MLB 2025 Season

lukin2006 wrote:

Cabrera wins triple crown or not he should be MVP...I do know this if the tigers don't have Cabrera they do not make the playoffs...and the Angels have Trout and they don't make the playoffs.

I know the Angels play in a tougher division...yada, yada, yada....for money money the triple crown has to be special...not 1 player has done it in 45 years.

i understand both sides of the argument. i don't really care who wins the mvp.

but the triple crown is absolutely is special. it's been 45 years since someone accomplished that feat. i understand people love all the new age stats and stuff and some of them are very useful. but to me, baseball more than any other sport, is meant to be romanticized and to have it's history embraced. yastrzemski, mantle, williams, gehrig, fox, kein, hornsby, cobb (fucking ty cobb!) are the names you associate with this. so of course it's special, and to demean it is ridiculous and petty. i remember, as a kid, being excited over gary sheffield making a run for it back in '92 (i think that was the year).

so assuming he holds on, congrats to cabrera on a truly remarkable feat.

lukin2006 wrote:

Cabrera wins triple crown or not he should be MVP...I do know this if the tigers don't have Cabrera they do not make the playoffs...and the Angels have Trout and they don't make the playoffs.

I know the Angels play in a tougher division...yada, yada, yada....for money money the triple crown has to be special...not 1 player has done it in 45 years.

yeah, penalize trout for playing better teams all year AND leading his team to a better record

great argument

Indifference71 wrote:

A real shame that Greenberg struck out. What a joke that whole thing was.

:

3 pitches

more proof trout is most deserving


One of the byproducts of the heated debate that's unfolded over this year's AL MVP is the validity of Wins Above Replacement. If you want a detailed discussion of what WAR is and what its strengths and flaws are, read this or this. We will not be using WAR to explain why Mike Trout is the American League's most valuable player.

Let's start with Trout's hitting. Miguel Cabrera has been lauded for his terrific offensive season, and rightfully so. Heading into Tuesday's games, Cabrera led the league with a .331 batting average, ranked fourth with a .394 on-base percentage, and led the league by slugging .608. Thing is, Trout's raw hitting numbers aren't far off Cabrera's. His .324 batting average trails only Cabrera. His .397 OBP places him third in the league, just ahead of Cabrera. And his .561 slugging average trails only Cabrera and Josh Hamilton.

Baseball isn't basketball, though; the dimensions of every field differ, and weather conditions can also play a significant role in either helping or suppressing offense. Using ESPN's park factors, whether for 2012 alone or factoring in 2010 and 2011 results to produce a three-year comparison, we can see that Comerica Park gives hitters a moderate boost. Angel Stadium, on the other hand, has ranked as the fourth-worst park for hitters in each of the past three years. If we want to even out those differences in park effects, there are stats that do that. One such stat is called OPS+. OPS, as you probably know, is the sum of on-base percentage and slugging average. It's an imperfect metric in that it assumes equal value for OBP and slugging, when in fact getting on base (and not making outs) has been shown to be a more useful skill for creating runs. Thus using OPS, or OPS+, which takes that stat and adjusts for park and league effects, should favor Cabrera, the better slugger, over Trout, the slightly better on-base guy.

Trout leads the AL with a 169 OPS+. Cabrera ranks second at 167. If you'd prefer to use a stat that places more appropriate value on OBP vs. slugging (but does not adjust for park differences, which should favor Cabrera), we can use Weighted On Base Average (wOBA). Through Monday, Trout led the AL with a .421 wOBA; Cabrera was second at .417. (Trout also leads Cabrera in Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+), a stat that more accurately weights OBP vs. slugging and adjusts for park and league effects. But it also includes stolen bases and caught-stealing totals, and we want to focus on hitting only for now.) In other words, on a per-at-bat basis, you could argue that Trout has been a better hitter this season than Cabrera.

This isn't meant to diminish Cabrera's own excellent season. The Angels waited nearly a month to call up Trout from the minors, allowing Cabrera to play 22 more games than the Angels center fielder. Which means that Cabrera's bat has been worth more to the Tigers, overall, than Trout's has to the Halos. The idea here is merely to remind you that Trout has been a terrific hitter this year in his own right, at the very least in the same ballpark as Cabrera.

And Trout absolutely annihilates Cabrera with his legs and his glove.

