Congratulations to Ryan Howard, the National League's Most Valuable Player. He joins Joe Girardi, N.L. Manager of the Year, and Brandon Webb, the circuit's Cy Young winner in the 2006 awards pantheon. Great jobs, fellas.
Howard, you beat out Carlos Beltran (fourth in the voting after becoming the first Met to win a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger and start an All-Star Game in the same year), Jose Reyes (seventh), David Wright (ninth) and Carlos Delgado (twelfth).
Girardi, you topped Willie Randolph, the runner-up skipper.
And Webb, you finished way ahead of Billy Wagner, sixth among pitchers when all the ballots were counted.
You guys rocked. And you were smart. You piled up your qualifications and then beat the rush. I mean you and your Phillies, your Marlins and your Diamondbacks were all home by the evening of October 1, the morning of October 2 at the latest. Our Mets had to keep working for almost three more weeks.
What suckers.
But seriously…
Franchise record for homers (tied).
Franchise record for runs scored (broken).
Silver Slugger.
Gold Glove.
All-Star starter.
Team has best record in sport and wins division by largest margin.
And he finishes FOURTH?
Where's that New York bias we're always hearing about?
Bingo, Greg. No major market skipper can win Manager of the Year; if they win, well, they're EXPECTED to win. Just look at their lineup. Look at their pitching. Look at their payroll. As for the Cy Young: who won the most games for the team that had the most regular season wins? Steve Trachsel, of course. Who's with me?
But the MVP award in particular gets under my skin worse than the other two.
Can we, once and for all, get a Webster's definition for “Most Valuable Player”?
The best hitter? The most complete five-tool player? The one whose team would suck the most without him? And do we exclude pitchers because “they already HAVE an award”? Each MVP voter has his or her own criteria, since nobody's clearly defined what this award means.
Granted, Howard's a great player who had a monster year. But seriously, was he, among all four hundred or so players in the National League, the one who meant the most to his team's success? I may be wrong, but I don't think so.
I don't have one particular Met to offer as an alternative, because those top five SI cover boys shared the load pretty evenly throughout the year. If I had a vote, I'd have to grit my Cardinal-hating teeth and go for Pujols. Strictly considering regular-season numbers, Pujols got the Cards into the playoffs, and without him, they would have been, well, the Phillies. I know, Philadelphia had a better record that St. Louis, but so did a lot of teams. Pujols was the best player for the bulk of the year on the team that won it all, and that should be enough.
As I so often am, I'm with NostraWhatever on this one. Say what you will about Albert Pujols, but he was the MVP.
Of course I'd prefer Carlos B., but that wasn't happenin' with those two monsters in the race. Lance Berkman can bite me.
Nice to know that when Pedro faced off against this year's Cy Young award winner, he outlasted him, even if he couldn't get a W out of it.
What an awesome game that was.
Especially coming off the year he had in '05, with everybody was ready to say his '04 heroics were a fluke, you gotta give Beltran all kinds of credit. And how about that joyful smile?