I believe a team’s record should be taken into account when selecting the MVP, but not Cy Young.

For MVP, my criteria is simple. You want to know who was the most valuable, so the question is “Where would the team be without this player?”. A bad team is still a bad team. Where would the last place Astros be without Berkman? Last place. A great season is enough to get a guy a 7th or 8th place vote if he’s on a bad team, I suppose.

Cy Young is for best pitcher, period. Record doesn’t come into play at all.
Of course, ROY is for the best rookie, period.

My current winners:

MVP: 1 – Utley, 2 – Pujols, 3 – Burrell.
CY: 1 – Volquez (he’ll probably drop out soon but now he’s the choice based on ERA), 2 -3: toss-up between Lincecum, Haren, Sheets
ROY: 1 – Soto, 2 – Jurrjens, 3 – Fukudome (Votto just behind)

Seems like the most “valuable” player could be measured by VORP if it’s a simple question of where the team would be without him. A little too reductive.

It’s tough to argue against any of your choices here, but I’ll repost what I wrote on my blog here in response to the Utley as MVP argument:

“The smart money to win this award would be on Chase Utley. Utley is currently on pace to hit 43 HRs and drive in 120 runs–all for a division leading team. However, a closer look at Utley’s splits indicates he is benefiting greatly from playing in the bandbox that is Citizen’s Bank Ballpark. At home, Utley has 17 HRs compared with 8 on the road. To be fair, Lance Berkman plays in a bandbox of his own, but the HR splits for him are dead even–11 at home and on the road.”

Now I do agree the argument does come down to how you define the award. Is it the best player or the most valuable player to a team? And even then, how do you define the valuable piece? The Astros are 4 games under .500 right now, without Berkman, they would likely be much worse than that. Is that value?