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

By Ray Guilfoyle Updated

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.

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