Let’s go through the rest of the big three. The weakness of RBIs are obvious. It is very much a team-dependent stat. Certainly driving in runs is important, but it is very much a result of the number of times your teammates get on base.
Home runs are important to tabulate. But what about doubles? Or triples? Don’t those count? Adam Dunn has more home runs this year than Robinson Cano, Andrew McCutchen, Mike Trout, Chase Headley, and Prince Fielder. To borrow Thorn’s methodology, do you want to tell me you’d take Dunn over any of those five? Not a chance. So let’s not blindly follow any of these stats, let alone all three thrown together.
Now that, hopefully, we see the Triple Crown to be the antiquated throwback that it is, we can also admit that anyone winning it has had a monstrous offensive season. So the real question is: Who’s having the better season, Cabrera or Trout, the Angels’ rookie outfielder?
...By things we can easily measure, Trout is about dead even with Cabrera in total bases while hitting and running at a higher level, doing so in 58 fewer plate appearances, and making 21 fewer outs via double plays alone. He is also 30 runs better defensively. It’s just not close.
Look, if Miguel Cabrera wins the Triple Crown this year, he deserves to be put alongside Carl Yastrzemski, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and Lou Gehrig. It just doesn’t mean, on its own, that he was the best player in the American League. He’s not. Mike Trout is.
Good analysis asks the question, then answers it based on evidence. Lazy analysis has a conclusion, then looks for anything to back it up. When you ask, “Who is the best player in the American League?” the answer this year, even with the possibility of a Triple Crown, is inescapable.
Repoz
Posted: September 23, 2012 at 06:09 PM |
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1. MikeinMI Posted: September 23, 2012 at 07:09 PM (#4243818)Aren't GIDP's also dependent on the same thing? Not to say that Trout would have hit into as many or that it changes anyones mind on the MVP but let's be fair.
Gotta throw a bone to the writers. It's a compromise.
sure, but their GIDP stats are stunningly different, Cabrera is 3x Trout, thats not opportunities, thats mostly faster footspeed.
and this is an excellent article, he added in the extra bases Trout takes. And despite that, the author still under-emphasizes Trout's advantage, if he added up all the extra outs Cabrera made to accumulate basically the same number of bases it gets even clearer.
Without even having to point out Cabreras apparently more favorable park, or even touching on defense.
how bout AVG/OBP/SLG/HR/RBI quintuple crowns?
Yaz 67--yes
Robinson 66--yes
Mantle 56 (lost OBP to Williams)
Williams 47 and 42--yes
Ducky 37--(3rd in OBP to Camilli(?!) and Mize)
Gehrig 34--yes
Klein 34--yes
Foxx 34--(lost OBP to Cochrane)
Hornsby 25 and 22--yes
Cobb 09--yes
Lajoie 01--yes
Cabrera this year--3rd in OBP to Mauer and Fielder
(well played, Mauer)
Uh, it's at least partly opportunities. Cabrera has 138 PA with a runner on first and less than 2 outs, Trout has 78. So Cabrera's GDP% in those situations is still a lot higher, but it's about 20% to 9%, which is not nearly as large as the raw 28-7 difference.
Quadruple Crown Winners
1901 Lajoie - yes
1909 Cobb - yes
1922 Hornsby - yes
1925 Hornsby - no (Cuyler)
1933 Foxx - no (Gehrig)
1933 Klein - no (Martin)
1934 Gehrig - no (Gehringer)
1937 Medwick - yes
1942 Williams - yes
1947 Williams - yes
1956 Mantle - yes
1966 Robinson - yes
1967 Yaz - yes
Trout leads Cabrea in R 121-104
That's actually a part of this debate that I've been having a hard time wrapping my head around. When did the Big A turn into Petco? When did Comerica stop being death to right-handed batters? OK, in reality, I'm aware that they made some pretty dramatic changes in Detroit in 2005 and I need to stop thinking that it's still a pitchers' park. But what the hell happened in Anaheim the last three years?
Not as rare though. Since Yaz's Triple Crown, we've seen players lead in all 3 of the above categories 7 times: Lynn in 1979, Brett in 1980, Walker in 1999, Helton in 2000, Bonds in 2002 and 2004, and Mauer in 2009.
Still a cool feat, though.
I've wondered about this too. Cabrera's OPS is over 60 points higher than Trout's, but OPS+ shows them as being essentially equal. Seems a bit extreme.
