RetroSimba

Albert Pujols is best positioned to win the 2011 National League Most Valuable Player Award, his fourth.

In participation with a week-long United Cardinal Bloggers project, we looked at winners of the NL MVP Award from 2001-2010: Barry Bonds (four times in that stretch), Albert Pujols (three times), Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins and Joey Votto.

Rollins is the aberration in that period. A leadoff batter for the Phillies, he hit .296 with a .344 on-base percentage and a .531 slugging percentage in winning the award in 2007. Those are good statistics but all fall far short of the standard established in the last 10 years.

During the other nine years (2001-2006, 2008-2010), the NL MVP winner had a minimum of a .313 batting average, .424 on-base percentage and .600 slugging percentage.

Using those minimums as the baseline, Pujols appears more capable of achieving those numbers than anyone else in the NL. Here’s why:

_ Batting average (.313 minimum): Pujols has a career .331 batting mark in 10 big-league seasons. Only once in those 10 seasons did he fail to hit .313. That occurred last year _ when he hit .312. In the three seasons in which he won NL MVP, Pujols batted .330 in 2005, .357 in 2008 and .327 in 2009.

_ On-base percentage (.424 minimum): Pujols has a career .426 on-base percentage. He has achieved .424 or better in six of 10 seasons. He had on-base percentages of .430 in 2005, .462 in 2008 and .443 in 2009 _ his MVP years.

_ Slugging percentage (.600 minimum): Pujols has a career .624 slugging percentage. He has reached .600 or better in seven of 10 seasons. In his MVP years, his slugging percentages were .609 in 2005, .653 in 2008, .658 in 2009.

If Pujols achieves his career averages in those three categories _ or at least comes within a couple of percentage points _ he likely would win another MVP Award in 2011 as he prepares to enter free agency.

Others could do it, but no one has a better or longer track record of being able to achieve those marks than Pujols.