Sunday, October 01, 2006

Pujols vs. Howard

Here's probably my final look-in on the MVP race.

Most other posts of this nature look at the overall aspects of the race. Whose stats are better(Howard), whose more clutch(Pujols), whose team is in the playoffs(Pujols), who seems to be more feared right now(Howard).

The race looks about even, with Howard probably being ahead because of his statistics.

The question I'm going to look at is: who has the better support from his team in carrying the offense?

The OPS's of Pujols and Howard, respectively, are 1.097 to 1.084. Both are ridiculously good.

Now, let's look at the players with an OPS of at least .800 on each team:

St. Louis

C. Duncan - .948
S. Rolen - .887
S. Spiezio - .850
J. Edmonds - .822
J. Rodriguez - .810

Six players(including Pujols) break the .800 mark for OPS for St. Louis.

Philadelphia

C. Ultey - .906
D. Dellucci - .899
P. Burrell - .888
C. Coste - .870
B. Abreu - .861
J. Rollins - .814

Seven position players for Philly. However, Bobby Abreu was traded to New York before the deadline, and Howard has done most of his damage since then, so you can basically make this part of the argument even between Pujols and Howard.

Now, the real thing to look at is how many of these players represent everyday players who have had healthy years(meaning not on the DL). Jeff Sagarin of USAToday rates players in three lists. Those who have averaged the 3.1 AB necessary to compete for the batting title are on the A list. Those who have averaged between 1 and 3 AB are part timers on the B list. Those with less than 1 AB per game are scarcely used and are on the C list. None of the players on either list are C listers, probably for good reason--IF they were good enough to post an .800 OPS or better, they'd probably get more playing time--so we'll be looking at which players are A list and which are B list.

Of the above players, for the Cardinals, only two are A-listers. The MVP candidate himself, Albert Pujols, and third baseman, Scott Rolen. Chris Duncan, Scott Spiezio, Jim Edmonds, and John Rodriguez lack the ABs to be on the A list, either because they were called up late(Duncan), are only part-time players(Spiezio, Rodriguez) or have had injuries take away significant time(Edmonds).

For the Phillies, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Pat Burrell and Jimmy Rollins have all been out there enough to qualify for the A-list. Dellucci and Coste are the part timers, and of course Bobby Abreu was a regular, but was traded to New York.

So if we only look at who had more help, then we have to conclude that Howard has had more help in his lineup. Three full time players, have put up significant numbers this year for Philadelphia. Only one has for St. Louis.

The discrepency is even greater if we look at Sagarin's
ratings for NL batters. But if you want to look at those, do it yourself, I won't bore you with another long post.

The obvious way to interpret this information is that St. Louis has less power, so for them to be in the race and winning the Central is more impressive, and therefore that is a plus for Pujols.

However, you can also look at it this way. Ryan Howard has more around him and is being walked intentionally about twice as much in September as Pujols, who has much less protection around him. So obviously pitchers--or at least managers--are even more terrified of Howard than Pujols right now.

Which way would you vote and why? Leave me comments.(that's aimed at both of you that read my blog!)

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