Congratulations to Albert Pujols on winning the 2008 National League MVP Award.
Likewise, Congratulations to the Phillies’ Ryan Howard on finishing a very strong Second Place in the MVP voting. Ryan Howard, in addition to leading the league in homers three straight years, has now won an NL MVP and placed second in NL MVP voting a second year. These are strong credentials towards making a case for entering the Hall of Fame one day. MVP award votes typically measure how a player is thought of at the time he is playing–how valuable he is thought of at the time he is playing. By this standard, Ryan Howard is one of the best players in baseball today.
But that said, and much as I believe Ryan Howard had a terrific season that carried the Phillies into the World Series and to the World Championship, the stats on paper slightly favor Albert Pujols. Pujols had a higher batting average, a higher on base percentage, and a higher slugging percentage, and across the board those advantages were substantial. Also, in terms of fielding the position, Howard ranked near the bottom of the NL, while Pujols, who was once an awful fielder, has become one of the NL’s top 1st basemen. Finally, in terms of win shares, Pujols had more than Howard by quite a stretch. Howard’s poor on base percentage and poor fielding doomed him in this regard. Howard this year, despite his monster numbers, never got untracked against lefty pitching except in bursts.
This MVP vote essentially reverses the situation of 2006, where Howard won the MVP, but the Phillies didn’t make the playoffs, missing by just a game making the wild card. Howard hit 58 homers, however, and the voters made him the MVP over Pujols, who had monster numbers for a Cards team that won the world championship. In 2008, Howard again had monster numbers, this time for a world championship team, but Pujols had better numbers for a team that never got close.
In this sense, the MVP voters may have reasoned to some extent that Pujols deserved the award but didn’t get it in 2006 due to the exceptional nature of Howard’s numbers, and that since the numbers were closer and in fact favored Pujols this year, they were going to give it to Pujols and even out that particular anomaly.
One thing is clear from the voting; like Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, or like Stan Musial and Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, we now have two annual rivals for the MVP award in the National League, Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols, who will battle every year for that prize. Throw in David Wright of the Mets, and you have a three way battle.
One player who I did not think deserved a third place finish was Ryan Braun of the Brewers. I know he has good numbers, but I’ve watched him play, and Ryan Braun just doesn’t carry a team like a Pujols or a Howard.
The 4th place finisher, by contrast, Manny Ramirez, currently of the LA Dodgers, and the free agent of the moment, clearly was MVP material over the two months he was with the Dodgers. In fact, in my opinion, more so than Pujols or Howard, Ramirez was the real MVP in the National League, except for the fact that he only played two months.
I know that during the NLCS, it was TERRIFYING to watch Ramirez come to bat. There was simply no place to pitch him safely. Even if a pitcher tried to pitch around him, by going low, outside or inside or on the edges of the plate, Ramirez would adjust and hit a bad pitch for a homer or a double. He was just an unstoppable force of nature. I have never seen a hitter so locked in before or since as Manny Ramirez was during those playoffs.
Of course, his place in the Hall of Fame is waiting. I am not going out on much of a limb here if I predict now that if Ramirez stays in LA next year, he will join Pujols and Howard as a viable MVP candidate in 2009.
To summarize, congratulations to Albert Pujols on winning the NL MVP Award for 2008.
–art kyriazis, philly/south jersey
HOME OF THE WORLD CHAMPION PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
Tags: 2006 NL MVP, 2008 NL MVP, Albert Pujols, Art Kyriazis, arthur j kyriazis, Arthur Kyriazis, Brewers, Cardinals, David Wright, Hall of Fame, Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio, Kyriazis, LA Dodgers, Manny Ramirez, MVP, National League, NLMVP, Phillies, Ryan Braun, Ryan Howard, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, World Championship, World Series
