Friday, July 20, 2007

The Morning After Redux - NL MVP Race

And now, GoCM's NL MVP favorites.

These picks are going to be a bit, what are the words, out there. At least two of them will be. We'll start in the NL East

Jose Reyes

The numbers really aren't there for Reyes at first glance. But this award isn't all about the numbers. Reyes is the best player on the Metropolitans and has been all year. He was an All-Star at short for the NL and so far this year, he's been the most valuable player on the Mets, if not in the league. Batting .304 and and drawing over 50 walks so far makes Reyes an on-base machine. That's even better when you're stealing bases at a 79% clip, which Reyes is. More impressive are his 7 errors in all but two of the Mets' games this year. If that's not value, I don't know what is.


Ken Griffey, Jr.

Let's face it: The Reds are terrible. They suck out loud. Aaron Harang is currently on bereavement leave because of his Grandpa, but it wouldn't surprise me if by "Grandpa" he meant "my current MLB team". But Junior has had a resurgence of late, despite his club's best efforts. The biggest stat for him: 89 games played, which is more than he played in 2002-2004. He's on pace to hit over 40 home runs and knock in more runs than he has in Cincinnati Red since his first season in the Queen City. It's a resurgence, all right, and he's a player that is in desperate need of one if he wants to retire as a Mariner in a few years. An MVP would make that all the more possible.

Barry Bonds

Why not Barry? He's batting just under .300, which isn't too good but Barry makes up for it where he always does: OPS, walks and home runs. His OPS will never be touched while he's still the HR threat that he has been for the last ten seasons. Currently, it's 1.089. He's walked 95 times to only 38 Ks, a more than decent ratio. As for home runs, the 19 he's hit aren't that big of a deal, but when he gets to 22 for the year then he will have broken Hank Aaron's immortal career mark. In what is a down year for the usual suspects in the NL (read: Pujols) this could be Barry's final swansong in the NL.

2 comments:

Jed said...

theres a better player in each division than the three you named

ckopech said...

see previous comment from TMA for today