Alex Rodriguez Should Win The 2008 AL MVP

    Alex Rodriguez has had an amazing career and last season, A-Rod once again put up great numbers. His season did look foggy when he went out with an aggravated right quadricep. A-Rod also had to come through adversities like the one surrounding him and his wife. It all played out well besides the fact that the Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time 14 years.

    Now, though Im going to talk about the MVP race. I'll start out by giving the players I think should be considered for the award. Those players are Josh Hamilton, Justin Morneau, Grady Sizemore, and Alex Rodriguez. These players have all done great this season and has been extremely valuable to their teams.

    Josh Hamilton- the feel good story of the year. He came back from his drug addiction and came back in a great way. 130 RBIs for J-Ham which led the AL. Also a nice .325 BA with RISP and 2 outs. And you could almost feel the magic in the air as Josh Hamilton would win the Home run Derby until...

    Justin Morneau stepped in the way. Yes thats right, Morneau won the Home run Derby, not Hamilton as you may have thought. The Homerun Derby champion also finished right behind Hamilton with 129 RBIs. Although his other stats don't compare to the other three contenders. Something I do want to point out are a few stats that can easily be overlooked. Morneau had a .330 BA with runners on, a .348 BA with runners in scoring position and a .329 BA with runners in scoring position and two outs.

    Grady Sizemore- arguably the best all-around player in the game. Speed, contact, power, fielding, Sizemores go it. Unfortunately for him though, the Indians didn't do too well in the 2008 season. A nice 33 home runs, 38 stolen bases for Sizemore. His stats did drop significantly after the All Star break. 23 HRs and a .273 BA looked good at the all star break but he batted only .261 with 10 HRs after the all star break. Sizemores got a good chance to be a 40-40 player in the future.

    And finally Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees 3B. As I said earlier, A-Rod battled a few injuries early in the season and had some off feild adversities. A-Rod had a great .573 SLG% which led the AL. Also a .302 BA, 35 HRs, and 103 RBIs to go along with that. Rodriguez finished 2nd in the AL in OPS. A-Rod also finished with the best OBP amogst the four.

    So as a result, I give the advantage to Alex Rodriguez. All four of my MVP candidates had amazing seasons. And you can say, well the Yankees didn't make the playoffs this season, so A-Rod couldn't have been most valuable. The way your team does has nothing to do with your value. A-Rod was the best player so he was most valuable.

Here are some stats

Josh Hamilton

BA	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG
.304	32	130	.371	.530

Justin Morneau

	BA HR RBI OBP SLG .300 23 129 .374 .499

Grady Sizemore

BA	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG
.268	33	90	.374	.502

Alex Rodriguez

BA	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG
.302	35	103	.392	.573