Pujols says MVP should come from playoff team

[tlongII]

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6221610

What a bunch of sour grapes! The Phillies had a better record than the Cards.

[JamStone]

LMAO! Good point. Howard led his team to a better record, and just because Pujols' team plays in a horrible division, they go to the playoffs.

I think Albert is a great baseball player, but it's a pretty stupid thing to say.

Lucky for him, they don't wait til after the World Series. Didn't he suck in the world series?

[Brutalis]

Great comment he made.

As always the American public falls for the "oh he played great" routine while the team does shit. That goes for all the pro's.

MVP goes to the best player on the most successful team at the end of the year to me. The rest don't deserve it for simple reasons. They didn't get it done.

MOST
VALUABLE
player

think about it.

[Extra Stout]

Howard led his team to more wins than Pujols did. After winning the World Series, Pujols forgot that his team went 83-78, and that the MVP is a regular-season award.

[MajorMike]

If you think about it... historically this is correct. Playoff players get chosen over non-playoff players. In '98, with very comparable numbers, Corky the Sneezer was chosen over Big Mac and the overwhelming sentiment was - ammy deserved it more because the scrubbies made the playoffs.

I remember back when I was a kid, like '83 I think, there was a huge shit storm because Ripken won on a terrible Baltimore team.

[MajorMike]

And furthermore, the quotes were poorly translated and twisted.

“Confiesa se puso triste por no ganar Más Valioso”
[Pujols] confesses he was hurt that he didn’t win the MVP.

“Pujols cree se merecía MVP; dice tuvo los mejores números”
Pujols believes he deserved the MVP; he says he had the best numbers.

“Yo puse los números suficientes para ser por segundo año el más valioso, pero son los periodistas que votan y no tengo eso bajo control”
I put up good enough numbers to be MVP again, but it’s the baseball writers who vote and it’s not within my power.

“Eso es lo que yo pienso, pero yo no voto,”
That’s what I think, but I don’t vote.

He goes on to say, “But I won the MVP in 2005 and said I’d trade it for a World Series ring, and that’s what happened this year.”

In the original stories from the Dominican Republic’s Spanish-language newspapers that covered the press conference (Listín Diario & El Dia), there is no quote saying:“A player who doesn’t help his team make the playoffs isn’t the MVP. That’s what I think, but, sadly, I don’t vote.”

That quote only appears in the AP and E$PN versions of the stories.

[FromWayDowntown]

If you think about it... historically this is correct. Playoff players get chosen over non-playoff players. In '98, with very comparable numbers, Corky the Sneezer was chosen over Big Mac and the overwhelming sentiment was - ammy deserved it more because the scrubbies made the playoffs.

Again, a horrible argument, because Sosa's team was in the same division as McGwire's and made the playoffs because it won more games than the Cardinals did. Howard's team didn't have the great fortune of playing in an utterly crappy division in 2006, unlike Pujols. Your argument relying on Sosa/McGwire would have some merit if the Cardinals and Phillies had been in the same division -- though, based on records in that scenario, the Phillies, not the Cardinals, would have made the playoffs -- and the Cardinals gone to the playoffs while the Phillies sat home. That's not at all what happened here.


I remember back when I was a kid, like '83 I think, there was a huge shit storm because Ripken won on a terrible Baltimore team.

You mean the 1983 Orioles who won the World Series in 6 games over Philadelphia with AL MVP Cal Ripken, Jr.?

I think you're thinking about 1991, when the Orioles finished 6th, more than 20 games out; or maybe 1989, when Robin Yount was the AL MVP for a .500 team that finished 4th in its division; or maybe 1987, when Andre Dawson won the NL MVP on a last place Cubs team; or maybe 1986, when Mike Schmidt won the NL MVP on a team that finished more than 20 games out of first place; or 1977, when Rod Carew was AL MVP on a Minnesota team that finished 4th in its division and 17 games out; or 1972, when Steve Carlton won the Cy Young for a Phillies team that was almost 40 games out at season's end.

That is to say that there's a long history of recognizing great performances by players who's teams don't make the playoffs. The choice of Ryan Howard in 2006 over Albert Pujols doesn't even come close to the the Dawson, Schmidt, or Carlton examples, in my mind. It's much more akin to the Yount, Carew sort of vote, which weren't particularly controversial.

