Lee for MVP?

Over on Cub Reporter, they are doing a roundtable discussion with their main writers on the 2005 season. They do such a great job, that I thought I would just use their questions and answer them here. The first was on Derrek Lee's season and whether he should be the MVP. Here are some stats of contenders.

Player A: .306/.402/.559
Player B: .323/.385/.561
Player C: .263/ .347/ .575
Player D: .335/ .418/ .662
Player E: .330/ .430/ .609

The Answers
Player A: Jason Bay
Player B: Miguel Cabrera
Player C: Andruw Jones
Player D: Lee
Player E: Albert Pujols

Derrek Lee has had the best offensive season of anybody in the league. Unfortunately, he played for a bad team who stuck two bad OBP guys ahead of him in the lineup all season. Lee is the MVP. However, he probably won't get it, because his team isn't in the playoffs. That should count for something, so if Lee doesn't get it, Albert Pujols should. The writers will be enamored with Jones's HR totals, however his slugging percentage was almost 100 points less than Lee's. If we compare to Lee to Bonds's last 4 seasons:

Lee '05: 1st BA, 4th OBP, 1st SLG
Bonds '04: 1st BA, 1st OBP, 1st SLG
Bonds '03: 3rd BA, 1st OBP, 1st SLG
Bonds '02: 1st BA, 1st OBP, 1st SLG
Bonds '01: 7th BA, 1st OBP, 1st SLG

As you can see Lee is not far off from what Bonds did the last 4 MVP seasons in the NL compared to his peers. But he will probably not win the award.