Nick and Coley have already given you their MVP picks. Here are mine:

First, the American League. The runners-up:

Grady Sizemore. Smart stats love this guy, despite his crappy average this year: he was second in the AL in VORP and first in Runs Created. He also tied for fifth in homers. But it was all wasted because the Indians were so bad. Oh well.

Carlos Quentin. Let this be a lesson to him next time he wants to break his wrist to spite his bat (or whatever).

Aubrey Huff. If David Ortiz can’t win it as a DH, then Huff won’t. But you know, he finished 4th in the league in VORP, 5th in OPS and RC, and 3rd in SLG. I just thought I’d mention it, because unless you live in the 21201area code, you might have missed it.

Kevin Youkilis. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think he was the only guy to finish in the top ten in VORP, RC, AVG, OBP, SLG, and OPS. That’s pretty badass. Plus, he plays gold-glove worthy first base and can easily slide across the diamond to play third. Heck, you can even stick him in the outfield. Terrible facial hair, though.

But there can be only one winner, and that person is…..

Dustin Pedroia. No, he’s not the trendy pick–at least, not among the baseball eggheads who are sick of hearing about the Red Sox and their annoyingly good players and just plain annoying (but devoted!) fans. (Screw you too, jerkface!) But Pedroia had 73 extra-base hits this year (including 17 HR) this year to Joe Mauer’s* 44 (including 9 HR). Mauer, the catcher, has 1 stolen base and 1 caught-stealing. Pedroia, no real speedster, has 20 stolen bases and was also caught once. (How did he do that if he doesn’t have real wheels? The old-fashioned way: using his brain.) Pedroia led the league in runs, tied for first in hits (213), came in second by just .004 .002 [edit: after game 163] in batting average, finished third in runs created (while Mauer finished 18th there), and was fourth in total bases (with Mauer tied for 33rd). Pedroia also finished third in the AL in VORP (to Mauer’s 7th-place finish) behind Alex Rodriguez and Grady Sizemore, whose teams failed to make the playoffs this year. He played in 157 games and quietly drove in 140** runs while playing an acrobatic second base and energizing a team that suffered demoralizing injuries to their ace pitcher, cleanup hitter, and 2007 World Series MVP—while also coping with the tantrum and subsequent ouster of their most productive hitter. Without Dustin Pedroia, does anyone seriously think the Red Sox would have even made the playoffs? He’s been just as important to their playoff drive as Mauer*** was to the Twins’–and what’s more, he had a better year than Mauer. Case closed.

* I feel obligated to bring up Mauer here because so many people seems to be picking him over Pedroia, not least my colleagues at UmpBump. And look, I’m not one to undervalue a catcher’s contribution to the team, ever. But I honestly don’t know why we’re seriously talking about Mauer for MVP this year at all. (Yes, nice OBP. Very pretty. Well done. Now run along, and try to reach double digits in homers next time.)

**Now, anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I tend to pooh-pooh RBI as a stat, but keep in mind the context here: Mauer ranked 21st in MLB in RBI opportunities. Pedroia ranked 40th. But Mauer somehow finished with just 85 RBI to Pedroia’s 140. And those who would tout Mauer’s admittedly admirable ability to take a walk, I’d like to point out that despite this ability, Mauer grounded into 21 double plays–four more than the contact-prone Pedroia. And it’s not like Pedroia just swings at anything; he’s even a bit tougher to strike out than Mauer.

***To me, it’s a wash whether it’s more “valuable” to keep your team from failing when everyone expects them to succeed or to help your team succeed when everyone expects them to fail.

On to the NL. First, the doomed-to-fail runners-up:

Ryan Howard. As Coley pointed out, he led the NL in both homers and RBI, and his team did make the playoffs. But I include him only out of a feeling of obligation.

Hanley Ramirez. As Nick pointed out, he’s the young player every GM and fantasy owner would love to have. He carried the Marlins through a surprisingly good year. His time will come.

