Well, yeah, you probably can, actually.   What was in my head when I said that was players having BIG years on second-division teams.  There really aren’t a lot player who have big, big years on second-division teams. . . .well, that’s not really true either.   There’s something true here inside my head but when I try to put on paper it doesn’t fit.

I came up with a way to sort the data that I thought would help.  Suppose that each player who won the Most Valuable Player was sorted into one of four groups:

1) Deserved the Award and also played for a championship team,

2)  Was not the player most deserving of the award, but played for a championship team, and was given the award anyway,

3) Deserved the Award and won the award despite not playing for a championship team, and

4) Did not deserve the Award and did not play for a championship team, but won the Award, anyway. 

The term "underserving" is kind of inappropriate here.  What I mean is simply "less deserving, as evaluated by the Win Shares method."  Win Shares is not the voice of God; it’s just a method of statistical analysis.  But many of the players who fit that description were really good players and not undeserving of the award; we just see them as less deserving than some other player.  Mookie Betts in 2018, for example.  Mookie had one hell of a season, and I don’t think anyone would try to say that he was undeserving of the MVP Award, which he won, but Mike Trout did have more Win Shares than Mookie did.   You can say that Mike Trout was denied the MVP Award because he played on a bad team, and it’s not certifiably a true statement, but it’s not clearly a false statement, either.   It’s a reasonable thing to say.

There are a lot of cases like that in baseball history.  First of all, we need a definition of whether player who won the MVP Award deserved it or not.   I counted the MVP as deserving of the MVP if

(a)      He led the league in Win Shares, or

(b)      He was within one of leading the league in Win Shares, or

(c)       He was a catcher and came within five of leading the league in Win Shares. 

One win share is not a clear enough margin to say a player is less deserving of the award than another player.  A-Rod in 2003.  I credit A-Rod with 31 Win Shares, Carlos Delgado with 32, but it’s one Win Share, which is about 3 runs.   It’s not enough of a difference that you can be confident you’re right, so I’m going to mark A-Rod as deserving of the award.  He goes in category 3:  Players who deserved the award and won it although they played for teams that did not win a championship. 

There are, in history, 34 players who, like A-Rod in 2003, deserved the award and won the award although they did not play for championship teams.  A few of those include Cal Ripken in 1991, Barry Bonds in 1993, Jeff Bagwell in 1994, Barry Bonds in 2001, 2002 and 2004, Albert Pujols in 2005, A-Rod again in 2007, Pujols again in 2009, Bryce Harper in 2015, Mike Trout in 2016, and Shohei Ohtani in 2021.  (I know the Giants were in the World Series in 2002, but they did not win their division.) 

This is the split among the 182 players who have won the MVP Awards (counting the tie vote in 1979 as one player, because the two co-winners are in the same group anyway.)  Among the 182 MVPs:

55 were deserving of the Award, and also played for championship teams,

68 were less deserving of the Award, but played for championship teams,

34 were deserving of the Award, and won it despite playing for teams that did not win the championship, and

25 were less deserving of the Award than some other player, at least by Win Shares. . ..25 were less deserving of the Award and did not play for championship teams, but won the Award anyway.   The poster boy for this group being Andre Dawson in 1987.   He had a thoroughly unimpressive season and played for a last-place team, but won the Award anyway, because the voters in 1987 were still largely unaware of Park Effects and grossly overvalued RBI. 

So, OK, there have been twice as many times when a less deserving player won the MVP Award "because" he played for a championship team as the number of players who won the Award despite playing for lesser teams.  68 to 34, exactly two to one.  It is really not consistent with what I said. 

67.5% of MVPs have played for championship teams. 

48.9% of MVPs are seen by this analysis as deserving of the award.

So more MVPs play for championship teams than are deserving of the award.  This, again, is not really consistent with what I said. 

In a little more detail, the data is not quite as bad as this looks.  This data looks like there are a lot of times when a lesser player from a championship team has stolen the vote from the more deserving player on a lesser team.   Well, yes, that has happened and does happen, but maybe not as often as you might think, based on this data.  There have been a surprising number of times when the most-deserving player (by Win Shares) DID play for a Championship team, but lost the award to a teammate with somewhat lesser credentials.  I don’t know how many times this has happened, maybe 20.  It happened to Mickey Mantle three times.  Mantle was the most-deserving player (by Win Shares) on championship teams in 1955, 1960 and 1961, but the MVP awards when to his teammates Yogi Berra, Roger Maris and Roger Maris. 

In 1941 Dolph Camilli won the NL MVP Award with 29 Win Shares, although another player had 34.  He is classified as a less-deserving MVP.  You could say that he "only" won the MVP Award because he played for a championship team, except that the player he took the Award away from, Pete Reiser, was a teammate. 

       I am dealing with the category-2 MVPs here, the less-deserving MVPs who played for championship teams.  I am pointing out that many of them could not be said to have "only" won the award because they played for a championship team, since, in many cases, the more deserving player also played for the championship team.  This happened in 1942; it happened in both leagues in 1944.  It happened in 1945; Stan Hack should probably have won the MVP Award, rather than his teammate Phil Cavarretta.  It happens a lot. 

       So  . ..amending my earlier remarks.  There has indeed been, over time, an unfortunate concentration of MVP Awards given to less-qualified candidates from championship teams.