This is generally a terrible way of doing this kind of analysis, so take it for what it's worth, but Trout's road OPS is .906 vs. Cabrera's road OPS of .895.
We all know the limitations/worthlessness(?) of AVG and RBI, but I disagree with the "let alone" of this sentence. We shouldn't blindly follow any of these stats, but when you throw them all together, I think they're more meaningful. I would rather blindly follow the three together than blindly follow any single one of them.
It's not easy to be a high average hitter and hit a lot of home runs, and vice versa. The people who can do this are almost always considered superstars (or Rockies). It is quite a bit easier and less valuable to hit for a high average with no power (Hal Morris) or to hit home runs with a low average (Dave Kingman). Those guys are not so special. We have other stats that better reveal a player's value, but AVG and HR do a pretty good job of measuring a player's abilities in particular areas -- "hitting" (as originally envisioned in the rules of baseball) and power. And RBI sort of gives you "context," though 90% of the time RBI is linked to HR so it's kind of a tag-along in the Triple Crown.
A more interesting Triple+ Crown would be to treat it like the decathlon and measure distinct skills: Maybe AVG (hitting), HR (power), SB (speed), and BB (batting eye), and you could throw some combination of R/RBI in there to measure works-with-teammates-ness.
2012 YTD RBI Percentage for MLB RBI leaders [100*(RBI-HR)/Runners On]
Player Runners On RBI HR RBI Pct. Miguel Cabrera 424 131 42 20.99 Josh Hamilton 357 123 42 22.69 SAMPLE MAX Josh Willingham 450 110 35 16.67 Chase Headley 407 108 29 19.41 Ryan Braun 377 107 40 17.77 Alfonso Soriano 376 104 30 19.68 Edwin Encarnacion 357 103 40 17.65 Adrian Gonzalez 417 102 16 20.62 Prince Fielder 431 102 27 17.4 Billy Butler 387 100 27 18.86 Albert Pujols 379 99 30 18.21 Matt Holliday 434 98 27 16.36 Adam LaRoche 406 98 32 16.26 Aramis Ramirez 391 97 25 18.41 Buster Posey 402 97 23 18.41 Jay Bruce 398 97 34 15.83 Hunter Pence 479 96 21 15.66 Adrian Beltre 381 95 34 16.01 Curtis Granderson 381 94 39 14.44 SAMPLE MIN Andrew McCutchen 351 92 30 17.66 Freddie Freeman 406 91 21 17.24 Hanley Ramirez 403 90 24 16.38 Carlos Beltran 396 90 30 15.15 Adam Dunn 350 90 39 14.57 Ryan Zimmerman 369 89 23 17.89 Mark Trumbo 339 89 31 17.11Source: Baseball Musings Day By Day Database, RBI Percentage
Why isn't Runs Scored one of the signature statistics? Why did Rickey Henderson get 10 times as many kudos for breaking the stolen bases record as he did the runs record?
Cobb in 09, of course--no one else was even close. I wonder which player had the most black ink in one year, even including meaningless categories. Cobb in 09 led in R/H/HR/RBI/BA/OBP/SLG/OPS/OPS+ (not invented yet)/TB
that's 10 (well, 9 really)
It's probably because the guy who drives in the run is the most temporally related to the run actually getting scored.
Player Runners On RBI HR RBI Pct. Michael Trout 284 78 28 17.61wondered about Trout - so Cabrera's rate is better. I guess RBI also are a function of how often you drive people in.
and iirc, Runs were bigger than RBI in the 1800s as a stat....
the only reason a guy scores a lot of runs is that he gets on base a lot.. (oh, wait a minute...)
uhhhh...The logic here is not so sound.
Yeah, I got my glasses fixed long ago.
It's amazing how much money you have for stuff when you aren't spending it on women.
I know at least one infrequent poster here who claims that there is no such thing as clutchiness, either you're a good hitter or you're not.
