Originally posted by Jugglenaut
More bullshit voting. Pujols gets an MVP for failing to carry his team to the playoffs. As long as you have nice superficial stats, you can win anything. Wonder what would the voting be if Howard had batted .280ish?
Howard would have easily won if he batted around .280. But Pujols should have got the MVP. It's not really his fault the Cardinals suck, and his stats were pretty amazing.
Plus, it's Most Valuable Player, and while Howard carried the team with an amazing September, what did he do in the playoffs besides one or two games? He was basically nonexistent and we still won the World Series. So he wasn't Valuable if we still win without him doing well. I was hoping he won it though, just to keep the MVP streak alive.
Howard wasn't even the MVP of his team, yet I would have been much happier had he won. A player whose value isn't great enough to even have a team contend has no merit. That's like saying Adrian Gonzalez should have won it.... SAME THING. Gonzalez put up great numbers and played better defense than Pujols. The only problem is Pujols is a household name. Howard, Sabathia, Manny, Utley, Braun... anyone one those guys deserved it more than Pujols. Just watch them give the AL MVP to Josh Hamilton, that would be the kicker.
If the players team makes the playoffs should not be the deciding factor in the MVP voting. I can see if it is close, then yeah, give it to the guy who's team made the playoffs, but if Pujols was on any of those teams instead of the players you mentioned, they still would have been in the playoffs.
Again, it's not his fault the Cardinals were bad, because he does literally everything possible besides pitch, catch, and coach. Besides HR's and RBI's, he kills basically everybody in every major category(SLG%, OBP%, Total Bases, etc.) Even though Howard had 11 more HR's, Pujols still have more Total Bases, which proves he is more productive, and the SLG% and OBP% isn't close between them.
Good points, Dan. What I'm saying is this: Take Albert Pujols away, and the results are the same, the Cards finish over 10 games out. Take Howard, Utley, Manny or Sabathia away from their teams and they don't finish as high as they did. Pujols is not as valuble to his team as the other players I mentioned. You may as well call the award "The Best Stats of the Year" award.
Originally posted by SpaceMonkey
Good points, Dan. What I'm saying is this: Take Albert Pujols away, and the results are the same, the Cards finish over 10 games out. Take Howard, Utley, Manny or Sabathia away from their teams and they don't finish as high as they did. Pujols is not as valuble to his team as the other players I mentioned. You may as well call the award "The Best Stats of the Year" award.
Yeah, I understand what you are saying because I used that case for Jimmy Rollins last year. 😛
The only thing I can say to that is, Baseball is the ultimate team sport. If you take Greg Dobbs off the Phillies team, even though he is just a pinch hitter, the Phillies probably don't make the playoffs either. He was the best pinch hitter in the league and had soo many clutch hits. By that definition of MVP, Dobbs is more valuable then Pujols. Of course, only a Phillies fan would know that since they see Dobbs all the time.
It is basically a "Best Stats" award.