Baseball analyst and insider Ryan M. The post Baseball Insider Sends Clear Plea to MVP Questioning “Standards for Excellence” for HOF & MVP Selection appeared first on EssentiallySports.

1985 — Joe Montana passes for a Super Bowl record 331 yards and three touchdowns to lead the San Francisco 49ers to a 38-16 victory over the Miami Dolphins. Roger Craig scores a record three touchdowns. 1996 — Rudy Galindo, in the biggest upset in decades, wins the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, earning two perfect marks along the way.

The Pittsburgh Pirates made an offer to acquire perhaps the greatest hitter who ever lived, Ted Williams, in 1937. They may have gotten “The Splendid Splinter,” too, were it not for a dispute over a light bill.

He also won the American League MVP award twice, in 1946 and 1949 ... The journey introduces Nowlin’s book, Ted Williams: The First Latino in the Baseball Hall of Fame, published in 2018, the same year Williams would have turned 100 years old.

Daniels is one of the new breed of rookies that enter the league ripened by five years of college ball, similar to the trajectories of Joe Burrow and Bo Nix.

Among the tens of thousands of players, managers, owners, executives and other personnel that have made their marks on baseball, only a select 349 are enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame,

Willie McGee won the National League MVP or the 1985 season, in which he hit just 10 home runs. McGee also batted .353. Vince Coleman scored 107 runs that season, and he had more than three times as many stolen bases (110) as he had extra-base hits (31). The leading home run hitter on the team, Jack Clark, hit just 22 homers.

Ultimately, he didn’t play long enough to accumulate Hall of Fame statistics. He ended up with 1,805 hits. Some modern-day players right in front of him on the all-time hit list are Matt Kemp, Rafael Furcal, Benito Santiago, Nolan Arenado, Edwin Encarnación, Jack Clark, Hanley Ramirez and Chuck Knoblauch.

It’s tempting to say Ichiro Suzuki, with his detached sense of cool, record-breaking hitting prowess and 28 seasons of excellence on both sides of the globe, was made for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Probably more accurate to say the Hall of Fame was made for him.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter

Barry Larkin says MLB commissioner Rob Manfred believes Orlando is an intriguing candidate for a baseball franchise.

Feb. 4