Player Runners On RBI HR RBI Pct. Nelson Cruz 368 85 22 17.12 ... Nick Swisher 373 83 21 16.62 Ike Davis 366 83 28 15.03 Matt Wieters 330 82 22 18.18 David Wright 398 82 18 16.08 ... Mark Teixeira 368 81 23 15.76 ... Joe Mauer 383 79 10 18.02 Adam Jones 355 79 31 13.52 Jason Heyward 391 79 27 13.3 Josh Reddick 395 79 29 12.66 Robinson Cano 441 79 30 11.11 ... Brandon Phillips 381 76 18 15.22 ... Yoenis Cespedes 294 75 20 18.71 ... J.J. Hardy 354 66 21 12.71 ... Dustin Pedroia 322 63 15 14.91 ... Justin Upton 360 62 15 13.06 Chipper Jones 310 61 14 15.16 Rickie Weeks 374 61 20 10.96 Matt Kemp 242 60 19 16.94 David Ortiz 220 60 23 16.82 ... Alex Rodriguez 319 56 18 11.91 Ryan Howard 202 55 14 20.3 ... Bryce Harper 305 52 19 10.82 ... Russell Martin 278 48 18 10.79 Evan Longoria 167 47 13 20.36 ... Mike Napoli 261 45 19 9.96 ... Jeff Francoeur 323 41 13 8.67 ... Yuniesky Betancourt 152 36 7 19.08 ... Zachary Cozart 238 34 15 7.98 ... Jacoby Ellsbury 166 26 4 13.25 Jayson Werth 159 26 5 13.21 ... Josh Thole 207 21 1 9.66 ... Jason Bay 129 20 8 9.3 Jemile Weeks 245 20 2 7.35If Gary Sheffield had 2 more homers and 9 more RBI he would have won the triple crown.
(In 67 Yaz tied Killebrew with 44 HR, and they gave him the Triple Crown.....Sheffield was 2 HR behind McGriff 9 RBI behind Daulton).
In 92 they gave the right guy the MVP, but if Sheffield didn't break his hand and miss the last 6 games of the year, (and if Gwynn didn't miss the entire last month), then Sheffield would have had a great chance to finish off the Triple Crown.
I wonder if the 92 voters would have given the MVP to the obviously better all around player, despite the rarity of the Triple Crown.
Stan Musial's 1948 is a king as well, at 11. One homer short of the Triple Crown.. fortunately no doubt as to who was MVP that year.....
OBP/SLG/(R+RBI)
Yes, R and RBI are "team-dependent". Except that to do either, you have to do something. You have to get on base, you have to put the ball in play, etc. They aren't perfect, and are not good predictors, but as a record of what happened, they're important.
Moreover, this formulation gives bonus credit to those driving themselves in.
As it is, I think the usual crew is reacting predictably to a possible triple crown. No, triple crowns, cycles, and no-hitters aren't much more than statistical flukes but they're a part of the fabric of the game and they're, what's the word? oh, right, fun. It's interesting.
Get all bent out of shape about the MVP if you like, insist that we all bow down to the great fish in Los Angeles (who is, undoubtedly, using whatever measure from 85 year old wrinkly eye to the most modern of stats, the best player this year), but lighten up. Triple crowns are cool.
The would be better than the current one, but you'd still have the problem of the events being correlated to eachother. Runs are heavily dependent on OBP and RBI's are heavily dependent on SLG. I would change R/RBI's to stolen bases minus caught stealings, because that's the only significant batter skill/value that isn't already accounted for in OBP and SLG.
In that case Trout would be the only one even close as he's first in SB-CS, 4th in OBP and 4th in SLG.
Get all bent out of shape about the MVP if you like, insist that we all bow down to the great fish in Los Angeles (who is, undoubtedly, using whatever measure from 85 year old wrinkly eye to the most modern of stats, the best player this year), but lighten up. Triple crowns are cool.
Beat me to it. Well put.
Do you mean a rainout that failed to go 5? Musial didn't homer in the Cards' lone tie in 1948, and the stats in ties count anyway.
G/PA/AB/R/H/2B/3B/BA/Slg/OPS/OPS+/TB
Oddly, Jim Rice led the league in triples and home runs in 1978 but wasn't even close to the league lead in doubles (20 behind). In 1977 he led in home runs and was second in triples (just one behind Carew), and again was nowhere near the lead in doubles (25 behind).
Normally, doubles correlate much more strongly with HR than triples do. And beyond those two years with 15, Rice never hit more than 8 in a season. Was there a trampoline on the wall at Fenway in 1977-78? How did he get all those triples?
Rice's triples in 1977-78 came equally home and away, most of them to the opposite field, as one might predict. I don't see any overwhelming pattern, but it's fun to note that he hit five triples in one week in July 1978, including three in three games over two days (those three coming in the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, where there was some room for the baseball to roll around.
