Forget the MVP. Here, we’re concerned with the MVW — the Most Valuable Walk-Off’er.
Because there are no rules here, we’ll give it to the player with the most times recording a walk-off RBI in a season. That means for 2018, your MVW is Mets infielder Wilmer Flores, who had 4 walk-off RBIs.
The great thing about the MVW is the total randomness of it. One year it could be Mickey Mantle, Another, it could be George Mitterwald. The last 3 players to lead the majors in walk-off RBI (in reverse order) are Flores, Mark Trumbo and Carlos Correa with 4.
Four walk-offs in a season typically leads the majors. That did it in five of the last six seasons, with 2014 the holdout (Anthony Rizzo, Ryan Howard and Josh Donaldson had 3). Five is unusual. Six is the holy grail.
Baseball-Reference.com has walk-off data dating to 1925. In the 94 seasons, there have been four instances of a player recording six walk-off RBIs in a season – Rodney Scott in 1979, Cory Snyder in 1987, Wally Joyner in 1989 and Andre Ethier in 2009 (note the common bond of the ‘9’s).
I’m familiar with the work of Msrs. Joyner and Ethier, but not so much with Rodney Scott, so I decided to take a quick look (Here’s a great bio). Scott was a very fast infielder who played in the majors for four teams in eight seasons from 1975 to 1982. His career got jump-started with the 1977 Athletics, who liked to run, and for whom Scott stole 33 bases but was caught 17 times. He got better with experience, stealing as many as 63 bases in a season for the Expos. His nickname was “Cool Breeze.”
Scott had seasons in which he hit .261 and .282, but he sputtered after that, dropping to .238 in 1979, .224 in 1980 and .205 in 1981. In 1979 and 1980, he was an everyday player, despite an OPS that barely cracked .600. And yes, Scott had six walk-off RBIs in 1979. They were the only ones of his career.
Scott had three walk-off singles, a walk, a hit by pitch, and a home run. The latter was cool. It was the third and last of his career and it came against the team for whom he played the previous season (he was traded by the Cubs to the Expos in December 1978). It came in the 12th inning against Willie Hernandez on Aug. 1. The quote from the Ottawa Citizen is cool too.
“I guess they’ll be dancin’ in Chicago tonight,” he said. “Seriously though, I just got good wood on a pitch and out it went. I’m no slugger. I was only trying to hit the ball and bring (Warren Cromartie) around. It was a good win. Sure I guess it was dramatic, but I like to believe the most dramatic times haven’t come yet. That’s when we win the 1979 World Series.”
Alas the 1979 Expos came up a little short, finishing 2 games out in the NL East. But Scott didn’t. His prolific mark has been matched, but yet to be surpassed since. Scott doesn’t get much recognition for this (in the words of Rodney Dangerfield “I don’t get no respect”), but we’re here to salute him.
Rodney Scott Minutiae
– Rodney Scott had only one fewer walk-off RBI than Ted Williams. Makes sense, given that everyone probably wanted to pitch to Scott, but no one wanted to pitch to Williams.
– Scott’s six walk-off RBI were twice as many as any other player had that season and one short of the total by the rest of his teammates combined.
