Shef got a first place vote?

And he should have eight.

I'm a little surpirsed that Sheffield whipped his teammate Lopez in the voting ... Javy had a higher OPS, and normally the BBWAAers give more credence to that defensive position thing.

Yes, he should.

Amazing that Bonds received two *3rd* place votes. I mean, you can make a case for Pujols beating out Bonds as MVP (not that I subscribe to that position) but I don't think you can make a plausible argument for anyone else being better than Bonds this season. At least not without an air of reality.

Actually, by my count, Bonds should have 7 MVP Awards:

'90, '91, '92, '93, '95, '01, and '02.

Kent rightly deserved it in '00 (playing 2B makes a difference), and Pujols really should have won this year. Ask Robert Dudek, Ben Jacobs, or David Pinto.

Bonds' landslide win suggests two things: one, people are still voting for the player from the playoff bound team (which also explains a vote for Sheffield--from St. Louis, no less!); and two, despite the obvious proliferation of OPS (how else to explain the OPS leader beating the BA leader who also has more RBIs?) rate stats like OPS are very misleading if you don't take playing time into consideration.

I think the 8th was the one he got today.

Pujols really should have won this year

Perhaps, although the two were awfully close.

It's like the 1995 situation, where two guys (well, two non-pitchers) are out in front of the league... Larkin and Bonds. Larkin won, even though Bonds seemed to have the better year. I can accept that, especially when Cincy won and the Giants finished last.

It's like AL MP this year. Would it have been horrible to see Delgado win instead of A-Rod? Not really. Even Posada was defensible.

I don't mind the defensible awards; I have more of a problem with the Tejadas, but even he wasn't that terrible.

I generally agree, Craig. Even Bonds' loss in '92 would have been defensible if he had lost to Sanberg, and not Pendleton.

I mean '91.

Albert Puhols stats blew Bonds away. The only reason Barry was given the award by the flock of sheep known as sportswriters was because of his dad passing away. He had only 90 rbi. 90!!!! Hello! The sportswriters need to stop kissing the butt of the designer steriod posterboy. Puhols, Sheffield and Gagne were all more valuable to their teams success. To prove my point, A-Rod gets MVP for a last place team. Thank god for A-Rod, otherwise Texas may have finished in AAA. Delgado was jobbed. He kept the Jays close all year in spite of the horrible pitching and they were even in contention for a while. The players voted and they got it right, Puhols was the best player in baseball in 2003. The players know what they're talking about. Don't forget 1987 when Andre Dawson got MVP for the last place Cubs. He produced only 1 more run than Ozzie Smith. Yet I gaurantee Ozzie saved a hell of a lot more runs being scored against his team than Andre. Sports writers are so lost in their own hype.

Thanks for that informative opinion, backed by irrefutable evidence, about how unworthy Barry Bonds' MVP award is. I'm sure that I need to judge Barry Bonds' performance solely by that wonderful statistic, runs batted in. Is my sarcasm thick enough to penetrate? If not, please let me know and I'll try again.

No, it's the fact that sportswriters like to vote for a player with good stats on a playoff team, but of course if you don't have that you end up with an award that should be renamed to player of the year (yeah, I'm talking about A-Rod). This isn't a sympathy award, if the Cardinals made the playoffs you might have a much tighter race. I'm not taking anything away from Bonds, he is valuable (he did have more walks than strikeouts by a large margin even though most of them were intentional, better ops, obp, HR, etc...). Pujols just had an amazing year and it would have been emphasized more if his team made the playoffs. He would have had a very good chance of winning then.

That is absolutely brutal reasoning, Wiley. The disrespect to the Bonds family is totally uncalled for and the RBI comment is just laughable! RBI is a useless stat, especially for a player like Bonds. Who is dumb enough to pitch to a hitter like that with a runner in scoring position?

Though it's an issue people are reluctant to talk about publicly, Bonds's dad dying possibly did affect voters. In a less painful way, obviously, this happened a few years ago in college football, when Tom Osborne retired from Nebraska. They shared the title that year with another team (Michigan), even though they barely won their bowl game -- 17-16 against FSU, I think, and that was because of a missed field goal; I may be confusing the years here -- while Michigan handily won the Rose Bowl against Washington State. No doubt sentiment played a part in the voting decision, because by most accounts Michigan was the superior team. (Of course, the last time USC won the national title they shared the award with Alabama -- both teams were 11-1 -- in the days when the UPI and AP decided the winner. This would be acceptable, if not for the small fact that, earlier in the year, USC beat Alabama.)

In any event, that Bonds had the kind of year he did, enduring a debilitating event such as watching your father wither away from cancer -- I speak from experience -- is all the more remarkable. Should that have any effect on the MVP? It probably should not, but it probably did.

Until it was raised here, I hadn't seen it printed or talked about anywhere, maybe I live under a rock but I prefer to think not. It can have that effect but Bonds' season can speak for itself.

A, you're absolutely right. Barry's numbers do well enough on their own, and one would hope that the voters would use them to make their decision one way or another, while ignoring sentiment.

But these are human beings doing the voting, after all, and one of our distinctions is the capacity, on occasion, to feel sympathy for our fellow sufferers.

By the way ... who is this "Puhols" character Wiley refers to? And sportswriters may be accused -- and be found guilty of -- a great many things, but one of them is not kissing Barry Bonds's ass.

I said I thought Bonds should have won in '95, despite a good year from Larkin and a great year from Maddux, and I stand by it despite the fact Bonds actually came in 12th in the voting!

