Albert Pujols won only his second MVP. He was most positively the most deserving player by a vast margin. I was really disgusted to see that he only received 18 or 30 first place ballots – 12 voted for Ryan Howard, an absolutely absurd choice as he wasn’t even the most valuable player on his team. Ryan had one good month in the entire YEAR – September, as his team was winning the NL East ahead of the fading Mets. He struck out 199 times and made 425 outs. He was also an execrable fielder and baserunner, unlike Uncle – who, by the way, had an even better September than Howard did, especially over the last 2 weeks.
This whole insistence that an MVP must be on a playoff team is a little weak, seeing as how NO player, no matter how great can alone bring a team into the playoffs – and, I have to remind everyone, Albert Pujols was THE reason his team contended for the 5 months that it did.
I most definitely DO have to wonder who was the supposedly knowledgeable baseball writer who put Uncle 7th on his ballot. Someone who actually believed there were 6 National Leaguers more valuable than Albert Pujols really has no business voting.
I was proud of Lance for placing 5th – and even though he DID have a better overall year than Howard, he had a dead bat in September when the Astros were pushing for the WC. I must note though, that he was the most reliable in the clutch – in close and late, his OPS was 1.270 – better, even, than Uncle. And his defense was almost as good. And he stole 18 bases, getting caught only 4 times – and this was at age 32.
Lance has been a full time ML ballplayer for 8 seasons, and has placed in the top 10 in MVP voting 5 times, including two 3rd place finishes. Jeff Bagwell had 6 top 10 finishes in 15 seasons, including a win and a second place.
Lance is really an incredibly good baseball player. At least plenty of the BBWAA know who he is, even if BBTN doesn’t. But unfortunately, he was never greater than Barry Lamar and now he is not greater than Albert Pujols, much as I hate to admit it. Perhaps Uncle will have a down year, or break some harmless bone and Lance will just get to the head of the line anyway.
Tags: Houston Astros
The guy who put Pujols in 7th place was Tom Hardicourt, a writer for the Brewers. There’s a pretty good discussion of the whole thing at the Crawfish Boxes.
http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2008/11/17/663680/bwaa-doesn-t-screw-up-pujo
yeh, i found out who it was about 10 minutes after i finished the entry.
the guy is a person who really REALLY doesn’t think the first 5 months of the season matter and neither do players on teams who don’t make the playoffs
shrug
there is absolutely no reason to bother to try to even discuss the “thinking” of a person like that.
Tom mighta had money on the Stros to win it all and started following in September.
Or maybe as a Brewers guy, he is sworn never to give props to Astros.
Or it coulda been the brewskies talking.
having read tom’s original piece, then the reply to his critics, i think the actual answer is that he simply thinks that nothing matters but september on a winning team.
and RBIs
shrug
whatever.