Should Ryan Howard Win the MVP?
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.
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