Let's look at their Win Shares and their WARP1 scores from Baseball Prospectus, along with a few other candidates.
Player WS* WARP**
Wright 34 11.2
Beltran 27 8.0
J.Reyes 24 7.5
Utley 28 9.6
Howard 26 6.4
Rollins 28 9.4
Rowand 23 8.0
Holliday 30 10.1
Tulowitzki 25 8.3
Helton 24 8.6
Fielder 28 6.9
Pujols 32 11.3
R.Martin 24 8.0
C.Jones 26 7.3
Cabrera 30 9.1
H.Ramirez 29 8.7
Byrnes 26 6.8
A.Gonzalez 27 8.0
Peavy 23 10.6
Webb 22 8.7
*Source: The Hardball Times
**Source: Baseball Prospectus
The heavy hitting first basemen suffer, in part, because of their poor defense. The same with Hanley Ramirez. Almost everyone else on the list is an average or better defender, even the overweight Cabrera and over aged Jones at third.
Pujos, frankly, is a shocker. The common perception is that he had a down year. Apparently not. He's right there with the best. I don't believe for a second that Pujols has a shot at the MVP, because the Cards swooned. Too bad, because Pujols finally found a year when Bonds isn't in the running and he still won't win it.
Holliday is obscure, and the voters will over-discount his numbers b/c he plays in Colorado. The WS and WARP numbers take into account park effects, so Holliday's numbers are his "real" numbers. I don't expect that kind of detailed analysis from the voters, however.
Wright is fruit of the poisoned Mets tree. My money is on Rollins, edging out Fielder. How about that Chase Utley, though. Give him his missing month, and this is an easy call.
My pick remains Wright. He didn't collapse, and he had a great year.
Here's a table with a composite score, which I described in my NL Catcher's post, assuming the replacement WS for a player is 5.
Note, there's only one rookie on this list.
Player Composite
Wright 62.6
Pujols 60.9
Holliday 55.3
Cabrera 52.3
Utley 51.8
Rollins 51.2
H.Ramirez 50.1
Peavy 49.8
Beltran 46.0
A.Gonzalez 46.0
Tulowitzki 45.2
Helton 44.8
Fielder 43.7
Webb 43.1
Martin 43.0
C.Jones 42.9
Rowand 42.0
J.Reyes 41.5
Byrnes 41.4
Howard 40.2
Peavy finishes 8th.
