
1978 National League MVP – Dave Parker
In 1978 and 1979, the Pittsburgh Pirates had back-to-back National League MVP Award winners. As we talked about earlier, Stargell won it in 1979. Dave Parker was the winner in 1978.
During the 1978 season, Parker was a force to be reckoned with at the plate. In 642 plate appearances, The Cobra hit for a .334/.384/.585 slash line to go with 30 home runs and a 166 OPS+ and 167 wRC+.
Although Parker wasn’t the best of fielders with 0 total zone runs above average, he passed the eye test and won a Gold Glove Award, too. He also threw out 13 runners with his incredible arm that rivaled the aforementioned Clemente.
Parker was well deserving of the MVP this season. Not only did he pass the classic test, leading the league in batting average, having a good home run total, and having over 100 RBIs, but he also would have passed the much more accurate tests of performance today. Parker led the league in OPS+, wRC+, OPS, and was one of three players to have at least both 30 home runs and 20 stolen bases. Parker also was a good base runner with 1.4 base running runs above average. Overall, his fWAR was 6.8 which was 3rd in all of baseball and led the National League.