Yeah, I know you guys hate him. But 7? And now 4 in a row? No other player even comes close to being this valuable.

WOW! eek!

Just a boring piece of news. Who cares? I wish he would retire now.

I guess being rude, ignorant, and a steroid junkie can pay off

Beltre/Pujols/Rolen/Edmonds predictably got robbed. Leave it to the jock-sniffing, stat worshipping baseball writers of America to ignore the most important qualification of the award; valuable. The Dodgers wouldn't have had a shot at the postseason without Beltre's clutch power. The St. Louis 3 cancel each other out, but each player alone was more valuable to the success of the Cards than Barry. All Bonds did last year was make a bad team mediocre. The MVP Award is for the guy whose contributions for a team not only distinguish himself from others in the league, but also pushes that team over the top. Now if you wanted to give an award to the Most Valuable User of Masking Agents, Bonds is your man.

Statistically his numbers overwhelm everything else about what makes a player "valuable" insofar as how his team did, so that puts him past the other players in the running. If all their stats were fairly equal it would be easy to go with Beltre or one of the Cards. Just the fact that he gets walked so often is testament to how feared he is.

The whole steroid issue really bothers me, though. But right now these are still just allegations. He hasn't been charged with anything, he's just a subject in the investigation.

It's not the "Best Player" award. Theoretically the most "valuable" player would be one who is really critical to the team (i.e., where would they be without him). Where would SFO be without Bonds? In reality it's always been very subjective and to some extent a popularity contest. The voting procedure (with each elector submitting a top ten list) also creates some weird outcomes. A player who gets the greatest number of 1st place votes doesn't necessarily win. Seems like it's more or less the player with the highest average vote who wins.

Not to mention the fact that the Giants finished only 2 games behind the Dodgers. There is no way any other player in the league would have gotten them anywhere near the post-season. Bonds finished 2nd in the league in runs scored, despite a lack of big threats behind him.

As far as the steroids stuff goes--well, you'd have to prove he used them after 2003. MLB did not prohibit steroids before that.

Bonds winning means MLB will NEVER do anything about steroid use. Pathetic.

TC, you are, I fear, absolutely correct. And it is pathetic.

Bonds was the ONLY logical choice for MVP; he may be a head case, but his stats put him head and shoulders above everyone else in the league. He's simply the best and most-feared player in baseball.

The 'roids arguments don't even come into play here at all, IMO. Even if you could prove conclusively that Bonds did, then you'd also have to prove that every other player in the top 20 MVP voting didn't.

Fine, dropping the 'roid argument (though there is more circumstantial evidence that Bonds juices than the state had against Scott Peterson), not one of his hits, walks, homers, or scowls meant more to the Giants than Adrian Beltre's knocks meant to the Dodgers. I'm all for giving just due to someone's ability, but this award isn't for the most exceptional player (just like the Heisman isn't a "career" award).