the indignation for Albert is right on. There is not the slightest question that Albert is a better hitter and all around player than Ryan Howard. We know that stats such as ops and the more complicated win shares formulas show that. The come back for those who vote for stats such as rbi’s or combinations of runs and rbi’s is that they show actual runs produced in the course of a season rather than extrapolated runs produced based on oba and slugging.
For these arguements I like to haul out an old mostly discredited stat called runs created It consists of adding runs and rbi’s and subtracting homers (because they count as 2 runs while actually producing only 1). I then like to add the oba factor in by dividing the number of outs that a player made by the runs they created. You could do it by at bats but I think that it’s more instructive to use the one negative outcome that a hitter can produce. Using this stat shows that Albert was a more valuable player than Howard in both ‘06 and ’08.
In ’06 Albert actually produced 8 more runs than Howard while making 41 fewer outs. It took Howard 2.05 outs to produce a run and it took Albert only 1.72 outs to produce one.
This year Howard did produce more runs than Albert but he required a whopping 127 more outs to do it! I mean, geez, give Cesar Izturis a few thousand outs to work with and he’ll produce the same runs as Albert too! This year it took Howard 2.28 outs to produce a run. Albert “slumped” to needing 1.88 outs to produce a run.
Conclusion, not only is Albert year in and year out a better ball player than Ryan Howard but he was a more valuable player in ’06 and was even more valuable than him this year.

i could do more than speculate here, but i think there’s something to this. i do remember the track power and frequency of fly balls in 06, and this year it seems like a much more line-drive oriented pujols. it could be the shoulder adjusting his approach, but we’ve always heard that home runs are line-drives that just get up more, so it’s no surprise that he’s only down ~10 homers from 06.

he’s never been the type to hit mcgwire-like shots, and i believe it’s because he understands that line drives are more likely to be hits of any type than high fly balls. i’ll take .357 and 37 homers any year, especially if it means almost winning the batting title. i would claim this year to be more like 03 when albert hit .359, but that year he hit 42 homers as well…geez what a year. (this was another year he lost the mvp to bonds and had nearly 200 more ab’s although production numbers are close…god bless steroids.) i guess we just need to be thankful for what we have, yeah mini/matty, i suspect this too.

PS To those who defended Bonds’ MVPs in strong Pujols years, there is no denying who the real pure talent is between the two. As Cardinal fans I would expect there to be more of a movement that those MVPs be given to their rightful owner, which is Albert in 2002 and 2003, in light of the Bonds steroids proceedings. Does anyone see this as a possibility should more hearings continue? On a similar note, how about Clemens’ Cy Youngs?