Ryan Howard Will Win the 2009 NL MVP...Book It!

The 2009 Philadelphia Phillies have had some questions going into the season. Not so much in the form of who will be on the roster, or the moves they’ve made, but regarding the guys they have, their stars in fact. Will Jimmy Rollins have a resurgence year after an average 2008? Is Chase Utley fully recovered from his hip injury? But neither of those questions is as big as Ryan Howard and how the best power hitter in the game today will do after a big contract, after the World Series?

Not that his skills will really be called into question, because we all know what he can do (hit home runs) and can’t do (field worth a lick), but his desire to lead this team back into the playoffs to defend their title, the first time any Philadelphia player has had to since 1984. Well, to start the answer off we’ll look at the Phillies Spring Training. Howard came into camp in the best shape ever and it showed on the diamond, knocking in 10 home runs in the month of March. And, in my simpleton opinion, this should be only a prelude for what people can expect in April. Even though he has struggled during the early months in previous years he is ready to put together the most complete season of his still young major league career.

A 0 for 4 with 2Ks performance in the first game of the year is not a great start but it’s too early to assume the worst. That being said, his performances that last few years have indicated that his offensive prowess is unmatched save one, Albert Pujols. I think that the Pujols MVP last year bothered Ryan. That he forced his will upon his opponents in order to take the Phillies to the top of the NL East, and not winning was a quiet but personal disappointment.

After his first MVP award in 2006, Howard was battling contract issues every offseason and these were distractions that took away from his conditioning. He became less disciplined at the plate and his production actually dropped in 2007 and 2008, in comparison to his MVP year anyway. Yet despite this, he was still among the most valuable players in the league, finishing 5th in voting in 2007 when the award went to Jimmy Rollins, and 2nd to Albert Pujols in 2008. And last year, it was most likely his .251 average that tipped the scales to the Cardinal.

Pujols remains is main competition but you may also consider Manny and Hanley Ramirez to be in the mix as well. This does not include Ryan’s teammates, who have collected their own share of MVP votes. But, barring injury, it will be Howard who prevails in ’09 as he and Albert go at each other in the statistics. Back in mid-Feb I predicted that he was going to hit a mere .252/48/144, and I’ll stick with the power numbers, but expect a thirty to forty point jump in the batting average as he sends the ball into the stratosphere nearly fifty times this season. Think I’m wrong…..I don’t think so. Ryan Howard will be the 2009 NL MVP….you can book it.

Breaking Down the NL East: Centerfield

The NL East Centerfielders are a varied bunch. There is a power hitting, run producing machine, a Flyin’ Hawaiian, and former prospect coming into his own, and two youngsters cracking a major league lineup. In this group, only really two stand out, with the potential for a third growing with each season. All five of these guys, however, will have something to prove this year. Here they are.

First (Score = 1.375): The New York Mets' Carlos Beltran has not provided the dividends that the team and its fans were hoping for. The idea of bringing him in, winning a bidding war and paying him a ton of money, was to get them over the hump and consistently into the playoffs. Well, that hasn’t happened once. It isn’t necessarily Beltran’s fault. He’s driven in over 110 runs each of the last three years, so he’s doing most of what he can. I say most because it doesn’t appear he has that intangible that turns a good player into a great player, a competitor into a winner. He is in essence a younger version of Bobby Abreu. This upcoming season it will be more of the same for Carlos. He’ll see .279/37/114 for a second place team.

Second (2.25): Before last season there were question surrounding the Philadelphia Phillies as to whether or not Shane Victorino could be an everyday outfielder but by the time September rolled around, there was no doubt that he was the best centerfielder the team had had since Lenny Dykstra. His series in the playoffs against Milwaukee was amazing, supplying the sparkplug that made the Phillies engine go. Last year on the whole he mixed some power with good speed and although he won’t be called upon to hit a grand slam, he will hit .284/10/47 in the second spot in the Phillies lineup in 2009.

Third (2.25): The National’s Lastings Milledge loses out to Victorino in a tie break mainly because of the impact each has made on their team and at this point in his career, Milledge has shown he can hit major league pitching but not be an integral part of a winning team. Milledge has a very nice junior year in the show hitting .261/14/61 and getting some full-time experience. Can he do it again? There is no reason to think otherwise. As long as he stays healthy, this year will tell whether he is doomed to mediocrity on bad teams or whether he is a star in the making….on a bad team. He will reach .255/16/59 this year as he comes of age as an average ballplayer.

Fourth & Fifth (4.375 & 4.625): The juries are still out on Atlanta Braves’ Josh Anderson and the Florida Marlins’ Cameron Maybin. They have played a combined total of 93 games in the majors and project so close to each other, I might as well surgically connect them at the hip. Both likely to hit just above the pitcher in the lineup, Maybin has the better shot at helping his team. With the Marlins pitching and the organizations propensity to field good young players (Uggla, Cabrera, Willingham, Beckett, & Willis just to name a few) Cameron will show why the Fish wanted him in that blockbuster trade that sent two Marlin stars to Detroit. This is not to say that the younger Anderson in the Brave outfield won’t have a chance to shine; I just expect Maybin to shine brighter a bit faster. Same projection for both, despite my obvious bias toward Maybin: .283/7/43.

I realize that in my opening paragraph I put Victorino in the same category as Carlos Beltran and that might have been getting ahead of myself. Beltran is a better all-round hitter, hands down, but what he brings to the Mets and what Victorino brings to the Phils cannot be compared, in my opinion. The two slot of the Phillies’ lineup is his and he is just about the perfect guy to hit behind Jimmy Rollins. He can be kind of a slacker at times, but the energy he brings to the everyday batting order is why he is more important to Philly than Carlos to NYC.