Thursday, August 21, 2003
MVP
Over on ESPN they are having an NL MVP Poll. Pujols is outballoting Barry by more than 2:1. Now I can see arguments for Albert over Barry (based mainly on playing time and RBIs), but not by a two to one margin.
I think we've become used to Barry as Superman, and if he isn't breaking one of Ted's or the Babe's records, he's just slacking. But right now he's got an OPS of 1.267. Where does that place him all time?
A quick visit to baseball-reference.com gives us the answer: Barry is having the seventh best OPS season on record (Albert chugs in at #58 all time). The seasons in front of him:
Bonds 2002
Ruth 1920
Bonds 2001
Ruth 1921
Ruth 1923
Ted 1941
He's having a better season than Ruth 1927 (1.2582), and probably will collect his third #2 finish for MVP. Three second place finishes are rather amazing in their own right (Pete Rose finished above 5th five times: a first, a second, a fourth and two fifths), but that's a topic for another day.
posted by David 8:29 AM
