A lot of smart baseball minds are saying that Albert Pujols deserves the MVP over Ryan Howard because of the 100-point disparity in their batting averages. I disagree!

Here are their stat lines through Wednesday night's games:

Pujols: .354, 33 HR, 101 RBI, 91 runs, .458 OBP
Howard: .249, 45 HR, 137 RBI, 96 runs, .337 OBP

Clearly Pujols has the advantage in batting average and on-base percentage, while Howard is up in homers and RBIs. The strange fact is that despite the 121-point lead in on-base percentage, Pujols has crossed the plate five fewer times than Howard. Granted, Pujols has only played 137 games, which probably causes the difference, but the MVP award does not care if you hit the 15-day DL at some point this season or took a few Sundays off.

So here is where it gets interesting. Look at how many runs are specifically created by each player. To do that, combine the number of runs scored and the RBIs, but subtract the number homers because they count to each category, and we only want to count them once. Howard is ahead 188 to 159. This means that those 50 extra hits/walks that Pujols has accumulated actually has resulted in 29 fewer runs crossing the plate. This means that where Ryan Howard struck out, Pujols often got a base hit without driving anyone home or eventually crossing home plate.

Obviously I am taking a very simple approach to this (because I think Howard deserves the MVP if the Phillies make the playoffs), because Pujols' singles could have moved a runner into scoring position who eventually came home to score. However, basing it on pure numbers, Ryan Howard has directly caused 29 more runs to cross home plate this season than Albert Pujols, regardless of how much better he is hitting this season.

Also, the Cardinals are not going to make the playoffs, and if the Phillies do, it will be on the back of Ryan Howard, who is now hitting .393 this month, with 8 homers, 23 RBIs and 17 runs scored.