This year’s National League MVP award is a hotly debated one, and, because of the contenders, it’s also become a “writ small” discussion about the very meaning of the honor.

In most quarters, the contenders are first baseman Albert Pujols of the Cardinals, center fielder Andruw Jones of the Braves, and first baseman Derrek Lee of the Cubs. Almost everyone embraces Pujols and Jones as legitimate candidates; both had excellent seasons on playoff teams. It’s Lee’s candidacy, however, that’s a source of much controversy.

Lee, of course, toiled for the 79-win, fourth-place Cubs, and that fact is enough to nullify his statistical attributes in the eyes of many voters and observers. This brings up the issue of what’s actually in the MVP ballot instructions that the Baseball Writers’ Association of America distributes to voters. In the opening two paragraphs of the instructions, you’ll find the following admonitions:

“There is no clear-cut definition of what Most Valuable means. It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the Most Valuable Player in each league to his team. The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier.”

Voters are free to define “valuable” as they see fit, but the ballot instructions expressly state that players on non-contending teams are to be considered. In fact, over the last four years, three of the eight MVP awards have gone to players on teams who were watching from home in October. To boot, Ernie Banks, Cal Ripken Jr., Andre Dawson, and Alex Rodriguez have all won MVPs while toiling for last-place clubs. So while may be a historical trend that MVPs come from playoff teams, it’s far from a hard-and-fast standard.

To give the MVP award to anyone other than the best player is to indulge in shifting criteria and, in essence, to penalize a player because his teammates are lousy. The only objective standard is to award the MVP to the player who posted the best numbers. So let’s explore those numbers.

Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) measures, in wins, what a player contributes with the bat and on defense over and above what can be counted on from a hypothetical “replacement level” player (e.g., the waiver claim, the bench player, the minor league veteran, the not-quite-ready prospect). This season, Lee led the three aforementioned MVP contenders with a WARP rating of 12.3, followed by Pujols at 10.8, and Jones at 8.7.

Those advocating Jones for MVP will point not only to his excellence the plate this season (.263 AVG/.347 OBA/.575 SLG, most homers, 51, by an NL center fielder since Willie Mays in 1965), but also to his superlative defense at an up-the-middle position. However, as mentioned, WARP accounts for defense and also views offensive production through the prism of positional scarcity (i.e., it’s easier to find a hard-hitting first baseman than it is a hard-hitting shortstop).

Even making these adjustments – which favor Jones – Lee and Pujols are still his clear superiors. Overall, it’s Lee over Pujols by a full win-and-a-half. That’s explained by Lee’s superior defense and 48-point edge in slugging percentage. As for Jones, Lee’s OBA is 71 points higher, and his SLG is 87 points higher. The real mystery is why hitting 50 home runs is still reason enough to make the ballot in the first place. After all, it’s rather simple to muster a case that Jason Bay of the Pirates and Miguel Cabrera of the Marlins are both more worthy of consideration than Jones is.

Nevertheless, Jones’s supporters will also point to his league-leading RBI tally and his performance in clutch situations. Upon closer examination, however, these arguments wither badly. Consider that Jones’s RBI lead was mostly a function of the fact that he saw 54 more RBI opportunities than Pujols and 124 more than Lee. In terms of RBI-per-runner, Pujols finishes first (32nd among major league qualifiers) among the three, followed by Lee (49th), and then Jones (67th). So while Jones had the gaudier RBI total, he converted his opportunities much less efficiently than did Pujols or Lee.

As far as the clutch argument goes, Jones again fails to stack up. Four traditional measures of clutch performance are a hitter’s numbers in “close and late” situations (C&L), with runners on base (ROB), with runners in scoring position (RISP),and with runners in scoring position and two outs (RISP2). Each player’s success in these categories, measured in terms of on-base percentage plus slugging percentage (OPS), appears in the accompanying chart.

As you can see, Jones finishes last among the three hitters in three of the four statistics, and tops in no category. Lee, meanwhile, prevails in “close and late,” with runners in scoring position and with runners on, while Pujols is best with runners in scoring position and two outs.

In fact, Jones was the least clutch of the three NL MVP candidates, a point hammered home by the fact that in 2005 he hit a paltry .207 with runners in scoring position. This past season, the numbers are squarely at odds with his reputation.

Overall, Lee had a better season than any other player in the NL, and he was Pujols’s narrow superior in terms of clutch performance. That his Cubs didn’t make the post-season is the fault of his teammates and his manager. Derrek Lee is the NL MVP for 2005. To argue otherwise is to ignore the numbers in favor of carefully tailed semantic arguments about what “value” means. Or, to be more accurate, what value means this year.

Mr. Perry writes for Baseball Prospectus. For more state-of-the-art commentary, visit the Web site www.baseballprospectus.com.