee Reese, #5 Whitey Kurowski, #6 Phil Cavarretta.
Top pitcher: Johnny Sain. Howie Pollet led in wins and ERA, but Sain was right behind him and pitched for a lesser team. The Cardinal defense helped Pollet immeasurably. Sain was third in strikeouts, Pollet out of the top five.
#1 Johnny Sain, #2 Howie Pollet, #3 Harry Brecheen, #4 Fritz Ostermueller, #5 Johnny Schmitz.
Top rookie: Del Ennis made a strong debut, laying the foundation for the Phillies' "Whiz Kids."
Top manager: Eddie Dyer took a crew of battle-hardened veterans to the pennant in his first year as skipper. He followed up with three straight seconds.
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