We haven't really discussed it here, but you may have seen a certain slugger from up north won another MVP award. No, not Joe Mauer, it's Albert "Killer of Dreams" Pujols. If you're counting, that's his third MVP trophy and eighth finish in the top five. In fact, the only season Pujols hasn't finished in the top five in his career was a ninth-place finish in 2007. That would be when the Dominican native hit .327/.429/.568 with 103 RBIs and 99 runs scored.
Did you realize that there have only been five MVP winners this decade in the National League? Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent, Pujols, Ryan Howard and JImmy Rollins are the only players to win the award in the 2000s. Obviously, Pujols is the only player from the NL Central to make the list, but what's remarkable is how often other teams in the Central have won the award compared to the Astros.
Take the Cardinals. In the 98 years the MVP award has been given out, 20 Cardinals have won. Cincinnati is next with 11 total MVP while the Cubs have 10. Pittsburgh has seven MVPs while Milwaukee has three MVP wins from its time in the American League. So, the Astros are last in the NL Central with only one MVP win in the franchise's 48 years of existence.
Obviously, if Pujols retired after next season, he'd be a sure-fire Hall of Famer. Since he's going into his Age 30 season, that seems unlikely. If it's not bad enough that The Soulcrusher is staying around for a while, there were nine other NL Central players that got MVP votes this season. Miguel Tejada was the only Astro to get a vote, and he was the lowest finisher of all 10 NL Central vote-getters.
So, the question of the day is this: why don't Houston players fare better in MVP voting and are there any players on the current 40-man roster with a decent chance at winning the award?