Who do you think will be the AL and NL MVP's?

[Tadpole]

Up to now, I believe Vlad will be the MVP in the AL. For the NL, I am going to say Scott Rolen, with Barry Bonds a very close second.

[Ouchyfish]

/agree..

[Zanchief]

Mario Lemieux and Wilt Chamberlain.

[Xaiveir]

In the AL its hard to argue against Vladamir Guerro. 140 Hits, 86 runs scored, 24 bombs, 86 RBIs, only 57 Ks (impressive for a free swinger), and a .326 batting average.

However one person that may make a run for the AL MVP is David Ortiz. He is having an amazing year, and if the redsox do get to the playoffs there will be alot of people giving Ortiz consideration.


In the NL, its a very tight race. You have your obvious choices of Bonds, Pujols, Rolen, Thome. Then you have some very worthy candidates that many dont know, or have not thought about. Helton, Burnitz, Beltre' and Bobby Abreu.

However once again i think it will come down to a two horse race, Bonds and Pujols. Pujols is FAR more valuable to the cardinals than Rolen (not saying Rolen isnt. They wouldnt be where they are now without him). Once again though, i think Barry Bonds will win his 7th award.

He is by far the most dominant player in the game right now, and that is hardly disputable. No single player has more pull on the outcome of a game than Bonds. And at 40 he is only getting better.

Number wise this is how they stack up

PUJOLS

G...AB...R....H...2B..3B.HR..RBI..BB..K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
105 408 94 130 30 0 31 80 59 33 5 4 .319 .405 .620 1.025


BONDS

G..AB..R.H..2B.3B.HR.RBI..BB..K..SB.CS AVG OBP SLG OPS

98 255 85 90 18 0 29 67 155 22 5 0 .353 .600 .765 1.364


Barry Bonds as you can see has some VERY impressive numbers (not saying pujols doesnt). Some very key ones to point out. Even though Pujols has 2 more Hrs, 13 more RBI's and 9 more runs scored you do have to take these other stats into consideration. Bonds has 153 LESS official at bats and puts up about the same numbers. 75 MORE walks than pujols, bonds also has only struck out 22 times. With a .600 On base percentage is GODLY, along with a .765 slugging percentage is also one of the best percentages ever.

By far Bonds is the most feared and dominant hitter in the game. To be able to carry an above .350 average through a season where he only gets 2-3 official at bats a game is amazing.

Your MVP has to go to the most dominating player, and the most valuable to a team. SI (sports illistrated) coined the Giants as Barry Bonds and the 7 dwarfs, because without Bonds the Giants are a sub .500 team and definatly not even in contention for a division championship, let alone a playoff birth at all. You take Pujols out of the cardinals lineup, and they will most likely still be a playoff team.

Pujols will win afew MVPs in his already amazing career, but not this year. Again the award will go to Bonds.


Xaiveir Tanthalas
Forest Stalker of the Nameless

[Malluas]

I would say Bonds will get it
Barry is a guy that changes games and innings.

He is like a guy in Basketball you defend with all 5 of your players. He is what like 75% of the time on base? He has around the same number of HRs with like half the at bats.

I look at it this way. If pitchers pitched to bonds he would have around 800 HRs by now. Last 3 years he could have 70+

[Arlos]

*nod* It's entirely because of just how dominant Barry is, and the fact that NO ONE is pitching to him, really ever, that Baseball as a whole is actually thinking about making changes to intentional walks, just to try and at least partially put a stop to it. Now, when ONE player forces rule changes to an entire game, that has functionally ben unchanged in almost 100 years, I don't think you can get much more dominant than that.

Giants could've done 3 things differently, and they would be seriously in contention for the World Series:

1) NOT make that asinine Russ Ortiz trade last year. They already traded away the pitcher they got for him, for a bucket of spit, and all Ortiz did is win 18 games last year, and just went like 4-0 or 5-0 in his last few starts. Think the Giants would love to have him to put behind Schmidt?

2) Get a real closer candidate in the offseason (Foulke maybe) as insurance if Nen wasn't ready yet, which he isn't. Even if Nen came back, talk about having a good 1-2 punch for relief innings. (That or not lose Joe Nathan, who's only had a 0.0 ERA in his last several appearances)

3) Sign Vlad Guerrero this last off-season. Have him hit behind Barry. Think Barry'd see more pitches to hit if Vlad was hitting 5th, or 4th with Barry 3rd? (or think about what Vlad's #s would be if he hit in FRONT of Barry?) Sure, it'd be pricy right now, but they'd have a bonafide superstar to get people into the seats 3 years from now, or whenever Bonds retires.

-Arlos

[Ouchyfish]

As long as the Cardinals exist no one ever had a real chance for World Series contention this year in the NL.

[Mop]

After the Larry Walker pick up I have to agree.

[Malluas]

i bet they don't win the world series, don't have the pitching.

Right arlos. But they can't change intentional walks. The moment that happens they will just throw away near the strike zone but the way Barry Bats he won't hit or even swing at them. And its an intentional walk anyways. They do that now because they kno they can't pitch anywhere near the strike zone. Besides Baseball doesn't want Bonds to break the record or even pass Ruth. The moment he passes Ruth up comes the "barry is better than Ruth" arguements and they don't want that in the lime light. I wouldn't be surprised if Bonds pulls a Barry sanders and leaves before breaking the record and like 750 hrs

Until bonds retires Giants won't be good. But again with him gone they will have to spend a crap load of money to get a big bat.

