ok, wow, that is an awful, tired, and overused excuse for not giving the best player the award. Pujols IS the most valuable player to any one team regardless of whether they made the playoffs. Secondly, if you were paying attention, the cardinals were the second place team in the wild-card standings until the second week of september. Without Pujols in the lineup, the cardinals are a sub-.500 team instead of 10 games over. I watched the cardinals every day and I can tell you without a doubt that Pujols means more to that team than any other single player means to any other team. Thus, MVP. America, get your collective head out of your ass.