I’ll guess that you checked “Non-pitcher” in your P-I search. Doing so creates a default requirement of at least 50% of games at some specific position. Terry and Combs do not meet that requirement; Terry pinch-hit in 47 of his 80 games, while Combs pinch-hit or pinch-ran in 13 of his 24.

To your point about Utley’s late start, Kiki Cuyler is the only HOF position player since 1901 who, like Utley, compiled fewer than 150 games before his age 26 season.

290+ BA, 30+ HRs, 40+ doubles, 100+ runs and rbis, 14/16 SBs, led the league in hit by pitches, and played gold glove caliber defense at 2nd. And of course, he played for a team that finished first.

So where did he finish in the MVP balloting? 14th! 14th! He finished behind two players (Manny and CC) who were only in the NL for 1/3 of the season. He finished behind Ryan Braun, Carlos Delgado and Aramis Ramirez all of whom he beat in OPS, not to mention being better in the field and the basepaths. He finished behind the Phillies closer (Lidge) who had a nice season but nothing historic. He finished behind Chipper Jones who missed 34 games and whose Braves finished 20 games behind the Phillies.

And of course, he finished behind his teamamte Ryan Howard whom he also beat in OPS that year.

I really think some people should have been permanently banned from voting, based on what happened that year.

Sure you can! Just look at his teammates who won MVP Awards in 2006 and 2007! The voters still love large raw numbers, like 149 RBI or 139 Runs.