Our betting friends say the Yankees' Derek Jeter and Cards' Albert Pujols remain odds-on favorites to win baseball's Most Valuable Player honors. That sounds like a popularity contest to us.

With the aid of a metric like PROTRADE's Moneyball Runs, however, you don't need to rely on popularity to determine who is the most productive. After all, MBR totals a player's overall offensive and defensive performance into one value, adjusting for context in ways that traditional stats -- like RBIs -- don't. Using MBR might not be the definitive measure of on-field performance, but we happen to think it's a pretty good addition to the discussion.

With that in mind, here are the top 10 position players in Major League Baseball, as measured by Moneyball Runs, through Sept. 18. It's that proverbial qualifier: If the season ended today, these are the guys who would top our MVP ballot...

1. Carlos Beltran, CF, NYM: 70.64 MBR

The most valuable player on the NL pennant favorite, Beltran averaged a league-best 15.65 Moneyball Runs per month from May through August. His 2006 campaign will easily trump his career-best 54.17 MBR with Kansas City in '03. But that's no matter to Mets fans. Beltran is slipping in September, batting just .170 and uncharacteristically losing fielding value in six of his 12 stats. Will he be productive when Queens needs it most?

2. Travis Hafner, DH, CLE: 62.32 MBR

Injured and out for the season as of Sept. 1, Ozzie Guillen will be happy not to see Hafner for the Tribe's three-game set with Chicago next week. The White Sox haven't forgotten the way Pronk made them sweat last September, the culmination of an '05 campaign that was worth 54.14 MBR. That he improved this season and still didn't make the All-Star Game is a travesty of timing. Hafner's best hitting month -- a torrid 19.43 MBR -- was in August.

3. Albert Pujols, 1B, STL: 61.03 MBR

Pujols is coming through for St. Louis most when it counts. If he stays on pace, September will be his most productive month since April, when he hit .346 with 14 HRs and 32 RBIs. Surprising fact: Despite a typically stellar year with the bat, Albert has had his worst season with the glove in 2006, grading out as just a league-average defender by our metrics.

4. Lance Berkman, 1B, HOU: 56.13 MBR

Yes, Berkman was good in 2005, producing 25.94 MBR in the Astros' World Series run. But he's been twice as good in '06, with much less fanfare.

5. Alfonso Soriano, LF, WAS: 53.75 MBR

And to think in Spring Training, skeptics worried how the lifetime middle infielder might hold up patrolling the outfield grass. Soriano's done just fine as 32 percent of his Moneyball Runs come compliments of his smooth glove. Never mind his bat -- he's the best-fielding left fielder in baseball. Some perspective: Soriano's been a whopping 42.65 Runs better than Manny Ramirez in defense.

6. Miguel Cabrera, 3B, FLA: 52.01 MBR

Everyone would be chasing this 23-year-old if he showed a little more consistency. Cabrera produced 9.88 MBR for the Marlins in June and July combined before more than doubling that output in an amazing August (22.49 MBR). Of course, then there was the 9.81 MBR Cabrera lost fielding in May alone.

7. Jim Thome, DH, CWS: 46.34 MBR

It's truly remarkable that Thome, who has lost 16.01 Moneyball Runs this month alone, still ranks among the top 10 overall performers this season. The 36-year-old is hitting .165 in September, though he still hasn't eaten up all the goodwill he earned when the summer was young. Thome pounded 16.66 Moneyball Runs in April, which proved to be his season peak.

8. Ryan Howard, 1B, PHI: 45.97 MBR

Speaking of April, that's when Phillies' fans were cursing team management. Howard posted just 2.89 MBR at the plate that month, while the man he replaced managed five times as much for Chicago. Patience, my fans. Howard's home run binge has resulted in 38.79 MBR hitting in August and September -- an unheard-of pace that portends to make the City of Brotherly Love forget Mike Schmidt.

9. Barry Bonds, LF, SF: 43.55 MBR

Don't look now, but Bonds is quietly finishing the year on a powerful note. Five of his 10 hits this month have been round-trippers, and he's slugged .581 since the All-Star break. We'll still equate it to Michael Jordan putting up 20-and-10: Bonds was worth an otherworldly 121.63 MBR in '01 and 109.49 MBR in '04.

10. David Ortiz, DH, BOS: 42.15 MBR

Off from his 50.27 MBR in '05, Papi had a huge July (16.54 MBR) but whimpered through August as the Sox slid.