The right man got the award.

If Manny Ramirez had been hurt for 103 games and come back and played like he did, you wouldn’t claim he was the MVP for posting great number in the final 59 games. His NL numbers include 17 HR and 53 RBI.

Number of games played is even one of the few criteria that is on the ballot.

Pujols was incredibly consistent all year long. He is a plus defender. He is a good baserunner. He posted an insane 190 OPS+ and was only one of two players in baseball this season to post an OPS over 1.000 (Pujols was 1st with a 1.114 OPS—Chipper Jones was 2nd at 1.044). Pujols was also very big in almost every clutch situation—feel free to use all the “splits” on ESPN.com to check everything from “with runners on” to “late game situation” and you’ll see Pujols was always keeping the inning going and often driving in runs in these situations.

As far as “in the playoff hunt,” Pujols kept his team in the playoff hunt until mid-September, and even batted a ridiculous .398 in August with a 1.236 OPS to keep his team in it. He followed this up with a September that included an OPS of 1.129

He also did all this while walking over 100 times and striking out only 54 (to put this in perspective, Ramirez struck out 124 times in 2008, 38 of those in the 59 games he played with the Dodgers, only 16 less than Pujols in the full season. Howard struck out 199 times, and he had more by mid-May than Pujols had all season).

Lastly, even with the Dodgers turning it on late, they won the West by 2 games with an 84 win season. To say that his team’s success is the team Manny deserves it is silly when the Cardinals actually finished with 86 wins, 2 better than LA.

Albert Pujols was the right choice. He was the best, and the most valuable player in the National League this year.