The Boston Red Sox 11 MVP-winning seasons, ranked

No. 10: Mo Vaughn, 1995

Ask anyone who remembers the 1995 baseball season, and they'll inevitably mention how Mo Vaughn should not have won MVP this year, and that Albert Belle was the true MVP. Now, the Hit Dog was awesome for the Sox, and his hitting talent deserved recognition from the writers. However, this season should have resulted in a podium finish, not winning the whole thing.

Vaughn did tie for the league lead in RBIs and accumulated 4.3 WAR, so it's not like Mo Vaughn was an absolute scrub who came out of nowhere to win the award. The biggest thing that helped Vaughn was the fact that the Red Sox won the AL East that year, so it felt easy enough to award the best player on one of the best teams. However, Albert Belle had an even stronger case on this front. Cleveland won 100 games in the shortened season after the end of the 1994 strike, and Belle himself hit 50 home runs, tied Vaughn with 126 RBIs, and hit .317 to lead Cleveland to an AL pennant, all while accumulating 7.0 WAR. Vaughn received 12 first-place votes, while Belle received 11, and the two were separated by just eight voting points. Did it help Vaughn that the writers liked him, while Belle had an acrimonious relationship with the media? Absolutely.