A National League first baseman won his second MVP award on Monday, but it wasn’t Ryan Howard. Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols became the 25th multiple MVP winner, with the ex-BlueClaw and current Phillies slugger Howard finishing second.

Pujols took home 18 of the 32 first place votes, with Howard racking up 12. Phillies closer Brad Lidge, who finished eighth in the voting, was the only other player who received first-place votes. Pujols was also the only player to appear on every ballot. Voters, two from each league city, rank their candidates first through tenth.

What certainly swung the voting towards Pujols was his .357 batting average, 106 points higher than Howard, who hit .251. No player has ever won the award with an average that low. Marty Marion of the 1944 Cardinals hit .267. Howard hit .313 when he won the award in 2006.

As we said yesterday, we would have voted for Howard because he carried his team to the playoffs, while the Cardinals finished fourth, but Pujols is certainly deserving. He had a magnificent season.

We’ll find out Monday afternoon if 2002 BlueClaws first-baseman Ryan Howard, wins his second MVP award. Apparantly he’s gone on to some pretty good things since hitting .280 with 19 HRs and 87 RBI for the BlueClaws in 2002.

Contenders Avg-HRs-RBI

Ryan Howard, PHI: .251-48-146…It’s not an easy sell like it was two years ago, when Howard hit .313 with 58 homers. But he’s certainly in the mix. Going into the month of September the Phillies were two games out of first and Howard was hitting .238. But in September, Howard hit .352-11-32 and slugged .852 in 25 games. The Phillies were 17-8 and won the division. That’s no coincidence, as his September was filled with big hit after big hit.

Chase Utley, PHI: .292-33-104…Excellent year for Utley but he hit his 20th home run on June 2nd, which means he hit only 13 the rest of the season.

Albert Pujols, STL: .357-37-116…Hard to argue with Pujols, who was fantastic yet again. It should be noted that Pujols did win the Silver Slugger, for best offensive season, among NL first-basemen. That bodes well for him winning this award.

David Wright, NYM: .302-33-124…Numbers are again excellent but teammate Carlos Delgado arguably key to team’s turnaround and season defined by another rough September.

Carlos Delgado, NYM: .271-38-115…Renaissance year of sorts for Delgado, who hit .300-24-68 over the last three months of the season. But team’s September struggles will prevent either listed Met from winning.

Hanley Ramirez, FLA: .301-33-67…Threw in 35 steals, but had a better year in 2007. He’ll win one of these pretty soon, no question, but not yet.

Lance Berkman, HOU: .312-29-106…He hit .347 and 22 home runs in the first half and only .259 with seven homers in the second half.

Ryan Braun, MIL: .285-37-106…Big walk-off homer the last weekend of the year against the Cubs, but others were a bit better, including one on his team.

CC Sabathia, MIL: 11-2, 1.65 ERA…Some say a pitcher shouldn’t win this award. I say why not? He was magnificent for Milwaukee, carrying them, on his back, to the postseason for the first time since the early ’80s, and he threw most of the last month of three-days rest.

So how would I vote? I got it down to Howard, Pujols, and Sabathia. To be honest, it could go in any of the six possible orders among these three, but I would put Howard on top, because of his great September, Sabathia next, for carrying his team to the playoffs on three-days rest, and Pujols, despite his fantastic season, third.

We’ll find out Monday. Here’s an interesting article by a mathematics professor at NJIT who used math to determine both the MVP and Cy Young Awards. Baseball Prospectus hosted and tabulated the votes of 1,600 fans.

20 weeks away from the World Championship Banner going up at Citizens Bank Park. Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN2 against Atlanta is the setting. The game was moved from 1:05 on Monday, April 6th, to accomodate the national television audience. Bundle up.

The BlueClaws, by the way, open four days later, on Thursday, April 9th, at home against Delmarva (Orioles) at 6:35. Should be a fun week.

