Twenty years ago, there was a team with two young stars batting in the middle of the lineup. The way Baseball-Reference.com calculates wins above replacement, Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez of the 1996 Seattle Mariners finished first and second in the American League, and nobody else was close.
Either one of them could have been the AL's Most Valuable Player that year. Neither of them won it.
Rodriguez finished second. Griffey finished fourth.
Nothing against Juan Gonzalez, the Texas Rangers outfielder who won the MVP that year, but it's easy to believe some voters picked between Griffey and Rodriguez and ended up costing both of them the award.