[Ouchyfish]

i bet they don't win the world series, don't have the pitching.

Yes this has been said time and time again and once again i will say how they don't need excellent pitching. They have shown all year that they can pitch well enough to out bat the other team. they did this against Schmidt, they have done it against a lot of other great pitchers.

[Malluas]

You need pitchin in the WS we shall see... I don't really care. But you can't out bat in the world series really. Regular seasons means jack shit.

Baseball sucks anyways

[Tadpole]

watch out for my man Miguel Tejada...my O's are on a roll bitch! and he continues to rack up the RBI's ~

[Xaiveir]

The cardinals really dont have bad pitching. They have about an average starting staff. However, regular season offense will get you to the playoffs, pitching will win a championship.

That said, in the NL the cards will most likely still go to the series even with an average pitching staff. However if they run up against the Yankees or the Red sox, their dominant pitching can and will beat the cardinals.

Had the cardinals gone out and attempted to get an ace (not sure there was really one on the market though) they would be VERY hard to beat.

With the addition of Walker in that lineup, sure makes them look pretty damn good (as if they didnt already).

I still think the WS champion will be the yankees though (DAMN YANKS)


Xaiveir Tanthalas
Forest Stalker of the Nameless

[Xaiveir]

Fat chance in hell that barry will retire before passing Ruth or Aaron. Right now he is on a mission to proving something to people. After the steroid scandal (wich i still dont think he used em), to his questionable character he has never really gotten the type of publicity he should (albiet most of it was self induced).

It would be good for baseball to have Barry breaking ruth and aarons mark, it will put more butts in the seats. It did with the Mcgwire/sosa chase, and it certainly added some steam when barry beat Mcgwire.

Baseball has lost ALOT of fans, having someone come up and challenge the legendary marks of Ruth and Aaron would do wonders for baseball in marketing alone. IT will hopefully rejuvenate some lost interest in the game.

While MLB did say something about changing the Intenional walks thing, esspecially in the case of barry bonds, they were not serious. It was actually Bud selig who said that it would be amazing to see what kind of numbers Barry put up if he was actually pitched to, perhaps a change of rules for the IBB should be made (the comment was made in jest.)

They would never change the rule, because its not something they can enforce. How do you police something like that? If someone throws what appears to be intentional balls does he get tossed out of the game? The IBB rule will never get changed, again seligs comment was in jest, not something that they were actually thinking of implementing.


Xaiveir Tanthalas
Forest Stalker of the Nameless

[Tacks]

gotten the type of publicity he should

Although you said most of it was self induced, I would say 99% of it was self induced...this asshole won't do an autograph signing or an interview. Whenever he does do one, once in a blue moon, he acts like a complete and total asshole. This guy should realize that the fans made him who he is and without him he would just be another stupid black man filling my gas.

[Ouchyfish]

gotten the type of publicity he should

Although you said most of it was self induced, I would say 99% of it was self induced...this asshole won't do an autograph signing or an interview. Whenever he does do one, once in a blue moon, he acts like a complete and total asshole. This guy should realize that the fans made him who he is and without him he would just be another stupid black man filling my gas.

Amen.

[Xaiveir]

I wouldn't be surprised if Bonds pulls a Barry sanders and leaves before breaking the record and like 750 hrs

Quoted froma news source.

"Barry Bonds announced Tuesday that he will play in 2005 and that he wants to retire a Giant, but possibly not until after the 2006 season. He told the Associated Press he wants to talk to his family and decide then, but he will definitely play next year. He reportedly wants the Giants to pick up their option at $18 million for the 2006 season, but the Giants have not made any comment on the issue. "



Unless he doesnt play in 2006, looks like the record is his, and he doesnt sound like he wants to quit like sanders did. 688 hrs and counting, 26 behind ruth, and 57 behind aaron.

You figure he will probably hit at least 12 more bombs this year at least, and that puts him at 700. He could get the record next year.......


Xaiveir Tanthalas
Forest Stalker of the Nameless

[Harrison]

Fuck intentionally walking batters. Pussies.

[Tadpole]

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=240824120

damn, might have to change my pick in the NL. he means everything to LA. he will win NL MVP in the same way Miguel Tejada did two years ago.

[Ouchyfish]

Pujols..easilly..

[Rzail]

Sheffield or Vlad in AL

Bonds/Beltre/Pujols in NL

[Malluas]

well i would say Pujols except, barry bonds is the mvp of any team he is on.

Pujols has alot more around him which gives him better pitches

He is always on base. He hits 30-60 Hrs every year

he is gonna be walked over 200 times this year if he hasn't already has like 100 intentional

Has better batting avg (if he got more pitches it would be the same look at his year after the 73 HR year) He would have like 60+ hrs at this point in time if he got balls to hit.

When pitches and teams are afraid to pitch to a person, that makes him MVP period.

True about the IBB. No way to monitor it. But Bonds could be at 755 alreaady if he got balls to hit the last couple seasons or at least as close as to 1 more year of playing.

Its so sad the best player in the majors gets screwed by the pitches and managers and the fans get screwed. Even in games that mean nothing they IBB him