No real surprise, Philly’s Ryan Howard is the NL MVP, followed by Albert Pujols, Lance Berkman and Carlos Beltran coming up fourth. Jose Reyes and David Wright finished seventh and ninth.
By the way, Alfonso Soriano, who reportedly agreed to a $136 million deal with the Cubs, came in sixth and didn’t get one first-place vote.
4 Comments
Howard may have led the league in RBI but he was 15th in the % of runners on base driven in. In his plate appearances he had more than 80 more runners on base than did either Pujols or Berkman, 99 more runners on base than did Miguel Cabrera and 132 more than Beltran. There are better stats available than RBI and the writers should look at them. It is not fair to use RBI to compare players on different teams. It is way too dependent on the number or runners on base when a player comes to the plate and that is something that a player has no influence over. So I disagree with Howard as MVP. Pujols, Berkman or even Beltran were more deserving.
To Taymitsan …
Interesting thought, but doesn’t part of the equation have to be the times he was pitched around or walked intentionally, effectively giving him less RBI opportunities?
Good point. I’ll check his intentional walks because I’m curious. I sorted this by IBB. It’ll probably look bad in the post. In fact it doesn’t line up. The IBB # shows up under GDP. Oh well :
Sortable Batting
RK PLAYER TEAM G TPA #PIT P/PA TB XBH HBP IBB GDP SH SF
1 Barry Bonds SF 130 493 1966 3.99 200 49 10 38 9 0 1
2 Ryan Howard Phi 159 704 2859 4.06 383 84 9 37 7 0 6
3 Albert Pujols StL 143 634 2393 3.77 359 83 4 28 20 0 3
4 Miguel Cabrera Fla 158 676 2642 3.91 327 78 10 27 18 0 4
Can you believe that Bonds led the majors in intentional walks last year? Howard was 2nd with 37. Pujols had 28 and Cabrera 27. Berkman had 22. Assuming you don’t intentionally walk a guy unless there are runners on then Howard lost 11 more opportunities to intentional walk than Pujols. But you don’t know how many runners that is because there could have been from 1 to 3 runners on in each walk. But aside from that the Phillies were getting a lot more guys on base in front of him than the Cards, Astros or Marlins for their RBI guys. It’s true that he would have had more RBI if not for the intentional and semi-intentional walks but he would have had a lot less if he had 100 less baserunners in his PAs. Hey, he had a monster year and he is a bona-fide slugger, feared hitter and run producing machine. I just think that he won MVP because of his RBI total which would have been much lower if he was in those other lineups rather than the Phils. Also on high scoring teams the lineup turns over more so you just plain get more PAs so of course some of those additional will be with runners on base. I don’t have a big problem with Howard as MVP. Not nearly as much as I’ve had in the past with some of the choices. I just wish RBI weren’t so overrated.
Taymitsan …
Since runs determine who wins and loses, run production is vital. Runs scored plus RBI minus homers is more a true measure of player. I understand what you’re trying to say, but I don’t think RBI is overrated.
I think homers are more overrated than RBI, as in the case of Alfonso Soriano, who, for all those homers should have driven in more runs.
Soriano hit 46 and drove in 95, which is way out of line. Howard hit 58 and drove in 149.