Years from now after his career is over, we will have to give serious consideration to renaming the award for the league’s best player to the Albert Pujols Award. Every single year, he puts up the kind of numbers you would expect for the recipient of such an award. Never once has he had a bad season. And now, for the fourth time in his career, Jackalope first baseman Albert Pujols has won the DTBL Most Valuable Player award.
Has there ever been a more predictable player in terms of fantasy production? Every season is the same for Pujols. His numbers this year (.312 average, 42 home runs, 118 RBIs, 115 runs, 14 stolen bases) are basically identical to every other season of his career. Shockingly, that batting average was a career worst. Not too many guys win the MVP in their worst season in terms of batting average. Basically, all of his numbers were right in line with his career averages. Nothing spectacular, but only by his standards. Pujols led the DTBL in home runs and runs. He came in third in RBIs and tenth in batting average. Even the stolen base numbers were pretty respectable.
This is Pujols’ fourth MVP award. It is the second time he has won the award in consecutive seasons. He did so in 2003 and 2004 and now again in 2009 and 2010. There were some pretty darn good seasons in between as well. Pujols has essentially carried the Jackalope offense ever since they made him their first round pick back in 2002. He is the franchise career leader in home runs (369), RBIs (1095) and runs (1069). He broke the 1,000 milestone in RBIs and runs this season and will reach 400 DTBL home runs sometime next season. It won’t be long before we see him near the top of the all-time league leaders. He already ranks second in career batting average (.331).
Pujols did not win this award easily. In fact, I was a little surprised he won it at all. Four other players had similarly fantastic seasons and this award could have gone to any of them. Those players are Kings outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, Cougars outfielder Josh Hamilton and Naturals first basemen Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto. Cabrera and Votto may have hurt each others chances of winning this award, although Cabrera had a slight edge on Votto in every category except stolen bases.
Pujols won the award with just three of the ten first place votes. He placed second on four ballots and third on the other three for a total of 73 points. This bested Gonzalez by just six points. Gonzalez, the league’s Rookie of the Year, also garnered three first place votes. Cabrera finished third with a pair of first place votes and 47 points. He led the league in RBIs and also had a higher average than Pujols. Somehow, he did not make the top five on one ballot. Next came the guy who will probably beat out Pujols for the NL MVP, Joey Votto. The MLB team success will be the primary factor in the NL MVP vote, which doesn’t apply here, although Votto did play for the co-champion Naturals. He received one first place vote and 40 total points. Finally, Josh Hamilton finished fifth, but even he received a first place vote. His chances of winning this award were derailed by missing most of the final month with a rib injury though. These five guys had tremendous seasons in a year otherwise dominated by pitching. With the exception of Hamilton, the rest of them kept their DTBL teams in championship contention right until the last week of the season.
So the Jackalope claimed two of the three post-season awards with the other going to the Kings. Neither of the co-champions had an award winner, but I’m sure the Naturals and Darkhorses prefer the championship plaque anyway.
Click here to view the full MVP voting results.
That’s all for now, but a lot more is coming soon. Next up, the roster cut deadline is quickly approaching. Each team will need to cut down to 16 players by the end of November. More to come on that soon.