Fantasy Baseball: NL 2nd Half OPS Leaders and Is Albert Pujols the NL MVP?

by Ray Guilfoyle on Aug 28, 2009 10:00 AM EDT in Baseball

ESPN's Rob Neyer posted on his blog today that voters/fans should not be so quick to hand Albert Pujols the MVP trophy with a little more than a month to go. I decided to look into how King Albert has hit since the All Star Break. What you see below may surprise many.

Let's take a look:

Player	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BB	KO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Holliday, Matt LF STL	150	33	58	9	39	17	21	0.387	0.443	0.693	1.136
Ethier, Andre RF LA	153	28	57	9	31	18	23	0.373	0.451	0.680	1.131
Reynolds, Mark 3B ARI	131	26	43	14	22	17	50	0.328	0.413	0.710	1.123
Zimmerman, Ryan 3B WAS	142	35	47	12	34	22	23	0.331	0.418	0.662	1.080
Dunn, Adam LF WAS	130	26	41	10	27	29	46	0.315	0.451	0.623	1.074
Gonzalez, Adrian 1B SD	138	24	45	10	25	30	21	0.326	0.441	0.630	1.072
Ramirez, Hanley SS FLA	150	30	61	5	25	13	32	0.407	0.467	0.593	1.060
Tulowitzki, Troy SS COL	144	30	47	8	33	20	31	0.326	0.407	0.625	1.032
Roberts, Ryan 3B ARI	101	13	34	6	13	13	15	0.337	0.412	0.584	0.997
Blanks, Kyle 1B SD	106	20	30	9	17	15	40	0.283	0.392	0.594	0.986
Fukudome, Kosuke RF CHC	124	22	40	4	20	24	26	0.323	0.432	0.548	0.981
LaRoche, Adam 1B ATL	120	18	39	8	21	15	30	0.325	0.397	0.583	0.980
Lee, Derrek 1B CHC	146	23	45	7	29	22	37	0.308	0.396	0.582	0.979
Howard, Ryan 1B PHI	151	29	44	13	41	17	52	0.291	0.361	0.616	0.976
Braun, Ryan J. LF MIL	164	29	51	11	35	11	23	0.311	0.362	0.610	0.971
Willingham, Josh LF WAS	132	24	39	9	31	18	26	0.296	0.391	0.576	0.967
Lee, Carlos N. LF HOU	149	20	49	8	32	12	11	0.329	0.380	0.577	0.957
Ramirez, Aramis 3B CHC	114	19	35	6	22	13	20	0.307	0.388	0.553	0.940
Werth, Jayson RF PHI	138	22	40	9	23	20	40	0.290	0.388	0.551	0.938
Diaz, Matt LF ATL	108	17	36	5	17	7	23	0.333	0.390	0.546	0.936
Coghlan, Chris 3B FLA	148	23	51	5	19	13	22	0.345	0.398	0.534	0.931
Gomes, Jonny LF CIN	99	14	26	10	22	9	36	0.263	0.333	0.586	0.919
Lopez, Felipe 2B MIL	150	22	54	2	19	16	22	0.360	0.425	0.493	0.918
Wright, David 3B NYM	104	19	34	3	12	18	19	0.327	0.427	0.490	0.918
Fowler, Dexter CF COL	104	22	31	1	12	21	33	0.298	0.416	0.500	0.916
Fielder, Prince 1B MIL	153	21	43	12	34	20	34	0.281	0.364	0.549	0.913
Pujols, Albert 1B STL	144	26	40	8	22	23	20	0.278	0.392	0.521	0.913

As you can see there are a little more than 25 NL hitters with a higher OPS than Pujols since the All Star break. Pujols is hitting "only" .278, with 8 HRs and 22 RBI, and most of his ABs have come with Matt Holliday hitting behind him. I wonder if he is hiding another injury?

But take a look at what Ryan Howard has done since the ASB!! He's hit 13 HRs and driven in 41 runs, and we have about 40 games left to play in the season.

A couple surprising names atop the OPS leaderboard are the Dodgers Andre Ethier, the Nationals Ryan Zimmerman and Josh Willingham, and the Diamondbacks Ryan Roberts. Ethier is having yet another strong 2nd half in 2009. The Nats have 3 of the top 16 hitters atop the OPS leaderboard. Eric may be right about the Nats being a surprise team in 2010. Keep an eye on the Diamondbacks Ryan Roberts, who has a chance to be the regular 2bman in Arizona in 2010, and at least a super-utility guy.

Poll

Is Albert Pujols your NL MVP?

Yes, he's the best hitter in baseball. He's just in a little slump.

78 votes

No, Holliday, Carpenter and Wainwright are carrying the Cardinals in teh 2nd half.

22 votes

100 votes | Poll has closed

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Comments

Albert MVP

If the Cardinals make the play-offs, Pujols gets it because his overall game is consiered better than Howard’s. Chase Utley should be in the conversation, but I suspect a slight Phillies’ backlash given their home park.

I don’t see any other outstanding hitters from the likely play-off teams. Troy Tulowitzki in Colorado?

Nicotine patching at Rotisserie Musings

by faketeams on Aug 28, 2009 10:18 AM EDT reply actions

Is Albert Pujols the MVP?

Is this in doubt?

Oh, wait, yeah. Every year a Cardinal is in line for an award, there’s got to be at least a token effort to give it to someone else (see Sosa, Sammy; Jones, Andruw).

by nuke187 on Aug 28, 2009 1:15 PM EDT reply actions