Here’s one to bookmark. MLB.com has published an excellent yearly review of the Phillies minor league system. Most of the players mentioned are either former BlueClaws, or have a good chance at being in Lakewood during the 2009 season.

The organizational offensive player of the year was Michael Taylor, who was in Lakewood for the first-half of the season.

“You hate to compare someone who just finished his first full season to Ryan Howard, but the similarities are unmistakeable. A 6-6, 250 pound power hitter who was a fifth-round pick of the Phillies? One difference though, is that Taylor had a much better first full season than Howard did.”

Taylor ranked in the top-ten in the entire minor leagues in average (.346), hits (170), and total bases (274). He improved his average 119 points from 2007 to 2008.

Quintin Berry, Jason Donald, Greg Golson, and Lou Marson all “climbed the ladder,” and several others, including Carlos Carrasco, are mentioned too.

The draft recap section of the article discusses several players who could be with the BlueClaws in 2009, including 2008 first-round pick SS Anthony Hewitt, and RHP Jason Knapp, who struck out 38 in 31 innings in the Gulf Coast League last year. He was drafted 71st overall out of North Hunterdon High School in western New Jersey.

As we get closer to the season we’ll take a deeper look at some of the 2008 draft picks.

CJ Henry, a BlueClaw during the 2006 and 2007 seasons, has traded in his glove and cleats for sneakers and a Memphis Tigers basketball uniform, at least during the winter. The former first-round pick of the Yankees (traded to the Phillies in the Bobby Abreu deal) has decided to walk-on to the basketball team at Memphis, the national runners-up last season. We thought today would be as good a time as any, with Memphis set to open their season against Fairfield on Saturday night, to take a look at an article from August in the Oklahoman.

“The opportunity to win a national championship this year,” said Henry of why he chose Memphis. “Coach Cal has a great track record of getting guys to the next level.”

CJ’s brother, Xavier, is the top ranked shooting guard in the class of 2009, and will decide soon between Kansas, where his father played, or joining his brother at Memphis. CJ was all set to play basketball at Kansas out of high school before the Yankees drafted him 17th overall in 2005. Back in the Yankees organization, he plans to play baseball during the summer.

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Any questions? Any topics you want to see covered here at BlueClaws Blog? Stay in touch with us using the comment feature.

Our good friends at Baseball America put out a tremendous calendar every year, their Great Parks Calendar, and this year FirstEnergy Park has been selected for the month of March. Another great job by BlueClaws team photographer (and spring training blog contributor) Dave Schofield. You can see the picture here, and the calendar is available through Baseball America.

Earlier we looked at the progress made by Jason Donald. There are a few others that deserve a mention down in Mesa, Arizona as the Fall League wraps up.

Quintin Berry (2007) is batting .347, including 20 for his last 55, after hitting .272 with 51 steals for Clearwater. Berry played for Tony Gwynn at San Diego State and how has another Hall of Famer as a hitting coach, as he blogged about.

“I’m leaning a lot here, especially from our hitting coach, Ryne Sandberg. Having a Hall of Famer in Tony Gwynn as a college hitting coach made great improvements in my game on the outside pitch. This has been a great strength of mine for years. Now I have another Hall of Famer in Ryne who has completely elevated my game on the inside pitch. This has been something that I struggled with for years and Ryne has made my confidence level higher than ever before when it comes to the inside pitch. And that’s just after a few weeks. I must say I’m pretty lucky.”

Lou Marson (2006) is down there now after spending the postseason traveling with the big league club. Tuffy Gosewich (2007) took his place on the original AFL roster.

Jeremy Slayden (2006) is at .298 with a pair of home runs. He hit 17 with Double-A Reading this year, and should get a crack at Triple-A in 2009. He went 3-5 yesterday.

The biggest pitching story of the AFL has probably been Braves prospect Tommy Hanson (Phillies fans should get ready to see him in a few years). He’s 3-0 with a 0.45 ERA, with 30 strikeouts and 4 walks in 18.2 innings this fall. The Braves have apparantly refused to include him in a deal for Padres ace and 2007 NL CY Young Award winner Jake Peavy.