There was a point in baseball history when power hitters, rather than pose in narcissistic admiration, actually busted their ass down the basepaths on a ball well-struck. (One who didn't was Reggie Jackson, and his triples numbers show it. Stealing mid-20s bases with routine years of 3 and 4 triples is an embarrassment. There's probably a "dog" quotient to be had somewhere in there.)
Is this the latest in a season since 1967 that a player has led the league in all 3 triple crown categories?
There were also a lot of asymmetric ballparks back in the day with a really deep areas. e.g. Sportsman's Park, 422' to dead center, Polo Grounds, 440'+ to CF, RCF and LCF, Shibe Park 509' to CF.
Jim Ed, sadly, had no triples in any of those.
Rice in the late 70s was a) a better hitter, and b) a faster runner. And while he never scaled those triple heights again, he was banging out 7 as late as six years later.* Those two factors, plus more than a smattering of fluke, would be the chief reasons for that triples productivity in 77-78.
* Overall, he was a better all-around player than those who reduce him to "the fear" give him credit for.
I KNOW there's a web site that has this info, and I thought I had it bookmarked, but for the life of me I can't find it
Guys are routintely coasting into second or settling for doubles on innumerable hits that should be triples.
MVP! MVP!
Adrian Gonzalez 417 102 16 20.62
The clutch god!
Here's another way of posing my question: It seems that in the '70s, Jim Rice was quite a good triples hitter, in addition to being a very good home run hitter. He was NOT, however, a particularly notable doubles hitter for most of his career. (He had 39 a couple of times, but more often was in the mid-20s.) For people who got to watch him play regularly, what's the explanation for that?
I suppose Fenway turned a lot of his otherwise-doubles into Green Monster singles. But if the explanation about him hustling and not "settling" for doubles was true, wouldn't he be also stretching more singles into doubles? Or did he get thrown out at second a bunch of times?
Why isn't Runs Scored one of the signature statistics? Why did Rickey Henderson get 10 times as many kudos for breaking the stolen bases record as he did the runs record?"
I think the main reason is that fans cheer when the run actually scores. Except for homers, that happens when the RBI happens, not when the runner first gets on base. If my memory is right, Henry Chadwick, when first making up stats for baseball in the mid-1800s, listed hitters not by batting average or RBI (an unknown stat at the time, I think), but by runs scored. I do think that it was the fan reaction that changed that.
SOSH may be right about Musial in 1948 - it may have been a rainout, not a tie. I know that Musial hit the phantom homer, but I was, technically, zero years of age at the time (I was born in November of 1947), so it's not as if I remember it.
My guess about Rice's triples is that he got some in Fenway because he hit the ball so hard that, when it did bounce off of the Monster, it came back further and faster than outfielders were used to. I'm not a Rice fan, and think he has no business in the Hall, but he did hit the ball very very hard. That's part of why he has so many DPs. He hit HARD grounders, giving the infield plenty of time to turn two if they could actually get to the grounder in the first place. - Brock
So if I'm understanding this correctly, the Green Monster may have played a role in increasing Rice's triples totals AND decreasing his doubles totals?
I suppose that could actually make sense. When he hit the ball hard off the Monster -- a hit that would have typically been a double (or HR) in another park -- if the ball bounced right back to the left fielder, he was held to a single. If it bounced somewhere unexpected, he kept running.
It's a theory with only two things marring it: 1) Rice hit the same number of triples at home and on the road in his two big 3B seasons; 2) Rice actually hit more doubles in Fenway over his career than he did on the road.
What makes sense is that Rice lost his speed early (it may have started as early as age 26). That killed the triples thing. He also seemed to start slow, which means he might not have worked as hard as he need to in order to stay in shape. (That might have contributed to his premature decline.) He would always seem to take until May (and often June) before playing on all cylinders. As his HR power declined, he hit more doubles--at least relative to his other XBH--and he took more advantage of Fenway in terms of doubles...but it could have been that 5-7 balls that would have gone out of the park in earlier years became doubles.
Rice is in the Hall because the a) the writers remembered his '77-'79 peak as being more special than what the adjusted numbers say it is; b) they remembered him being a frequent high finisher in the MVP race (six times in the top 5, and of the 29 players with more MVP Award share points, 21 are in the Hall and only Pete Rose and Dave Parker are likely to remain out the outside looking in); and c) enough of them got wind of how knicker-twisted the "mom's basement" crowd was becoming at his getting so many votes and they decided to "middle-finger" it by putting him in.
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