Pujols wins NL MVP

Ouchyfish · Post by **Ouchyfish** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:31 pm

Pujols wins NL MVP

By RONALD BLUM, AP Baseball Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- Albert Pujols won his first National League MVP award, beating Andruw Jones in a close vote Tuesday.

The St. Louis Cardinals first baseman received 18 first-place votes and 14 seconds for 378 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Jones, the Atlanta Braves center fielder, got 13 first-place votes, 17 seconds and two thirds for 351 points.

Chicago Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee got the other first-place vote and was third with 263 points.

Pujols was second in the NL with a .330 average, five points behind Lee, and hit 41 homers, trailing only Jones (51) and Lee (46). Pujols tied for second in RBIs with 117, 11 behind Jones.

Just 25 years old, Pujols has put up remarkable statistics in his first five major league seasons, averaging 40 homers and 124 RBIs to go along with a .332 average.

He was third behind Barry Bonds and Adrian Beltre in last year's MVP voting after finishing fourth as a rookie in 2001 and second to Bonds the following two seasons. Bonds missed most of this year with a knee injury after winning the award four straight times to increase his total MVPs to a record seven.

Jones led the major leagues in home runs for the Braves, and batted .263.

Phlegm · Post by **Phlegm** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:33 pm

Jones should have won this one.

numatu · Post by **numatu** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:59 pm

Derek Lee was completely overlooked and not even talked about which is disappointing. He didn't have the entire STL lineup to protect him either.

Zanchief · Post by **Zanchief** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 3:01 pm

I think D. Sanchez should have won.

Ouchyfish · Post by **Ouchyfish** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 3:52 pm

numatu wrote:Derek Lee was completely overlooked and not even talked about which is disappointing. He didn't have the entire STL lineup to protect him either.

Did you actually watch baseball this year?

The entire Cardinals lineup was made up of bench players for the bulk of the year.

Tadpole · Post by **Tadpole** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 5:44 pm

Albert deserves this award. Cards has so many injuries that hurt them.

Spliffs · Post by **Spliffs** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 6:52 pm

This was the correct choice, and one of many to come I imagine.

My outlook is - since MVP is mostly determined by offensive production - that there are only two stats that really matter

RBI and Runs. Home Runs, Average, OBP, etc - all boil down to these two stats. So lets take a look -

Albert Pujols - 117 RBI - 129 Runs = 246 total.
Andruw Jones - 128 RBI - 95 runs = 223 total.
Derek Lee - 107 RBI - 120 runs = 227 total.

You can factor in all the other stats - Batting Average, OBP, Walks, so on and so forth, but you will only find that the gap between Pujols and Jones becomes even wider. Lee is actually much closer. You can also argue for superior fielding, but the truth is, even that gives very little noticeable advantage to any of the three.

Pujols .992, Lee .996, Jones .995

So the last thing you can argue about is surrounding players. Which - for anyone who actually follows baseball - its quite obvious the cubs and braves had superior line ups to the cardinals for most of the year.

To summarize - its blatantly obvious the MVP resides in St. Louis, all today did was confirm it.

Phlegm · Post by **Phlegm** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 7:59 pm

Spliffs wrote:This was the correct choice, and one of many to come I imagine.

My outlook is - since MVP is mostly determined by offensive production - that there are only two stats that really matter

RBI and Runs. Home Runs, Average, OBP, etc - all boil down to these two stats. So lets take a look -

Albert Pujols - 117 RBI - 129 Runs = 246 total.
Andruw Jones - 128 RBI - 95 runs = 223 total.
Derek Lee - 107 RBI - 120 runs = 227 total.

You can factor in all the other stats - Batting Average, OBP, Walks, so on and so forth, but you will only find that the gap between Pujols and Jones becomes even wider. Lee is actually much closer. You can also argue for superior fielding, but the truth is, even that gives very little noticeable advantage to any of the three.

Pujols .992, Lee .996, Jones .995

So the last thing you can argue about is surrounding players. Which - for anyone who actually follows baseball - its quite obvious the cubs and braves had superior line ups to the cardinals for most of the year.

To summarize - its blatantly obvious the MVP resides in St. Louis, all today did was confirm it.

You need to take the sum of of RBIs and runs and subtract homeruns from it since homeruns add to both runs and rbis total. You dont want to count it twice. Pujols would lead by even more.

Phlegm · Post by **Phlegm** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 8:00 pm

OuchyFish wrote:
numatu wrote:Derek Lee was completely overlooked and not even talked about which is disappointing. He didn't have the entire STL lineup to protect him either.

Did you actually watch baseball this year?

The entire Cardinals lineup was made up of bench players for the bulk of the year.

The Braves also had many injuries that forced them to play so many rookies this past season.

Ouchyfish · Post by **Ouchyfish** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:13 pm

I agree. If Andruw Jones had won I wouldn't be as against it as I am with the A-Rod disaster in the AL.

Also, when considering fielding, don't forget that Pujols is a First Baseman and Jones is an outfielder. Fielding at first is more difficult than shagging flies.

Both of them had an awesome year and both basically dragged their team to great years on their backs. Take either one of them out of their teams equations in 2005 and the team is dead in the water.

numatu · Post by **numatu** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 11:14 pm

I didn't say Pujols didn't deserve the award. I merely said it's a shame that Lee was almost completely forgotten.

Spliffs · Post by **Spliffs** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 2:41 am

Lee should have come in second. Andruw Jones had a great season, but the only thing he was really the best at was hitting the ball out of the park. This is a fine accomplishment, but doesn't really indicate helping your team the most.

Spliffs · Post by **Spliffs** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 2:48 am

To elaborate, before someone argues "Jones had more RBI, he was better at driving in runs." He really wasn't. He had nearly 50 more opportunities with runners in scoring position than Pujols did. His batting average with RISP was nearly 100 points lower.

Just to clarify.