First off, the MVP race. Ryan Howard won the 2006 MVP award, but a lot of people, including myself, think it should have gone to one Albert Pujols. However, it didn’t, and we must move on - I’m sure Albert already has. He’s the one that’s always saying in interviews, “I just tryeeng to hell my teen win a chanpionsheep.” He did that this year, and I think that he could give two craps about the 2006 MVP. I think if Albert hadn’t missed that chunk of the season this year he would’ve won the MVP without much of a debate, but kudos to Howard for staying healthy and helping his team get closer to the playoffs than they may have without him. Albert’s consistent excellence makes him more valuable to his team year in and year out than any other player in the bigs right now, and I don’t need him to win an award to solidify my opinion on that.
Anyway, moving on to the Soriano signing. 7 years, 136 million, 18 million a year. In my opinion, the Cubs should focus their attention first and foremost to pitching. We saw what happens when a pitching staff has a stellar ERA in the playoffs - they win the World Series. The Cardinals’ offense was nothing to write home about, but they still went 11-5 in the posteseason because of their pitching. Soriano is a great bat, and the Cubs are going to have a nasty offense next year, but as of right now, they’re going to have to score a TON of runs to win a majority of their games. Let’s be honest though, any pitcher the Cubs bring in that isn’t a freak of nature will be hurt by midseason anyway; that’s just the way it works.
We Cardinal fans can worry about the Cubs all we want, and most of the time before the season starts, we do, but recently we’re almost always on top in the end. Â The Cubs are making a serious push to be contenders again, and for that I give them credit, but unless they get some pitching help, they’ll be completely useless by September in 2007 as well.
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