Naming a 1969 NLCS MVP after the NY Mets defeat the Braves

Long ago, there was no Championship Series MVP Award handed out. The National League didn’t introduce the honor until 1977 with the American League oddly behind until 1980. The 1969 New York Mets took down the Atlanta Braves with no singular player taking the award. Decades later, who deserves a belated trophy?

A 3-0 series win over the Braves, it was a hitter-heavy series win with the Mets outsourcing Atlanta 27-15. Neither Tom Seaver nor Jerry Koosman pitched well in their lone appearances. The NLCS MVP in this series has to go to a hitter. Why not start at the top and hand it over to Tommie Agee?

Tommie Agee is your belated 1969 NLCS MVP

Art Shamsky led the Mets with 7 hits but drove in only one run. Cleon Jones had 6 hits, too. It was Agee, however, whose 2 home runs led the team. He narrowly defeats Jones here.

A two-run home run in his second plate appearance in Game 2 helped extend an early Mets lead. In Game 3, his home run in the third got the scoring started for the Mets. Trailing 2-1 at the moment he crossed home plate, Agee added an RBI single later in the game for the final run of the day for either squad.

Agee was head-to-head with Jones across several numbers. Both stole 2 bases in as many tries. Each drove in 4 with Jones doubling twice versus Agee who did so once. After-the-fact MVP honors could probably go to either player. Agee was the team’s regular season home run leader with 26 while Jones’ .340 batting average became an iconic mark for others to try to beat over the years. 

What’s kind of amazing is how 1969 World Series MVP, Donn Clendenon, didn’t appear in a single moment for the Mets in this series. A platoon between ho, and Ed Kranepool had him absent from action. The Braves only had two innings of a lefty pitching. Gil Hodges was particular about his platoon with Clendenon and Kranepool. The former wasn’t needed.

Because every victory was so heavy, the first ever Mets playoff series doesn’t have as much drama as many that would follow. Walk-off wins in the World Series that same year, taking down the mighty Cincinnati Reds in 1973, and so on made some other early playoff rounds more individually focused on moments or particular players. 

In the 1969 NLCS, New York won handily without the drama. Agee with a WPA (Win Probability Added) of 0.37 trailed only Wayne Garrett at 0.38. Garrett is another strong consideration. Agee had one more run, RBI, and home run. The nod goes to him.

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