Kiki Cuyler had his best season in 1925 the year the Pirates won the World Series. He finished second in the MVP and made me wonder who finished ahead of Kiki in the voting and where he deserved to finish. Cuyler did have the second most WAR, but I thought since he played on a championship team could he have been voted ahead the player who beat him in WAR?
The answer was no. Rogers Hornsby was the player who finished ahead of Cuyler, and it was no contest. The writers that year had the two players right.
In that great 1925 season Cuyler had 87 extra base hits leading the league in triples with 26. That is a lot of triples. We all know the 1920s was a great time for hitters, but that is really impressive.
Cuyler has some great statistics from 1924 through 1936, although with less year-to-year consistency the few of those years, but his stats are more impressive than his OPS plus. The reason why is he played in a hitters league.
He was always a valuable assist his teams during those years. He had a lifetime average of .323 with good power (great power in 1925), led the league in stolen bases four times and was a solid right fielder. I can see why he was elected to the hall of fame.
Interesting. One of the things I noticed was the Pirates had four outfielders the rotated in the three years prior to Cuyler being a starter, one of them Max Carey. I don’t think they wanted him on the team until he was ready to start.
When we went over Cuyler during the GOR, I was surprised to see how old he was when he made it to the majors; it took him four tries to get established. I don’t know what’s going on with his birthdate, but I think he was a couple of years older than Baseball Reference has him listed. I had him as 27 in 1925, but BBR has him at 26.