Bickley Blast: Despite heroics, Paul Goldschmidt is not NL MVP
Aug 15, 2013, 11:16 PM | Updated: 11:17 pm
Paul Goldschmidt has done it again. He’s put the Diamondbacks on his shoulders, lifting them out of an abyss.
But he is not the MVP of the National League.
And to all the Diamondbacks fans in the audience, I’m truly sorry for what I’m about to say:
At the moment, Yasiel Puig is the MVP of the National League.
You can kill my argument with numbers. Puig has played in only 63 games. If he plays every day for the rest of the season, he’ll barely have 100 games under his belt.
That’s not a lot. Barry Bonds once won a MVP with 130 games. Willie Stargell won a co-MVP with 126 games. There are many other strong contenders.
But with all due respect to Goldschmidt, no one has influenced a season or a team like Puig.
At one point, the Dodgers were 30-42. They are now 70-50. That means they’ve won 40 of their last 48 games.
The Dodgers also have the largest payroll in National League history. They have four players alone earning in excess of $20 million. Clearly, Puig has a much better supporting cast than Goldschmidt, who has been a one-man wrecking ball in Arizona.
But the Dodgers were once dead last and dead on arrival. Now, they are on a historic run, and maybe the most entertaining team we’ve seen since the Big Red Machine.
It’s because of one guy who transcends the numbers. And that guy is my National League MVP.
