Bonds wins sixth NL MVP Award

Major League Baseball ^ | November 18th, 2003 | Chris Shuttlesworth

[Sabertooth]

11/18/2003  1:07 PM ET 

Bonds wins sixth NL MVP Award

Slugger receives 28 of 32 first-place votes

By Chris Shuttlesworth / MLB.com

	Barry Bonds hit .341 with 45 home runs for the Giants in 2003. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds captured his record sixth National League MVP Award and unprecedented third in a row Tuesday, beating out St. Louis' Albert Pujols by a 426-303 point margin. Bonds received 28 of 32 first-place votes, while Pujols received three.

The six MVP honors put Bonds far and away in his own class among baseball players, as no other player has won more than three. Bonds is now one of just four athletes in the four major U.S. sports to win an MVP Award six times. The NBA's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the NHL's Gordie Howe each won six, while hockey legend Wayne Gretzky captured nine MVP Awards in his sport.

 NL MOST VALUABLE PLAYER

 Player

1st

Total

 Bonds

28

426

 Pujols

3

303

 Sheffield

1

247

 Thome

-

203

 Lopez

-

159

 Gagne

-

143

 Helton

-

75

Besides Bonds, no other player has won more than three MVP Awards. The three-time winners:

AL Player	Years
Jimmie Foxx	1932, 33, 38
Joe DiMaggio	1939, 41, 47
Yogi Berra	1951, 54, 55
Mickey Mantle	1956, 57, 62
NL Player	Years
Stan Musial	1943, 46, 48
Roy Campanella	1951, 53, 55
Mike Schmidt	1980, 81, 86

 AL MOST VALUABLE PLAYER

 Player

1st

Total

 Rodriguez

6

242

 Delgado

5

213

 Posada

5

194

 Stewart

3

140

 Ortiz

4

130

 Ramirez

1

100

 Garciaparra

1

99

 •

MORE AL COVERAGE
• Rodriguez wins first MVP Award
• Delgado second in MVP voting
• Posada third in AL race

• Stewart places fourth in MVP race

• Ortiz, Manny, Nomar are top seven

Since the BBWAA began handing out MVP Awards in 1931, the award has gone to players from a team without a winning record only seven times:

Year	Player	Team	Record
1952	Hank Sauer	CHC	77-77
1958	Ernie Banks	CHC	72-82
1959	Ernie Banks	CHC	74-80
1987	Andre Dawson	CHC	76-85
1989	Robin Yount	MIL	81-81
1991	Cal Ripken	BAL	67-95
2003	Alex Rodriguez	TEX	71-91

Bonds' title gives the Giants the league's top individual honor in each of the last four years -- Jeff Kent edged Bonds in 2000 -- a feat never before accomplished in the National League. Mickey Cochrane, Lefty Grove and Jimmie Foxx (twice) of the Philadelphia A's won the award four times in a row from 1928-33 (no award was given out in 1929 or 1930), while the Yankees saw Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle combine for four in a row from 1954-57 and Roger Maris (twice), Mantle and Elston Howard do the same from 1960-63.

While Bonds' 45 homers were far below the 73 he hit in winning the MVP Award in 2001 and his .341 average -- third best in the league -- fell short of the .370 mark he posted in winning a batting title and another MVP Award in 2002, his performance in 2003 was perhaps more remarkable.

It came as Bonds watched his father, former Giants All-Star Bobby Bonds, succumb to cancer, with the superstar son leaving the team several times to be with his ailing father and then to mourn with his family after Bobby's death.

Bonds returned from that final bereavement leave after missing five games, hit a home run in the second at-bat of his first game back and then was hospitalized overnight for an irregular heartbeat brought on by stress and sleeplessness.

Rookie of the Year:
AL - Berroa, KC   NL - Willis, FLA

Cy Young:
AL - Halladay, TOR   NL - Gagne, LA

Manager of the Year:
AL - Peña, KC   NL - McKeon, FLA

Most Valuable Player:
AL - Rodriguez, TEX   NL - TBA 11/18

MLB.com's complete coverage >

Just before his father's death and immediately after his first bereavement leave to be with the ailing Bobby, Bonds ended two games against the Braves with a walk-off homer in the 10th inning. In the other contest of the three-game sweep of Atlanta, Bonds received an intentional walk to load the bases in the ninth and Edgardo Alfonzo followed with a game-winning single.

