Can Beltran Become Mets First MVP Winner?
MVP Award winners usually come from playoff teams and the Mets have made the post-season six times in their existence. In 1969, Tom Seaver had just as many first-place votes as winner Willie McCovey, but finished in second place, 22 points behind the San Francisco slugger. In 1973, no Met finished in serious contention, as Seaver placed eighth in the voting.
The 1986 team was a well-balanced team, with outstanding pitching, not a recipe for winning an MVP Award. Many voters refuse to vote for pitchers in the MVP race, reasoning that they have their own award with the Cy Young, making Seaver’s 1969 finish all the more remarkable. Two Mets finished high in the 1986 voting, with Gary Carter finishing third and Keith Hernandez taking fourth place.
Most fans point to 1988 as the season that a Mets player should have taken the award. But the Dodgers’ Kirk Gibson took the prize, with Darryl Strawberry finishing second and Kevin McReynolds placing third. Voters valued Gibson’s leadership and on-base percentage (he finished fourth in the league with a .377 mark) over Strawberry’s power. The Mets right fielder led the league in home runs (39) and slugging (.545) and finished second in RBIs (101). Gibson finished with 13 first-place votes, compared to seven for Strawberry and four for McReynolds. Perhaps if McReynolds had not siphoned off support for Strawberry, the Mets might have had their first MVP that season.
The two other seasons the Mets finished in first place, they did not seriously challenge for the MVP Award. In 1999, Mets finished sixth, seventh and eighth in the voting, with Robin Ventura, Mike Piazza and Edgardo Alfonzo, respectively. Then in 2000, Piazza finished third, but over 100 points behind winner Jeff Kent, who claimed 22 first-place votes to Piazza’s three.
Earlier in 2006, fans chanted “MVP, MVP” whenever David Wright stepped to the plate. But Wright has slumped during August, in which time teammate Carlos Beltran has put on a remarkable surge. Beltran is batting .303 with a .690 slugging percentage after the All-Star break and has put himself in the discussion for the league’s MVP award.
But despite Beltran’s recent heroics, which include five home runs in his last 31 at-bats, he most likely still trails 2005 MVP winner Albert Pujols for the 2006 award. Pujols’ overall numbers, most significantly his counting stats (HR, RBIs, runs, etc) are down from a year ago due to his stint on the disabled list with an oblique injury, but his ratio stats are all superior to Beltran’s.
Pujols leads the league in slugging with a .660 mark. He’s also third in on-base percentage, as he reaches base at a .421 clip. Finally, Pujols stands fifth in the loop with a .321 batting average. Why are these ratio-based statistics important? In the past five seasons, the National League MVP Award winner has finished either first or second in both on-base percentage and slugging. Pujols finished second in both categories last year. Additionally, no NL winner has finished with a batting average under .300 in the past 16 seasons. And in the last sub-.300 season, winner Kevin Mitchell, a former Met, led the league in both home runs and slugging percentage and finished ninth in the batting race with a .291 average.
Currently, Beltran ranks fourth in slugging and 11th in on-base percentage. But an even bigger problem for claiming the MVP Award is his .287 batting average, which places him just 32nd in the league and fourth on his own club. A good comparison can be found just last season, when Atlanta’s Gold Glove center fielder Andruw Jones led the NL in home runs and RBIs and finished fifth in slugging percentage, but came in second in the MVP race, thanks in large part to a .263 batting average.
Some may point to Beltran’s clutch hitting and big home runs as a reason for him to win the award. But those same arguments did not help David Ortiz in the 2005 American League race, as he finished second to Alex Rodriguez.
Further helping Pujols’ cause is his superiority to his teammates. Pujols’ line of .321-38-107 dwarfs the numbers put up by the team’s second-best hitter. Scott Rolen has posted a .301-19-79 marks in the Triple Crown numbers of average-home runs-RBIs. With the Cardinals in a battle to make the playoffs, Pujols will be seen as carrying his club to the post-season.
In addition to Wright (.298-22-96), Beltran has Carlos Delgado with 33 homers and 95 RBIs and Jose Reyes with 57 extra-base hits and 54 steals as threats in the Mets lineup.
Carlos Beltran is having an MVP-caliber season. Unfortunately, he does not seem poised to win the award due to a number of factors. Albert Pujols is in better position to win because of his ratio-based numbers and the relative strength of his teammates. If history is any guide, Beltran’s relatively poor batting average and the strength of his supporting cast make an MVP Award in 2006 unlikely.
