Frank McCormick
McCormick's 1940 MVP award stands as one of baseball's most forgotten dominant seasons. The Reds first baseman hit .309 with 19 homers and 127 RBI while leading Cincinnati to its first World Series title since the Black Sox scandal, yet his name rarely surfaces in discussions of great offensive seasons.
His nine All-Star selections tell the story of sustained excellence during baseball's golden age. McCormick posted a .299 career average across 15 seasons, collecting nearly 1,000 RBI when the game was fundamentally different. He was the steady anchor for those great Reds teams of the late 1930s and early 1940s.
What made McCormick special wasn't flashy power numbers but relentless consistency. In an era when 20 home runs meant something, his 128 career longballs represented legitimate pop from the first base position, while his .299 average speaks to a hitter who rarely had prolonged slumps.
Career · Batting
13 seasons| Year | Team | G | AB | HR | RBI | AVG | OPS | OPS+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1934 | CIN | 12 | 16 | 0 | 5 | .313 | — | — |
| 1937 | CIN | 24 | 83 | 0 | 9 | .325 | — | — |
| 1938 | CIN | 151 | 640 | 5 | 106 | .327 | — | — |
| 1939 | CIN | 156 | 630 | 18 | 128 | .332 | — | — |
| 1940 | CIN | 155 | 618 | 19 | 127 | .309 | — | — |
| 1941 | CIN | 154 | 603 | 17 | 97 | .269 | — | — |
| 1942 | CIN | 145 | 564 | 13 | 89 | .277 | — | — |
| 1943 | CIN | 126 | 472 | 8 | 56 | .303 | — | — |
| 1944 | CIN | 153 | 581 | 20 | 102 | .305 | — | — |
| 1945 | CIN | 152 | 580 | 10 | 81 | .276 | — | — |
| 1946 | PHI | 135 | 504 | 11 | 66 | .284 | — | — |
| 1947 | BSN | 96 | 252 | 3 | 51 | .333 | — | — |
| 1948 | BSN | 75 | 180 | 4 | 34 | .250 | — | — |
| Career | 1534 | 5723 | 128 | 951 | .299 | — | — | |
Matchups, projections, comps — grounded in Lahman, Retrosheet, and Statcast.