Bonds tallied another walk-off homer, the ninth of his career, on his 39th birthday July 24, just after he threw out a potential go-ahead run at the plate. That homer also made him the all-time San Francisco Giants home run leader, passing Willie McCovey.

Bonds won his first MVP Award in 1990 with Pittsburgh before narrowly losing the 1991 race to Terry Pendleton. He then won back-to-back awards in 1992 and 1993, the latter his first season with San Francisco. In 2001, after setting the single-season record with 73 homers, he won his unprecedented fourth MVP Award with 30 of 32 first-place votes and then last year captured his first unanimous honor, easily topping Pujols.

The slugger helped the Giants capture the NL West title in 2003 as the club remained in first place every day of the season before falling to the eventual world champion Marlins in the Division Series. He easily led the Majors with a .749 slugging percentage, a .529 on-base percentage and 148 walks, 61 of those intentional, though far more were unofficially intentional.

Barry Bonds   /   LF
	Height: 6'2" Weight: 210 Bats/Throws: L/L More info: Player page Stats | Splits Giants site Bonds shop

By comparison, Boston's Manny Ramirez finished second with 29 intentional free passes. Only two other entire teams had more intentional walks than Bonds -- the Cardinals with 68 and the Diamondbacks with 63.

Despite the kid-gloves treatment, Bonds still powered 45 home runs, two behind league leader Jim Thome, who finished fourth in voting behind Atlanta's Gary Sheffield. Bonds also drove in 90 runs and scored 111 times despite playing in only 130 games and recording 390 at-bats -- 201 fewer ABs than Pujols, who hit 43 homers and walked 79 times (12 intentional). He tied the NL mark jointly held by himself and Duke Snider by reaching base safely in 58 consecutive games.

Bonds ended the season just two homers shy of tying godfather Willie Mays' 660 for third on the all-time list. By hitting at least 30 homers for the 12th straight season, Bonds extended his own NL record and tied Foxx's Major League mark established from 1929-40. With three multihomer games in 2003, he moved past Mays into third on the all-time list with 64 such games, three shy of Mark McGwire and eight behind Babe Ruth.

He became the charter member of the 500-500 club when he stole his 500th career base in the 11th inning June 23, subsequently scoring the game-winning run. He also passed Ruth for second on the all-time walks list with 2,070 and is 120 free passes shy of Rickey Henderson's Major League record.

Chris Shuttlesworth is an editorial producer for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

[BlackRazor]

Sorry, I don't see how these numbers make Bonds the MVP.

A rough approximation used by sabermeticians of how many runs a player produces per game is given by OBP x SLG x 3.44. This approach has been validated by comparing to the overall league numbers.

Using that approximation, and multiplying by the number of games played, Bonds produced 177 runs last year compared to Pujols' 158.

Of course, sabermmeticians would also adjust for ballpark effects. I don't have that information available, so I'm not sure whether that would help Pujols close the gap or not.

[malakhi]

Bonds will never have the average

Uh, Bonds hit .370 in 2002 and won the NL batting title. he hit .341 this past season.

[Wavve31]

Pujoles gets pitched to. I wonder what Bonds would be hitting if they'd stop walking. He's the most feared hitter in the league.

[Alberta's Child]

The irony is that Hank Aaron was not a "slugger" in any sense. He was a line-drive hitter who quietly amassed a large number of home runs because of the small park in which he played most of his career. If you look at a photo of him from his playing days, the only unusual physical characteristic that stands out is his extraordinarily large wrists.

People tend to forget that Aaron finished his career with nearly 4,000 hits -- his 755 home runs made it easy to overlook the fact that he was such a great all-around hitter.

[Sabertooth]

Sorry, I don't see how these numbers make Bonds the MVP.

As a matter of fact, with him being out injured and his team still making the playoffs, I'd say that another point against him being MVP.

The Giants were a .500 team with Bonds out of the line-up, and 39 games over .500 with him in. Without Bonds, the Giants probably don't go to the playoffs. Making the playoffs is usally a crucial factor in winning the MVP.