[MajorMike]

- Yount was a prior MVP who was in the WS.
- Carew batted .388; it was the 7th time in 8 years he led the league in batting. He also won the Roberto Clemente Award and Major League Player of the Year (which used to be given out).
- Schmidt won his 3rd MVP in '86, and was a past WS MVP.
- Andre Dawson won the award because 4 different Cardinals received votes, including #2 Ozzie and #3 Jack Clark.
- Carlton won because no one came even REMOTELY close to his 27-10 record.
Howard is a second year player.

Yes, I can see where you can draw those like comparisons.

[FromWayDowntown]

- Yount was a prior MVP who was in the WS.
- Carew batted .388; it was the 7th time in 8 years he led the league in batting. He also won the Roberto Clemente Award and Major League Player of the Year (which used to be given out).
- Schmidt won his 3rd MVP in '86, and was a past WS MVP.
- Andre Dawson won the award because 4 different Cardinals received votes, including #2 Ozzie and #3 Jack Clark.
- Carlton won because no one came even REMOTELY close to his 27-10 record.
Howard is a second year player.

Yes, I can see where you can draw those like comparisons.

Oh, so the MVP isn't about what a player did this year, because the real justification for giving out the award lies in what a player did in the past? Yes, I can see where you can discount giving the award to players whose teams didn't qualify for the playoffs solely on that basis.

In other words, thanks for completely missing my point, which was that players from teams that don't make the playoffs win major awards (other than ROY) quite frequently. This notion that Pujols somehow deserves more credit by virute of the sheer coincidence that his team played in a crappier division that Howard's and could qualify for the playoffs with a worse record is absolutely ridiculous.

Howard is a quite deserving MVP for his 2006 season; it's disrespectful to him and the history of the award to say that the mere fact that his team had the misfortune of playing in the NL East should somehow disqualify him or otherwise diminish what he did. That's never been the rule of thumb in MVP voting, no matter how much Albert Pujols and his apologists might wish it were otherwise.

[MajorMike]

Talking to you is like wrestling a 3rd grade girl - even if you win you lose. You obviously cannot put together a sensible arguement without being hateful or namecalling, so what's the point in disputing your erroneous facts when you constantly whine and go in a diff direction? Have fun.

[FromWayDowntown]

Talking to you is like wrestling a 3rd grade girl - even if you win you lose. You obviously cannot put together a sensible arguement without being hateful or namecalling, so what's the point in disputing your erroneous facts when you constantly whine and go in a diff direction? Have fun.

I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't called you any names and I'm not being hateful. I disagree with your logic and simply reiterated the same catchy jargon you threw at me in expressing that disagreement. Does that mean that you were being hateful and calling me names, too?

I'm also not going off in a different direction here. You agreed with Pujols as to the proposition that players on playoff teams somehow deserve more MVP consideration than players on non-playoff teams. I simply provided proof that in MLB history, that sort of treatment hasn't routinely occurred and argued that giving the award to Howard for his accomplishments this year is very much in line with history. Your attempt to distinguish my point relied on the what the players on non-playoff teams had done in prior years, but I don't think that the writers considered that information in placing their votes for guys whose teams didn't make the playoffs. What they said, instead, was that a guy can have a great season, an MVP season, even if his team doesn't make the playoffs and even if it finishes in the middle of the pack. Are you suggesting that that isn't true?

My apologies to you if my post offended you somehow. I certainly didn't intend that; I never intend to offend anyone. I do tend to strongly express my disagreements with what I find to be unreasonable arguments and this is another case of that phenomenon, I guess. Merits of the argument aside, I'm sorry if you think I was being hateful or calling you names. I simply disagree with what you've written.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

:lmao @ FWD being accused of childish name-calling.

I don't think CaptMike is even reading the rebuttal posts, I think he just dealt out a canned response to get out of the argument.

[NorCal510]

what a bitch

deal with it

[Extra Stout]

I think perhaps the Cardinals got their games off KMOX so that folks in Oklahoma and Arkansas can't listen to games anymore and make the rest of Cardinal Nation look like morons by asociation.

[T Park]

I think perhaps the Cardinals got their games off KMOX so that folks in Oklahoma and Arkansas can't listen to games anymore and make the rest of Cardinal Nation look like morons by asociation

That statement makes zero sense.

[Horry For 3!]

Ryan Howard is bad ass.

[Extra Stout]

That statement makes zero sense.
Go operate your Ferris wheel.

[FromWayDowntown]

That statement makes zero sense.

Neither does the argument that Howard didn't deserve to win the MVP.