Ryan Howard wins NL MVP

[HedleyLamarr]

Frankly, either player could have won it and nobody could have a legitimate complaint. To think for one second that one player clearly deserved it over the other is just being a blind homer - on either side. To be actually upset to the point of complaining is just immature.

If anything, this is one season where I think a tie would have been acceptable.

Ties and baseball should never mix.

[BBTV]

Ties and baseball should never mix.

Fair enough. I just meant that for every good point someone makes about one of the players, someone else can make an equally good point about the other. Putting either one of them down is just stupid.

[Epiphanic]

When I think about this award, I think about it's name:

Most

Valuable

Player

To me the winner should be the player that contributed the most to his team. To put it another way, if you took that player away, how good would the resultant team be?

There are many ways to disect this problem. And Pujols and Howard are definately the ones that are deserving. But I think Howard is a very deserving choice. He did essentially carry the team into the Wild Card chase. The Cards without Pujols would definately be worse, but would they have won the Central? Possibly. I know this is pure speculation. But the race was close enough to merit the choice.

[STL FANATIC]

When I think about this award, I think about it's name:

Most

Valuable

Player

To me the winner should be the player that contributed the most to his team. To put it another way, if you took that player away, how good would the resultant team be?

There are many ways to disect this problem. And Pujols and Howard are definately the ones that are deserving. But I think Howard is a very deserving choice. He did essentially carry the team into the Wild Card chase. The Cards without Pujols would definately be worse, but would they have won the Central? Possibly. I know this is pure speculation. But the race was close enough to merit the choice.

I think I'll stop arguing against Howard, but I will address the other part.

The Cardinals probably finish 10+ games out of first without Albert Pujols. Seriously. He was the only consistant offensive force this team had. The Cardinals had a couple big names who had occassional hot streaks, but Pujols had very little help, and the Cardinals barely hung on.

I still think there are other comparisons that should matter, but when speaking strictly about taking the player away from the team, both the Phillies and the Cardinals would have suffered greatly, and it'd be hard to say which one would have suffered worse.