King Albert (a baseball post)

As I'm sure you all know by now, especially if you read yesterday's post, Albert Pujols won the 2005 NL MVP. As a Cardinals fan, that made me extremely happy, but I also happen to think he deserved it. I've heard a lot of general buzz about how Andruw Jones should have won the award. I even read one guy's comment that Jones would not win (this was before the award was announced) because the Braves are always overlooked and ignored. That guy must have been smoking something other than Malboros, but I won't get into that.

Andruw did beat Albert in two of the sexy categories -- HRs and RBI -- but voters finally are beginning to look past those particular stats. Using virtually every measure of true effectiveness, Pujols smoked Jones. I know batting average is a discredited stat right now, but BA with runners in scoring position maybe does give you some measure of a player's contribution in important situations. Since Andrew had 11 more RBI than Albert, he must have done okay with RISP, right? Nope! With RISP, Albert hit .329 (1 point lower than his season average) while Andruw hit an astonishingly poor .207 (56 points below his season average)! So how did Andruw pile up all those RBI? Well he did hit 10 more HRs than Albert, but he had 44 more at bats with RISP. Yes, that awful, horrible, younth-infested Braves lineup that Jones CARRIED, all on his own, through the season managed to give Andruw 44 more at bats with runners in scoring position than did the Cardinals' vaunted scoring attack.

Living in Braves Country, I got sick of hearing how great the Braves were doing DESPITE having to use all those rookies. Fact is, those rookies had pretty good seasons. Jones supporters seemed to overlook the fact that 4 of the 8 regular position players for the Cardinals missed significant chunks of the season. In fact, a comparison of the Braves without Jones and the Cards without Pujols shows the following [NOTE: OPS is on base percentage + slugging percentage; widely acknowledged as a better measure of offensive performance than simple batting average]:

Braves (no Jones): 605 RBI, 133 HRs, and (approx.) 0.750 OPS.
Cardinals (no Pujols): 640 RBI, 129 HRs, and (approx) 0.729 OPS.

Yep, those Baby Braves (along with Chipper) actually were a fairly potent offensive force. They did produce fewer RBI, but they hit more HRs and had a higher OPS than the much admired Cardinals offense (minus Pujols). The truth of the matter is, Jones and Pujols both carried their teams through some unexpected difficulties this year. So enough about how Andruw was so important to the Braves while the Cards would have won anyway.

Though I am a die-hard Cardinals fan, I am a baseball fan first. I can honestly say I would have been disappointed but not (too) upset if the MVP had gone to Derrek Lee. He actually had a slightly better statistical year than Pujols, but his team fell out of contention too early. That wasn't really Lee's fault, but his numbers did fall off pretty sharply after an amazing first two months (unlike someone else who had consistent numbers pretty much all year). Still, I'd have understood if Lee had won it. I don't, though, see where people get the idea that Andruw Jones should have won. To me it should have been a 2 horse race between Lee and Pujols. Were Lee's better numbers enough better to outweigh the finishing position of his team? The voters said no.

Actually, Jayson Stark has a much better discussion of the whole Pujols vs. Jones issue over at ESPN. If you're a baseball fan, go read the whole thing. It's really pretty good. If you're not a baseball fan I figure you've stopped reading by now. If not, sorry.