I voted for big Ryan Howard, but I'm not at all disappointed that Albert Pujols won the SBN NL MVP. It will be interesting to see if he walks away with it for real with a larger margin than he did last year (27 points over Andruw) or if Howard is able to make it close or closer than last year. I expected to see more SBN'ers voting for Howard, but maybe I feel his impact more than most since he's in the East and the Braves see the business end of his bat.
Here is my overall ballot: (1) Ryan Howard, (2) Albert Pujols, (3) Lance Berkman, (4) Miguel Cabrera, (5) Nomar Garciaparra, (6) David Wright, (7) Chase Utley, (8) Alfonso Soriano, (9) Carlos Beltran, (10) Brian McCann.
I probably ranked Nomar a bit too high, but when healthy his contribution to the Dodgers success was as important as Pujols' contribution to the Cardinals'. I also probably ranked Beltran too low, but once again from much of what I saw, Wright was more important to the Mets' success than was Beltran.
There were four Braves who received votes. Brian McCann was the highest with a very respectable 15th place ranking. Last year's second place vote getter for the real award, Andruw Jones, received only four votes this year. John Smoltz and Chipper Jones received two votes a piece.