Lance Berkman. He had a great year–114 runs scored, second in RC, third in OPS and OBP, fourth in VORP. He also had 29 homers and, somewhat surprisingly, 18 steals. But the funny thing is, there are so many guys ahead of him on the home run list–Howard, Adam Dunn, Carlos Delgado, etc and etc–that his great year just isn’t good enough.

Chipper Jones. Now here‘s an AVG and OBP worth writing home about: .364 and .470, respectively, plus he was one of only two players in the NL to OPS over 1.000.

And yet there is only one clear winner here. And that is the other guy to OPS over 1.000. Who is…

Albert Pujols, despite his crappy team (hey, they would’ve won the NL West!), he clearly deserves the NL MVP and it’s not even close. He’s first in VORP, first in RC, first in OPS, second in OBP, and [yawn] first in SLG. Really, the guy is sick. There’s just nothing more to say.

It’s that time of year.  Time to bring you umpbump’s picks for MVP! Here’s who I tabbed for the sport’s most prestigious award:

American League

It was a really odd down year for MVP candidates – only three players OPS’d over .900!

3. Carlos Quentin, OF, White Sox

Not too many people expected the White Sox to contend this year, but Carlos Quentin emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, and absolutely carried this team of aging and inconsistent veterans on his back all year. Despite missing the last month of the season due to a freakish hand injury, he still wound up with 36 home runs and 100 RBI, and the collapse of the White Sox following his absense proved just how valuable he truly was for them.  But players who miss the most crucial month of the season can’t ultimately be MVP, so Quentin winds up third in my vote.

2. Dustin Pedroia, 2B, Red Sox

Who would have thought that little mighty mite Dustin Pedroia would wind up this season third in the American League in runs created, a stat usually dominated by massive, slugging first basemen and corner outfield types?  But it’s true – in a year in which David Ortiz sucked for a while and then got hurt, and Manny got traded, Dustin Pedroia was the best and most consistent player on a very good Red Sox team.  I mean, he batted .325.  OBP’d .375 and slugged .493. As a second baseman. He played in 158 games and only made 6 errors all season. Not to mention that nobody can stop raving about what a good clubhouse presence he is.

But one player did more…

1. Joe Mauer, C, Minnesota Twins

Joe Mauer is a catcher who just played in 145 games this season. That alone is pretty valuable. But we are also talking about a catcher who just won his second batting title in three years, with a batting average of .330. He also put up an OBP of .415 and scored 97 runs with 83 RBI.  Getting that kind of offensive production out of a catcher across 144 games is not just valuable, it’s a gift from the gods. But we also have to remember that Joe Mauer is also the best defensive catcher in the game these days too!  We are talking about a guy who has a career caught stealing line of 41 percent.  As I said when I voted for Joe Mauer as MVP 2 years ago, what we are seeing now in Joe Mauer is something like watching a cross between Mike Piazza on offense and Ivan Rodriguez on defense, when they were both in their primes. Mauer wasn’t quite as good this year as he was in 2006, but in a down year for AL sluggers and on a team he led to the brink of the playoffs when nobody expected it following the Santana trade, Joe Mauer gets the nod.

National League

It’s hard to vote for MVP the conventional way in the National League this season, just picking the best player on one of the 4 playoff teams, because none of the playoff bound teams had a guy put up truly MVP-type numbers.

3. Russell Martin, C, Dodgers

While it’s true that the Dodgers wouldn’t be in the playoffs if they hadn’t traded for Manny Ramirez, they also would not be there without Russell Martin.  The guy is even more durable than Joe Mauer, playing in a ridiculous 153 games, and putting up nearly Mauer-esque offensive production with a .386 OBP and 90 walks to go along with 13 homers and 18 stolen bases – a pretty awesome haul to get out of your catcher. Among NL catchers Brian McCann and Geovanny Soto outslug Martin, but they can’t match his OBP or his durability.

