By Thom Henninger
This week’s MVP winners have extremely impressive resumes.
Minnesota’s Joe Mauer became the first American League catcher to win a batting title in 2006, his second full season in the majors. He claimed his third title in four seasons in 2009, and now has added an MVP award to his trophy case.
Mauer led the AL in all three hitting percentages this season, something no one has done since George Brett in 1980. His .365 average was a career high, and despite missing the first month of the season, Mauer also posted career bests in hits (191), homers (28) and RBIs (96). He becomes a free agent at the end of the 2010 season, and a big payday awaits.
The Cardinals’ Albert Pujols won a unanimous National League vote en route to his third MVP award in his nine-year career. In each of those nine seasons, Pujols has batted higher than .310, reached triple digits in RBIs, stroked more than 30 home runs and posted slugging percentages higher than .550. Only once has he failed to score 100 runs or record an OBP lower than .400.
In repeating as the NL’s winner, Pujols became just the 10th player to win MVP honors three times, joining Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx, Roy Campanella, Mike Schmidt, Yogi Berra and Stan Musial. Only Barry Bonds, with seven awards, has more.
Something else stands out about both award winners. They’re so young for what they’ve accomplished. Mauer is just 26 and Pujols has yet to turn 30, a milestone he reaches in January. They follow a recent trend.
Alex Rodriguez, who won AL honors in both 2005 and 2007, is the only MVP as old as 30 since Bonds won four consecutive NL awards — the last one in 2004, a few months after his 40th birthday.
Both winners a year ago were a year younger than this year’s. Pujols was 28, and Boston’s Dustin Pedroia was 25 and playing just his second full season in the majors. In 2007, when A-Rod was the AL MVP, the Phillies’ Jimmy Rollins claimed the NL prize within days of his 29th birthday. The year before, it was 25-year-old Justin Morneau of the Twins and 27-year-old Ryan Howard of the Phillies. And in 2005, Pujols won his first award as a 25-year-old.
Most of these guys remain in their prime, and any one of them could be honored again a year from now. The odds-on favorite, of course, is Pujols, who’s in a class by himself as a hitter. With three trophies in less than a decade, and not yet 30 years old, Pujols could make a run at Bonds’ unprecedented total.
