NL Batting Title 2006

It's been almost a year since Derek Lee, in his second year with the Chicago Cubs, made the leap from being a productive power bat in the middle of a lineup to become one of the most feared hitters in the National league beating Albert Pujols to the 2005 NL batting title, and coming third in the MVP voting behind only Pujols and Andruw Jones.

In that year, we've seen a lot of changes at the top. Firstly, Lee has been hurt most of the season, missing almost a hundred games with a wrist injury, then Pujols missed 15 games in June (although you wouldn't notice by the rest of his numbers), which will probably cost him his second straight MVP award come October. Then of course, there's the emergence of lefty slugger Ryan Howard of the Phillies. After tearing it up in 2005, winning the ROY after hitting 22 home runs in only 88 games. He currently has a major league leading 49 home runs, and with David Ortiz not likely to be back this season, doesn't look likely to give up the lead there.
The most supprising change, however, is that this years NL batting title will likely not end up in the hands of an MVP candidate at all, but in the hands of gap hitter.

Throughout the year, seemingly out of nowhere, Freddy Sanchez has been tearing it up. He is at present hitting a league leading .344 with 44 doubles, but his six home runs stands a whopping forty short of last years winner Lee (46). If he wins the award, he will become the first Pirate to win the award in 23 years, when Bill Madlock won in a similar fashion (28 home runs less than Mike Schmidt (40) and 24 short of 1983's MVP Dale Murhpy (36)).
Sanchez, however, is no shoe in for the title. Marlins outstanding 23 year old third baseman Miguel Cabrera has been clipping at his heels for months now, and with the Marlins in the Wild Card race, could push his way past Sanchez, maybe even on the last day.
If you look at the league leaders board, then they are the only two really that can claim the title, but a year after taking Roger Clemens deep in post season, Brian McCann is stirring things up, hitting his way into contention, with a .340 batting average (.351 for the month of August). He doesn't qualify (as yet), for the batting title, needing an average of 3.60 plate appearances a game through to the end of the season to qualify, but that is definitely achievable for McCann especially hitting 5th in Atlanta's torrid offense as of late.

Whether Sanchez can hold off Cabrera and McCann remains to be seen, but if McCann, 22, can keep up his torrid pace on August, then he could, with 23 year old Joe Mauer of the Minnesota Twins, write their way into the history books as the first pair of catchers to win both batting titles in a single season. What an advert for catching that would make throughout baseball.