Trout leads the league with 49 stolen bases, to Cabrera's four. Stolen bases have fallen out of favor over the past 20 years, understandably so given the simultaneous rise in power numbers. But a player who steals a lot of bases and rarely gets caught can still be a valuable asset to his team. While swiping 49 bags, Trout has been caught only four times, for a success rate of 92 percent. To put that in perspective, the breakeven rate for a player to steal bases without hurting his team by making too many outs is a little over 70 percent. Using FanGraphs' Base Running Runs stat, we see that Trout leads all of baseball by a wide margin, having produced nearly seven runs of value for the Angels just by virtue of his taking extra bases in non-steal situations. If we combine Trout's base-stealing prowess with those extra bases in non-steal spots, he's been worth nearly 10 runs to his team. (By comparison, Cabrera has cost his team at least two runs with his legs, depending on the metric you use.) Put another way, Trout wins one game for the Angels this year on aggregate just with his legs — before we get to his bat or his glove.

That glove has been phenomenal by any measure. If you want to use UZR, Trout's saved more than 13 runs this season, placing him sixth among all AL players, despite Trout spending most of April in the minors. If you prefer Baseball-Reference.com metrics, Trout's 22 Defensive Runs Saved also rank among baseball's super-elite. Read this post from ESPN Stats & Info if you want a more detailed look at how Trout saves so many runs in the outfield. (If you want to turn off your analysis switch for a second, feel free to view any of Trout's four home-run robberies this season, including this all-timer off J.J. Hardy.) You can call Cabrera selfless or noble or anything else for moving to third base when Prince Fielder signed. But the bottom line is that he's cost his team more than nine runs (nearly one full win) by UZR, and four by DRS.

Add it all up and, without the benefit of WAR or any other catchall stat, Trout comes out well ahead.

Before we move on to the other awards, a few "But What About?!" questions:

But what about the first Triple Crown in 45 years?

Great accomplishment. But the award recognizes the most valuable player, not the most valuable hitter, and Trout's vastly superior baserunning and defense trumps Cabrera's moderate offensive advantage. Moreover, the Triple Crown only looks at three measures of offense, one of them highly team-dependent (runs batted in). It tells us nothing about Cabrera's walks, singles, doubles, triples, steals, times grounding into double plays, or any number of other stats. Yelling "Triple Crown!" and dropping a metaphorical mic is not a cogent argument.

But what about Cabrera going off in September, while Trout cooled down?

One win counts for one win in April, May, June, July, August, or September. But if you want to try to ascribe higher leverage to September at-bats the way you would ninth-inning at-bats in tie games, sure, go ahead.

But what about Cabrera leading his team to the playoffs, while Trout led his team to the golf course?

Leaving aside the Angels' superior record in a much tougher division, the teammates your general manager picks for you should have no bearing on a player's value. Trout did more this year to help his team win than did Cabrera (or anyone else, including Robinson Cano, who's had a hell of a year and could be argued to have produced about as much value as Cabrera, maybe even a little more) and Adrian Beltre (another candidate with value comparable to Cabrera's who's not coming up in the main Trout vs. Cabrera debate). He is therefore the league's most valuable player.

Enough proof that Cabrera is most deserving...

1.Triple Crown
2. Team in playoffs
3 Performing in September

The Fixer wrote:

lukin2006 wrote:

Cabrera wins triple crown or not he should be MVP...I do know this if the tigers don't have Cabrera they do not make the playoffs...and the Angels have Trout and they don't make the playoffs.

I know the Angels play in a tougher division...yada, yada, yada....for money money the triple crown has to be special...not 1 player has done it in 45 years.

yeah, penalize trout for playing better teams all year AND leading his team to a better record

great argument

I'm not penalizing Trout for playing on better teams ... lots of other great players have played similar schedules or in easier divisions and didn't accomplish the feat ... and Cabrera hasn't yet either ... but if he does accomplish he deserves the MVP.

Jim Leyland: ‘There Is No Flaw In The Miguel Cabrera Season’

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/10/03/ ... ra-season/

The Fixer wrote:

DewieCox wrote:

Enough proof that Cabrera is most deserving...

1.Triple Crown
2. Team in playoffs
3 Performing in September

1 - doesn't mean he had a better year than trout
2 - trout's team had a better record
3 - so did trout...also, season is six months long, not one

Yeah Cabrera has had the better season ...44 HR ... 139 ... RBI's 331 BA ... currently leagues the league in all categories.

The Fixer wrote:

so he deserves the award for being marginally better at the plate...and severely deficient (compared to trout) in all other aspects??

We're not comparing anyone to lots of other great players...we are comparing trout and cabrera

I don't see how that makes sense

I don't think 60 rbi is that marginal.

congrats Miguel!



finally a triple crown winner in my lifetime

norm wrote:

congrats Miguel!



finally a triple crown winner in my lifetime

He's been awesome to watch. Really glad he was able to pull it off.