Baseball MVPs continue trend of home-run hitters

Lucas Mann Assistant Sports Editor

Ryan Howard, who was voted the National League’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) on Nov. 23, is a big, big man. Standing 6’4” and listed at 255 pounds (a figure that looks like it could apply to only the lower half of his body), he was Major League Baseball’s best power hitter in 2006. Howard hit .313 and was an adequate fielding first baseman, but those were not the qualities that set him apart from the rest of the field. What made him the MVP, just like many others in the past decade, was his amazing ability to put the ball out of the park.

Howard, who is part of baseball’s next generation of great sluggers, hit 58 home runs. The runner up in MVP Voting in the National League, Albert Pujols, hit 49. In the American League, power was also rewarded: Justin Morneau, the first baseman for the Minnesota Twins, hit an impressive 34 home runs in addition to solid all-around offensive numbers.

Baseball has become a game increasingly dominated by the big and strong. In 1998, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa rejuvenated baseball’s popularity after the strike in 1994. How did they do it? They put the ball out of the park. A lot. Sosa hit 66 home runs and McGuire hit a record-setting 70.

Since then, the list of baseball’s MVP winners has read like a laundry list of the game’s physically biggest and strongest: Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Alex Rodriguez, Vladamir Guerrero, Albert Pujols, and of course the larger-than-life Barry Bonds. Every one of these players had hit well over 30 home runs when they became MVPs, and most of them cleared the 40 mark.

As these players have amassed their awards and superstar status, in the past decade, baseball has simultaneously been battling rampant steroid use among its players. Barry Bonds, who has won four MVP awards since 2000, has been accused several times of steroid use. Jason Giambi, the 1999 American League MVP, has admitted to using steroids to gain an edge. Even national heroes like McGuire and Sosa have had their reputations tarnished with steroid rumors. McGuire, at one point, broke down in tears at a court hearing about steroids, making him the biggest man ever to cry on national television.

Neither Morneau nor Howard have faced steroid accusations. Both are young (25 and 27 years old, respectively), and 2006 was only the second full season for each of them. Still, both fit the mold of power hitter that is the highest on the baseball totem poll right now. Major League Baseball, regardless of how much it condemns steroid use, still rewards the brute force that baseball fans love to see.

Derek Jeter, the shortstop for the New York Yankees, finished second in the American League MVP voting. He hit .343, stole 34 bases, scored 118 runs and was awarded the Gold Glove Award for best fielding shortstop. But he hit only 14 home runs and is not what you would consider a power player. The same goes for Morneau’s teammate, Joe Mauer, who was an excellent catcher and won the American League batting title, but only managed to put 13 balls over the fence.

Howard and Morneau are both young men who have only just begun to tap into their talent. For Howard to hit 58 home runs in his second full season is a feat of strength never before achieved in baseball, even by McGuire or Bonds. Morneau, who at 223 pounds has not fully filled out his 6’4” frame, also has a future bright with success.

Their power potential is the kind that makes baseball owners and fans salivate. Bonds and Rodriguez, who are currently the game’s two highest paid players, both got their big pay after years of hitting over 50 home runs. One only had to watch the performance that Howard put on at the 2006 Home Run Derby to realize that he has the potential to hit with a kind of power beyond even those two superstars.

As Howard and Morneau lead a new generation of power hitters into the category of “household name,” baseball will continue to deal with its steroid problem. Yet as more awards are given to those players with the most might, the complexion of the game remains the same. Home-run hitters are baseball’s biggest stars, and, as with the 2006 MVP voting, that trend will continue.