Dustin Pedroia Is Weak...And a Totally Reasonable 2008 A.L. MVP

"The parrot is like the pheasant to those who have nothing." - Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

That is exactly what Dustin Pedroia is—a parrot turned pheasant amongst the comparable nothingness of the 2008 American League Most Valuable Player race.

Consider the statistics of the four top candidates:

Player              G       AB      R     H    2B   HR  RBI   BB   SO    OBP      SLG     AVG
Justin Morneau 163   623   97   187   47   23   129   76   85     0.374   0.499   0.300
Kevin Youkilis    145   538   91   168   43   29   115   62   108   0.390   0.569   0.312
Carlos Quentin  130  480   96   138   26   36   100   66   80     0.394   0.571   0.288
Dustin Pedroia  157   653  118  213   54   17    83    50   52     0.376   0.493   0.326

Pedroia is woefully behind in the power numbers while actually having a lower on-base percentage than both Youkilis and Quentin. Yes, he blew the others away as far as runs scored, but that's because he sat atop the Boston Red Sox lineup and was on base a lot.

The problem is that Quentin and Youklis reached base at a higher rate and Morneau only trailed by .002.

In other words, put any of those players in Pedroia's spot, and they're gonna score those runs. Maybe not exactly, since Pedroia's faster than the others, but it would be close.

So, it comes down to Dustin's average, stolen bases (he had 20 while the others were led by Quentin's seven), doubles, and dearth of strikeouts. For the stat-heads out there, those four categories have to make up for his considerable deficiencies in runs batted in, home runs, slugging percentage, and on-base percentage.

They don't. Pedroia's four strengths are simply not as valuable as the strengths of the other candidates.

But I'm not a pure stat guy, so let's look at Dustin Pedroia's qualitative argument for A.L. MVP.

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