Sergio Escalona (2007) has a 4.85 ERA in 13 innings this fall, while Pat Overholt (2006) has a 5.93 ERA in 13.2 innings pitched.

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One other AFL note…Jimmy Rollins was inducted last week into the Arizona Fall League Hall of Fame. He played in the AFL in 2000. The only other person in the AFL Hall of Fame with Phillies ties is ex-Phils manager Terry Francona, who managed in the AFL in 1992 and 1994 when he was with the White Sox organization.

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Quickly to the Hawaiian Winter League, where Kyle Drabek (2007) has thrown the ball very well. The 2006 first-round pick of the Phillies was with Lakewood in 2007, but didn’t pitch after June 15th after an injury. He returned to the mound 13 and a half months later, July 30th of this year. Opponents hit just .156 off Drabek in eight appearances between the GCL and Williamsport. He’s down in the Hawaiian Winter League now, where he has a 2.76 ERA and 14 strikeouts in 16.1 innings pitched. It’s still a long process but it appears that Drabek has progressed quite nicely this year.

As the Arizona Fall League winds down for 2008, let’s take a look at some of the Phillies prospects and how they’re doing. All the Phillies reps are playing for the AFL team in Mesa.  We’ll start with Jason Donald (BlueClaws 2007). One of the top position prospects in the system, Donald has scorched the ball in Arizona, and is currently hitting .405. He’s really caught the eye of the Phillies and scouts from around the league. 

Here’s a thought on Donald from Phils GM Ruben Amaro, Jr. courtesy of David Murphy of the Philadelphia Daily News. 

“We’re trying to bounce him around a little bit to give him more versatility,” general manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. said. “He is one of the premiere position-type prospects. Obviously, we have a shortstop and second baseman and it is nice to have him play some third base and get him acclimated at that position in case we have to go that route with him at some point.” 

So Jason, how is the position switch? Donald has been doing some off and on blogging over at mlbblogs.com.  “I would say one of the main goals for me while I am here is to learn and play third base. I have always been a shortstop and have only played shortstop my whole entire life, so this will be a great opportunity for me…It has been a process thus far, but getting reps and experience is the most important thing for me. I also know that Jimmy Rollins won’t be going anywhere for quite awhile, and if learning and knowing how to play all three spots helps get me to the big leagues, then I will take the opportunity every time.”   

Check back later, we’ll have some updates on several other players down at the Arizona Fall League.  

Welcome back everybody to the BlueClaws Blog here at BlueClaws.com. I’m Greg Giombarrese, and beginning with this post, I’ll be taking you through everything you need to know about the Lakewood BlueClaws.

You may have heard by now that Brendan Burke, the voice of the BlueClaws for the last two seasons, has moved on, and is now the Director of Communications and play-by-play voice of the Peoria Rivermen of the American Hockey League. We wish Brendan the best, but the show must go on.

We’re revamping the BlueClaws blog, and promise to update it more frequently, so check back here as often as you’d like.

Make this your number one source for information about BlueClaws players and coaches, current and former, looks at the Phillies minor league system, interviews with industry personnel, trivia contests, where you can win fabulous prizes, and so much more.

A little about me…I went to Fordham (in the Bronx) where I broadcast Fordham athletics on WFUV, the school’s NPR-affiliate station. This is actually my second stint with the BlueClaws, having worked as Brendan’s assistant during the 2007 season. I’ve covered the Yankees, Jets, Nets, horse racing, and golf tournaments, and most recently broacast the US Open Tennis Championships on USOpen.org. Now I’m back in Lakewood, I’m looking forward to it, and I’m looking forward to keeping all of you up to date on the latest happenings here at BlueClaws Blog.

By the way, just because it’s baseball’s offseason doesn’t mean it’s the offseason here at BlueClaws Blog. We’ll be back with much more throughout the week.