Kirk Gibson was a Detroit Tigers star for many years, from 1979-1987 and again from 1993-1995. He placed in MVP voting four times in his career, including winning the award while with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1988. He had six seasons of at least 20 home runs, six seasons of at least 80 runs scored, and six seasons of at least 25 stolen bases. Yet he was never an All-Star. Why is that?
To try to make sense of this, I went back and looked at the four seasons in which Gibson placed in MVP voting – 1981, 1984, 1985, and 1988 – to look at Gibson’s statistics as well as who else was in the league at the time.