Yes folks, it's true. Albert Pujols was once again screwed over in the Most Valuable Player votings. Ryan Howard has become the new Barry Bonds (except Howard doesn't use steroids, is not a jerk and the world's biggest ass): stealing the MVP away from the real Most Valuable Player. Not getting your team in the playoffs and just having an offense kind of year. What did Albert Pujols do? He led his team to the playoffs while having a career year and winning a gold glove. Don't let me just opinionate you away, let me provide you with some cold hard facts.
Pujols had an oblique injury in the middle of the season and that
prevented his numbers from being better, but that has nothing to do with the voting. I'm just letting everyone know that before I tell you this stat: Howard played in 16 more games than Pujols. In fact, this was the first year Pujols was on the disabled list..and that's in 5+ years. Ok, so here's the breakdown of the numbers:
Howard had 58 homeruns, 149 RBI, 108 walks, 181 strikeouts and had a .313 batting average.
Pujols had 49 homeruns, 137 RBI, 92 walks, 50 strikeouts and had a .331 batting average.
Howard's slugging, on-base and OPS (On-base + slugging) percentages were: .659/.425/1.082.
Pujols numbers for those categories were: .671/.431/1.102.
Howard led his team to a second place finish in both the East division and the Wild Card.
Pujols led his team to a first place finish, ended a possible third eight game losing streak and to a World Series championship (although, the post season doesn't get involved in the voting).
Now who's valuable? Is Howard more valuable because he didn't carry his team to the playoffs while only leading Pujols in three categories: walks (16), HR (9) and RBI (12)? I mean, those numbers aren't really far apart. Howard also led Pujols in strikeouts with 131 more, whereas Pujols
had 42 less strikeouts than walks, and thats hard to do. Just look at these blatent facts folks, Pujols was once screwed out of the MVP. Last year, most Cardinals fans thought he would be screwed out of it again because Jones had over 50 homeruns and Derek Lee had the batting title. He won last year, beating out a 50+ homerun guy. He should have done it this year. Heck, I would have rather seen Lance Berkman get the MVP rather than Howard. At least Berkman led his team on a charge to the central title. What did Howard do? Keep a team that was still in tact together? Everyone says he took over the team when Bobby Abreu was traded. Hate to break it to you folks, Abreu wasn't leading the team BEFORE he was traded, it was Howard all year long. Just remember these numbers. The evidence is clear: nuts and bolts, nuts and bolts, Albert got SCREWED!
***I know MVP voting was a while back, but I have been swamped with homework lately, so I never had time to write this. Enjoy and leave comments***
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