Re the MLB roundtable: Hunh, Olbermann is almost..likeable...when he sticks to sports.

The difference between his performance and Cabrera’s is not so great that a victory for Cabrera should be considered a disgrace.

Huh? If somebody wants to question WAR and recalculate things to show that it's closer than WAR portrays then fine. Or if you want to argue there's stuff WAR misses or that Cabrera was super double clutchy or something then OK. But the WAR difference is nearly 4 f'ing wins. Trout, by WAR, has provided over 50% more value than Cabrera. How big does a gap have to be to be a "disgrace"? (Which is not to say it would be the most disgraceful (by WAR) decision in MVP history.)

“I don’t know how anyone can get around the fact that Miguel Cabrera is the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years,” said MLB Network’s Peter Gammons two weeks ago

a) it's not hard.

b) as we all know, many TC winners didn't win MVP.

c) When Yaz won it, he had 12 WAR, leading the AL. (He led the AL in 3 or 4 years); when Robinson won it, he led the AL in WAR at a Cabrera-esque 7.3; when Williams won in 42 and 47, he led the AL in WAR (also in the 2 years they did give him the MVP and two more on top of that). If anything, a WAR-based MVP would probably have "recognized" the TC winners more often than the actual MVP voters.

d) Getting back to Robinson, WAR is saying that Cabrera this year was as good as Robinson in 66 -- what a horrible insult! It's Cabrera's bad luck he ran into a guy having a Willie Mays type season.

Huh? B-R has added JAWS.

When you dig deep into the numbers,

you really don't actually have to do that. cabrera was a marginally better hitter, but trout was a better baserunner and a better defensive player by miles.

oh, and for those of you trout supporters, michael wilbon just called you sabr-loons on ESPN.

Honestly, I feel like I did during the '04 election (if you'll forgive the analogy). Don't expect that my guy (Trout) will win, but demographics favor my position in the long run.

“I don’t know how anyone can get around the fact that Miguel Cabrera is the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years,” said MLB Network’s Peter Gammons two weeks ago, summing up the opinion of much of the pundit class.

OK, Maybe I'm missing something, but Gammons has already stated that his vote would have been for Trout. So, apparently he doesn't know how he himself was able to get around the fact that Miguel Cabrera is the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years?

I am sure this has been mentioned in some thread on this subject, but the argument “I don’t know how anyone can get around the fact that Miguel Cabrera is the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years,” is saying that they would vote for Mike Trout if josh Hamilton had hit 2 more home runs.