2. Hanley Ramirez, SS, Marlins

Is there any player in baseball that you would rather build a new team around right now than Hanley Ramirez? You’d be a fool if you named any other player because this guy is a shortstop who does absolutely everything you would want, hitting for tremendous average, power, and OBP, playing surprisingly improved defense, and stealing bases at will.  His OPS of .943 was more than 100 points higher than that of the next best shortstop in baseball. All this and he is still only 24 years old.

1. Albert Pujols, 1B, Cardinals

Only one player in all of baseball put up truly elite numbers this season, and his numbers are so much better than everyone else, you feel like he’s ready to be called up to a higher league, if there were one. His OPS is 1.112, 70 points higher than the next best player in all of baseball, Chipper Jones, and Pujols played in 20 more games than Jones. The man is an MVP machine, and this year he is one of the easiest MVP picks in memory.

So I look at the leaderboards today, and I notice that White Sox leftfielder Carlos Quentin has already been plunked 6 times this year, and is on pace to get nailed 39 times by the end of the season. If he could maintain that pace, he would be in pretty elite company – the all time record for HBP in a season is Ron Hunt’s astonishing 50 in 1971, followed by Don Baylor’s 35 in 1986, and Craig Biggio’s 34 in 1997.

Of course, that plucky munchkin David Eckstein has also been plunked 6 times so far, and Reed Johnson of the Cubs has been hit 5 times, but who is most likely to keep up the insane pace?

The answer is clearly Quentin, who has already demonstrated that he is the greatest at getting hit by pitches in the history of the game. So far in his pro career, Carlos Quentin has been hit by a pitch every 16 plate appearances. This is an insanely high rate, when you consider that modern master Biggio was hit every 43.8, 80’s champ Baylor was plunked every 35.2, and HBP god Ron Hunt was hit “only” every 25.3 plate appearances.

In 2004, Quentin set the all-time minor league record for getting hit by the pitch by getting plunked 43 times across 2 levels, and in 2005, he set the all-time Pacific Coast League record for HBP by getting hit 29 times.

And Quentin’s propensity for getting hit by the pitch didn’t just start in the pros either. When I was at Stanford, he set the NCAA Division I record by getting hit by 5 pitches in a single game against Florida State. 5 plate appearances, 5 HBP! That was insane.

So get used to seeing images like the photo above, because going forward, if Quentin can avoid the injury bug that has plagued him thus far in his major league career, you can expect him to mount a serious threat to Ron Hunt’s record each and every season.

Carlos Quentin, an old pal from my broadcasting days back at Stanford, has finally made it to the big leagues with the Diamondbacks this past week. I say finally, because despite the fact that he has long had nothing left to prove in the minors, he has been trapped behind the outfield logjam of “experienced veterans” Shawn Green, Eric Byrnes, and Luis Gonzalez, despite the fact that, frankly, he is probably already better than all of them at this stage in their careers.

Take a moment and check out Quentin’s career numbers in the minor leagues and college. As you can see, his lowest OPS at any level of the minors or college was .912 way back when he was only a sophomore at Stanford. In fact, Quentin’s numbers in the minors were considered to be so good, that Snakes manager Bob Melvin had to despell a rumor that Luis Gonzalez was going to be permanently benched when Quentin was called up.

Sure enough, Quentin has gotten off to a booming start, sluggin 3 homeruns in his first 6 games and compiling a 1.478 OPS.  And yet, the D-Backs are only fitting Quentin into the lineup every other day.  To be sure, Quentin is not going to maintain these numbers for a whole season, but surely he should be in the lineup every day, given the alternatives–a Shawn Green who is a pale, pale shadow of his once 40-homer self, an always entertaining but inadequate Eric Byrns, and a tired old Luis “could he possibly have hit 57 homers that year?” Gonzalez, who’s once prodigous power has almost completely evaporated now that he has gone off the juice.