Bonds led the league in Slugging, OBP, OPS, BBs, IBBs, AB/HR, and (I believe) AB/RBI.

Bonds' totals in Slugging, OBP, OPS, BBs, IBBs were the all time 11th, 6th, 7th, 13th, and 2nd best figures in those categories.

[mrbillxx]

Addressed in post 71 and beyond...

[Sabertooth]

Those were before the record. After the record (a whopping TWO seasons, a little early to be talking "nevers") he's hit 46 and missed 19 games and 45 while missing 32 games.

While walking 346 times (129 IBBs) with Benito Santiago hitting behind him.

[speedy]

I think you can make a very good case for Pujols, but St. Louis is not at a disadvantage in MVP voting -- more MVP awards have gone to Cardinals (14) than to any other NL team.

[discostu]

Really given how often the guy gets walked it's amazing how often he hits homeruns... sometimes it seems like he never even gets to swing at it.

[mrbillxx]

Sorry. I gave Bonds credit where credit was due.

He also could've hit the worst slump in history in an additional 200 ABs.

But he's not the MVP. All time figures don't count.

Pujols was more valuable to his team than Bonds was the Giants. That is supposed to determine the MVP.

[CommerceComet]

Hank Aaron played the early part of his career in Milwaukee before the Braves moved to Atlanta. IIRC, the ballpark in Milwaukee was a notorious pitcher's park.

Hank Aaron might be the most under-appreciated player of all-time. While his peers, Mays and Mantle, grabbed the headlines, Aaron put up significantly better career numbers than either of them.

[Alberta's Child]

I don't know why people insist on qualifying a player's numbers by pointing out how good those numbers might have been "in a full season," "if he had been healthy," etc.

The fact that a player can't play a full season shouldn't be used in his favor like this -- it should actually be used against him. I don't care if a player "might have" hit 80 home runs and driven in 200 runs in a 162-game season. If he misses 20% of his team's games, he can't possibly be the league's most valuable player.

[Sabertooth]

If he misses 20% of his team's games, he can't possibly be the league's most valuable player.

Doesn't that depend on his impact on the other 80%?

In Bonds' case, the difference was 39 games over .500 and a playoff berth.

[mrbillxx]

My point exactly.

"Look how great he did and he was out for 40 games"

could just as easily be

"boy, what a slump he hit for those 40 games"

[SpringheelJack]

Today that DOUBLE that Musial hit would be a HOME RUN. He wound up having the NL record for doubles and I did some calculating he should have had at some 250-300 HR's MORE if that screen were NOT there.

How could you possibly "calculate" that?

[mrbillxx]

One additional fact. The players voted Pujols Player of the Year.

[Alberta's Child]

Well, let's see. The Giants supposedly played .500 ball without him in the lineup (technically impossible, since he played 130 games and the team went 100-61 for the season, which means he missed 31 games). Let's assume they went 16-15 without Bonds, for a .516 winning percentage. That means they went 84-46 with him in the lineup, for a .646 winning percentage.

A .646 winning percentage over the course of a 161-game season translates to 104 wins. Which means that in additiona to the home runs, RBIs, on-base percentage, etc., you should also add a statistic called "Games Lost By Team Due to Player's Inability to Compete" -- by my reckoning, Bonds cost his team four games this year simply by not being in the lineup.

On a separate note, there is also the issue of why the Giants only played 161 games this season. If I were a sportswriter, I would have kept any Giants player off my MVP ballot just on principle -- the team refused to play a makeup game at the end of the season even though the game had home-field implications for them in the playoffs.

[Alberta's Child]

That's a good point, but I can see why that wouldn't be terribly relevant. Among people who are involved in Major League Baseball, Barry Bonds would probably lose a popularity contest to Osama bin Laden.

[SpringheelJack]

He also had 200 less ABs and 133 hits. Not exactly impressive

That's just because pitchers fear him more than they fear Pujols, and so walk him incessantly. If at bats are what impress you, Juan Pierre led the league last year.

[mrbillxx]

I think the relevent point here is that baseball players know who can play baseball. Are they nice guys?..who cares.

I think ball players would make it a lot less of a popularity contest than sportswriters.