The margin of victory should have aided Jones’ candidacy. The Braves, too, limped through the season, and Jones was the total difference between the team’s 14^th straight divisional crown and not making the playoffs at all.

He had those 51 homers and his 128 RBIs were 11 better than Pujols and 21 north of Lee. But Jones also gave voters a terrific escape clause — he hit just .263 with a very mediocre .347 on-base percentage, just a bit higher than Pujols’ batting average, had just 64 walks and scored 95 runs. He also had only 78 extra-base hits, a total most players would give their first-borns for, but a total that pales in comparison the numbers put up by the other candidates.

Put it all together, and there are too many reasons for voters to justify not going with Jones, especially with the seasons put together by Pujols and Lee.

And Lee simply had an incomparable year, one in which he went into August still holding a chance of winning the Triple Crown. He didn’t do that, but he led the NL in hitting, with a .335 average, and was second in home runs with 46. His RBI total was just 107, but considering he was playing for the Cubs, that’s an impressive figure. He scored 120 runs, and led the league in slugging at .662; his on-base percentage was .418.

But the biggest number Lee put up is one that isn’t often mentioned — extra-base hits. In the history of baseball, only the very best hitters make it to 80 extra-base hits in a season. Babe Ruth holds the record with 119, Lou Gehrig is second at 117, and Barry Bonds and Chuck Klein share third place at 107.

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Lee last season had 99 extra-base hits, and in the history of the game there have been just 15 totals higher, with only five of them coming since 1948 — Bonds with 107, Todd Helton with 105 and 103, Sammy Sosa with 103 and Luis Gonzalez with 100. Pujols, by the way, also had 99 in 2004, when he again didn’t win MVP because he had to compete against Bonds.

Yes, the Cubs finished fourth and ended the year with a losing record. But they contended for more than half the season, and without Lee, they would have taken up early residence in the cellar and stayed there all year.

Jones might have been more valuable in absolute terms, and Pujols has been the best player in the NL and maybe the best all-around hitter in the game for five years now, but Lee had the best stats. The previous awards — both Cy Youngs and the AL MVP — went to the stats, not the value, and if the NL voters had followed suit, Derrek Lee should have been your NL MVP.