i dont forget what he has done and yes they are all team games berkman's 2005 season was to me his most amazing season and the season in which he made the most impact offensively in only 132 games in 2004/2005 post season berkman mashed no doubt but dont forget about 2001 so dont think they won solely because berkman was part of the line up now lets talk about what has happened since 2005 while having great offensive seasons, the team has not accomplished anything i think lance berkman is a great player in terms of mvp i think yao ranks higher
2004 biggio, bagwell, beltran, berkman, clemens, pettitte (all though injured), oswalt, kent 2005 biggio, clemens, berkman, pettitte, now i would agree with the fact that in 2005 berkman lead the offense but we all know it was the pitching that took us to the world series so who do you think lead those teams?
i dont disagree with the injury premise but like i said what a healthy yao ming can do but individual results to me should be measured by team success just like i think it's bogus for giving alex rodriguez the mvp when his team finishes last
If you think about it, if the MLB had the same playoff system as the NBA, the Astros would have been a playoff team every year except his rookie year and 2007. I think too many people are faulting him too much for the sport he plays. These last couple of weeks watching other people fill in for Berkman has been brutal to watch. Just look at his OPS. He has a .943, and the next guy on the team is Lee with a .877. And that is with the awful start to the season Berkman had.
playoffs included, berkman was - and it's not even really close - the best offensive player on those two teams.
2004: Berkman 2005: Berkman To even mention Kent, Biggio, Bagwell, Pettitte, & Beltran for 2004 is just wrong. Beltran ended up being huge for us down the stretch and in the playoffs, but so was Berkman, and he was on the team the whole year. Backe came up huge for us to down the stretch and in the playoffs, but I'm not going to call him MVP.
Agree with your point...everyone remembers Beltran's October explosion but no one remembers that in September of 04 Beltran hit under .200 or maybe just above it with limited power while Puma was essential in the comeback!
i dont disagree with the fact that berkamn played huge roles in those years, my argument is look what he had around him offensively in 2004 and in 2005 look at that pitching, lidge had an awesome stretch up til the pujols blast but if we are talking most valuable player i just think yao edges puma and if you want to say that yao's injury should expempt him from the list i have no problem with that,
Regular season and first round 2008-2009: Yao is unquestionably without-a-doubt the Rox MVP. A pleasure to watch. Of course, then he broke. Again. Regular season 2009-2010: Yao is unquestionably without-a-doubt the Rox Most Worthless Player. Biggest price tag for precisely zero production. He is a black hole albatross, like Bagwell (arguably the Astros' greatest player in their history) in his last season. Or like Me-Mac, the other Rox black hole.
yes i know constant injuries so many ifs i think my frustarations with berkman extend from the team's lack of success since 2005, i think it is hard to measure how much impact on a team an elite player should have, the line up this year is better than it has been for a while now, and the astros record sucks so that takes me back to the whole how valuable can a player be to a losing team argument
I went and looked it up, and Beltran was a little bit better than your implying(.258avg), but the premise is correct. He only hit 2HR over the final month of the season. Berkman though got after July, and had the better August & September. Berkman is a player that deserves a whole lot more attention then he gets. It actually reminds me of Carlos Delgado when he played for the Blue Jays in how he put up amazing numbers, but watching ESPN you wouldn't notice(funny how that changed once he was with the Mets).
Yea I wasn't sure on the avg but I knew his overall contribution wasn't as great as people remember...Berkman is a difference maker in the lineup and in my opinion streakly speaking Astros he is the most valuable player because without him the lineup is very pederstrian.
This answer is about the same: I said it as a joke, but a healthy and motivated T-Mac was our best player. Yao can be taken out of games, but T-Mac in those first couple of years in Houston he was amazing. A moping, injured T-Mac(last years version) is LVP.
pitching is half the game; you have to score runs, too. he was far and away the best offensive player on those two teams, second fiddle to no one.
I love Andre Johnson and he's one of the best WR's in the game, but I can't ever put WR and MVP in the same sentence. Bottom line is even when he was out, we had other capable receivers that could step their game up (Walter, Davis, Daniels, Anderson). They did not match his production, but they were solid. On the other hand, if Mario goes down, who replaces him? Our D-line would suffer incredibly, and it wasn't exactly awesome to begin with. I have the mentality of football games being won in the trenches, so as much as I love AJ, I just can't say he's the most valuable player on the Texans as good as he is, when a guy like Mario would be much harder to replace than AJ.
appreciate the discussion, rezdawg - keep it comin'!: how can i be too hung up on the very basic point of the entire game? LOL. it’s not about catching more passes than your opponent (thought that’s certainly not UNimportant); it’s about outscoring them. except… you know - score TDs. the issue is value. andre johnson is absolutely a weapon; defenses unquestionably game plan for him and that attention undoubtedly helps open up the offense. he is definitely valuable; i would never argue otherwise. but MOST valuable……? look, i like, Like, LIKE andre johnson. i hesitate to have these discussions because i don’t want to portray myself as anything other than a big fan of his. he shows up every week, plays hard, makes tough catches – i love the guy. but do i think the offense would fall into a crevice without him? no, i don’t. do i think we could easily replace his 5.5 TDs/year? yeah, i do. i think walter/davis could match the TD output of johnson/walter (16 last year). that doesn’t mean that combination is AS good, certainly not better; i just don’t think the drop-off is that steep. if he were breaking tackles and outrunning defenses and consistently, single-handedly changing the course of football games while scoring 10-12 TDs a year…. that’s hard to replace. finding players who catch oodles of passes and rack up yards, otoh… that’s a little easier to find. not easy – easier. winning percentage without andre johnson: .40 (2-5) winning percentage *with* andre johnson: .37 (34-58) i’m not by any stretch of the imagination intimating we’re *worse* with johnson; just dispelling this notion we’re appreciably worse without him. granted, and fortunately, it’s a small sample size, but we’re winning games at roughly the same pace. we’re obviously a better team with him; that’s true of any and all of our good players. the question is whether we could win without him – i think they could, assuming health elsewhere across the board.
good stuff, Mr. Clutch; enjoying the discussion... no. nope. no, no, no - he didn’t. thigpen posted a 76 qb rating last season. in his two seasons here, rosenfels posted an 84.8 and 79.5. carr played with johnson five seasons, awful in year one and five – but in between, he posted ratings of 83.5, 77.2 and 82.1 – all better than thigpen’s season last year. i don’t want to get caught up in the minutiae of this; but that statement was categorically untrue. dude…. boldin scored 11 TDs last year: he missed 4 games and, oh yeah – he’s the team’s #2 receiver! come on, man! THAT’s who you’re comparing andre johnson to – a team’s second-best receiver? you look at the truly elite WRs of this era, and in TDs and YPC, johnson trails fairly significantly. which is not to say he isn’t a great WR; he is. but in terms of value, a wes welker is easier to find than a randy moss. IMO, of course.