Bonds was:
-1st in OPS
-1st in OBP
-1st in Times on Base
-1st in Games
-2nd in Runs (to Biggio)
-4th in HRs
-5th in SLG
-5th in Total Bases
-6th in RBI
and had 33 stolen bases to boot.

He was also
-2nd in OPS+ (to Piazza)
-2nd in RC (to Bichette)
-1st in EQA
-1st in EQR
-1st in Win Shares

It was an off-year by Barry's standards, but he was still the best.

Gitz, isn't it obvious? Wiley wasn't referring to Pujols, it was Puhols! That guy playing in the North Division, leading the league in every statistical category possible and even in that new category created specifically for him which accurately rates the intangibles of leadership, dedication and value all in one round number.

This year, by contrast, Bonds was:
-1st in OPS+
-3rd in RC (tied with Sheffield, behind Pujols and Helton)
-1st in EQA
-2nd in EQR (behind Pujols)
-2nd in WS (behind Pujols)

And for all the Javy Lopez talk, I think Marcus Giles was the Braves' second most valuable player this year.

The Braves had several tremendous offensive seasons beyond the usual suspects of Chipper Jones and Gary Sheffield; a cursory glance at the stats put up by Javy Lopez and Marcus Giles demonstrates this. The latter pretty much performed as well as Brett Boone did for the M's, and you can easily argue that both should have finished third in the MVP voting in their respective leagues.

Bonds finished 12th in 1995 with that portfolio???

Jurgen: are you on the left coast or in Toronto? You and I seem to get the last -- that is to say, late -- word on this blog.

Actually, Gitz, I think Nebraska beat Tennessee 42-17 While Michigan the WSU by less than a touchdown (28-24?). I vaguely recall Ryan Leaf driving the Cougars to within TD range before misfiring on the last play of the game. Mind you, by the time the Rose Bowl is nearing completion, I generally have had a few cold ones in me, so I could be totally wrong. FWIW, FSU beat Nebraska when the 'Huskers missed a field goal on the last play of the game, back in '93 (well, Jan. of 94), giving Bobby Bowden his first national champeenship.

Ah, I used to have a good memory. Thanks for clarifying, Mathesond. The sad thing is it would have taken me about four seconds to look this and more up on the 'Net.

Was Osborne's last year also the year when they scored that fluke TD -- the one where the guy literally kicked the low pass to a Nebraska player who caught it in the endzone -- on the last play of the game against ... Missouri? Again, I could look this up, but I have so many vague memories of the stupid BCS. Not that I'm bitter about USC dropping to third this week ...

Gitz, I'm pretty sure the kick-TD came against Missouri (didn't it send the game to overtime?). No idea if it came in Osborne's last year - I thought Coach Tom retired after winning it all again, but I was living in Halifax when they won their last title, and I'm pretty sure I was in Toronto when the 'kick' occurred. I used to be good at placing events with living rooms, but after the past few years that ability seems to have deserted me!

So "A' and "Gitz", let's get this straight RBI mean nothing. It's a misleading stat. When was the last time a player, in either league, won the MVP with 90 or fewer of this useless stat? And before either of you 2 smug twits gets cute we're excluding pitchers. Yes I did spell the name of Pujols incorrectly in my haste to vent my disapproval. But, like I said, the Major League Players know who was the best, not you two pompous chaps. Barry Bonds was hardly the superstar he was until he started on the designer steriods and at age 35 to 36 managed to gain 20 pounds of solid muscle. Rebuking the myth that cheaters never prosper. If you two clowns can make an intelligent arguement instead of making sneid remarks let's hear them. By the way, Mr. Pujols led Mr. Bonds in far more offensive categories. Due bother to look it up boys. Walks are certainly not a reason to give someone an MVP because of what they might have done if they hadn't been walked. If that were the case, again, Andre Dawson would have lost the award to Jack Clark in 1987. Try not to trip over your egos trying to prove 750 baseball players wrong.

First of all, the award that Pujols won that was voted on by the players was NL outstanding player. There is great debate about the MVP, but many people would suggest that it is not awarding the same thing as the outstanding player. In fact, you seem to be one of those who suggest that the winner of the MVP should make his team successful (a la A-Rod), leading me to believe that you think the outstanding player is not the same thing as the MVP.

Secondly, you cannot assume that Barry Bonds uses steroids. I am so sick of people pretending they know that he uses them. As far as we know, he has never tested positive for anything illegal. Based on what you know, there is just as much chance that Pujols uses steroids as there is that Bonds uses them, so this shouldn't be an issue.

Finally, how can you blame Bonds for not getting enough RBI's if no one is willing to pitch to him with runners on. Everyone is so scared of him they'd rather walk him. He had 69 more walks than Pujols in around 130 less plate appearances. What do you expect him to do, not take the walk. He beat Pujols in home runs despite getting 200 less at-bats, and beat him pretty handily in on-base percentage and slugging percentage. You can't blame Bonds because no one will throw him anything with runners on base, and when they actually do throw to him, his numbers stand up pretty well to Pujols on a per-at bat basis. As far as I'm concerned, no one changes a game, not Pujols, not anybody, like Bonds, and he's the single-biggest reason the Giants were as good as they were in the regular season. Don't kid yourself. Despite their big lead, if the Giants don't have Bonds, they miss the playoffs, if the Cards don't have Pujols, they miss the playoffs, same as in real life. By virtually any standard, in my mind, Bonds is the MVP.