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Thursday, November 15, 2012
About a month ago, I said something to the effect that, although I thought Trout was the MVP, I wouldn’t get all worked up if Miguel Cabrera won. After a month of reading and discussing the topic with people on the site and with my friends and co-workers, and hearing all arguments pro and con about it, I find that I am worked up about Cabrera winning. So, to all my sabermetric friends out there, we’re right, and they are wrong. We are, not because the metrics make us right, but because the logic does. Cabrera, 29, was listed first on 22 of 28 ballots cast by two writers in each league city and second on the other six to total 362 points. He led the AL in batting average (.330), home runs (44) and runs batted in (139) in becoming the first Triple Crown winner since Boston Red Sox left fielder Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. Cabrera also topped the league in slugging percentage (.606) and on-base-plus-slugging (.999) for a Detroit club that won the AL Central and eventually advanced into the World Series. Voting is conducted prior to the start of postseason play.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim center fielder Mike Trout (.326, 30 HR, 83 RBI), the AL leader in runs (129) and stolen bases (49), received the other six first-place votes, was second on 21 ballots and third on one for a runner-up score of 281. He is the first rookie to finish second in MVP balloting. The award was won by two first-year players – Red Sox center fielder Fred Lynn in 1975 and Seattle Mariners right fielder Ichiro Suzuki in 2001.
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1. SoSHially Unacceptable Posted: November 15, 2012 at 07:54 PM (#4303762)"But he finished first in ALL THREE categories! Don't you see!? That means we should suspend logic and be ok with the result!"
Jim Johnson with a 3rd.
Raul Ibanez with a vote.
I just can't even...
I'm so smart!
John Lowe had Ibanez 10th and Cano missing.
...and Trout had a MUCH better season than either Lynn or Suzuki did, but his team didn't, so he gets left out in the cold (sigh).
Yes, I think many of us saw the writing on the wall for this result, so I can't say I'm surprised, but it is still disappointing that there is such a long way to go before the old guard dies out and gets replaced by some writers who actually follow the sport of baseball.
ballots have to be in immediately after the last game.
at least that was the rule
Yes, I know. I meant it rather facetiously.
Why is the BBWAA's website so crappy?
sorry. another poster the other day was not aware of that
You should have seen it a few short years ago.
Was it as bad as this website?
http://www.dolekemp96.org/main.htm
[No political statement intended.]
Infinitely worse. It literally hurt your eyes to look at it. I've seen a lot of terrible web design, but the old BBWA site was in an entirely different league.
For one, nobody is sure that Trout was actually worth 25 runs or whatever on defense. That’s probably an outlier, either in performance or measurement. Also, although Trout had a higher bWAR than Cabrera, is it really likely that he’s a better hitter than Cabrera? I know that what happened happened, but Trout could have a Hall of Fame career and never have a year on offense close to this one. He was almost certainly hit-lucky. (I’d love to be proven wrong and have Trout sustain this level of performance and improve on it over the next 15 years.) Those hits have value and so I think they should factor into the decision, but I can understand arguing that they shouldn’t.
Finally, non-performance criteria for MVP is obviously not very popular around here, but Cabrera’s shockingly competent move to third base allowed the Tigers to sign another elite hitter. I think that’s a variety of intangibility that’s, well, more than a little bit tangible.
And Triple Crowns ARE cool.
Twas a vomituous green, IIRC. Ben Hamper's a Tiger fan, AFAICT, but he's probably not pleased.
Same here on both counts. Ideally I would've given it to both of them, since neither of them was undeserving.
-- MWE
Frankly, if this helps Cabrera's HoF case, I am happy for it. When dealing with something essentially inconsequential, the ends can justify the means.
Nobody's sure Cabrera was only -5 runs on defense either. And are you honestly questioning whether Trout is a better defender than Cabrera?
That’s probably an outlier, either in performance
Whether it's an outlier in performance or not is immaterial to his value in 2012. As to measurement error, Cabrera is as likely to have benefited from it as Trout.
is it really likely that he’s a better hitter than Cabrera?
Again, whether he is as good a hitter as Cabrera in some true talent sense is immaterial to their respective values in 2012.
Cabrera’s shockingly competent move to third base
What's your evidence he was competent? What's your evidence this competence will continue? Shouldn't you apply the same standards as you applied to Trout?
Cabrera's move to 3B did not allow the Tigers to sign Fielder, a simple move to DH would have accomplished that. His move to 3B allowed the Tigers to put Delmon Young at DH. And the tangibility of that move is that Young (and the Tigers' RF) were so terrible, the team likely would have been better off keeping Inge at 3B, Cabrera at 1B and Fielder at DH. That's not Cabrera's fault of course ... any more than it was Trout's fault that he was kept in the minors for a month or he's not as amazing a CF as Bourjos or that his team didn't make the playoffs.
It's also strange to note the potential flukiness of Trout's season while Cabrera won the MVP only due to the fluke that he led in 3 categories in the same season. (Yes, he's always a threat in those categories but that he had a season where they all came together is still a fluke.)
I know what you're saying, but I don't think "fluke" is the right word. Cabrera didn't get lucky.
Sure he did. Bautista got injured in June.
Had the Angels made the playoffs, Trout likely would have won the MVP regardless of what the Tigers did. But neither Trout nor the Angels came up big down the stretch, and that's probably what did him in. It doesn't diminish what was a helluva season.
.289/.400/.500 (151 OPS+), 7/1 SB/CS, 23 runs in 30 games, Trout playing defense in the outfield. Your standards for luster are pretty high.
Coppola didn't even try and get Brando in a hot, tight black outfit. And I'll take a dancing Minelli over a dancing Shire any day.
This is right, in a sense. I did 100% expect Cabrera to win, for precisely this reason. My new anger that is manifesting today is based on all the 'explanations' which refuse to admit this very simple fact.
I haven't read one that says "I voted because he won the Triple Crown." Maybe those are out there and I just haven't seen them yet. But all the ones I've looked at pretend to make 'serious' arguments. Which is really aggravating when it's quite obvious that if Trout had three more hits (enough to win the 'batting title') in May, most of them would have voted for them.
That's a fair call. The funny thing is that the more a voter tries to explain their position, the less persuasive the argument. I'd take, "yep, I voted for Miggy because of the triple crown" as a somewhat plausible explanation. Anything more then that just subverts their own position to legitimise their stance.
2012 AL Trout 10.7, Cabrera 6.9
1968 AL Yaz 10.0, McLain 6.8
1964 NL Mays 10.7, Boyer 5.8
1961 AL Mantle 10.2, Maris 7.0
1934 AL Gehrig 10.1, Cochrane 3.7
So, pretty much historically bad. The writers turned back the clock 50 years. On the plus side for Trout, would you rather be in the group of Yaz, Mays, Mantle and Gehric or McLain, Boyer, Maris, and Cochrane?
Which WAR are you using here? BWAR says 8.2, fWAR 5.7 for Glavine, and 7.6, 7.9 respectively for Bonds.
BWAR. 8.2 pitching WAR, .7 batting WAR, .1 rounding error WAR.
At any rate, I was making a cutoff at 10 WAR, with the MVP at least 3 WAR lower. Pitchers that meet the criterion:
2000 AL Martinez 11.4, Giambi 7.4
1978 NL Niekro 10.0, Parker 6.9
1972 NL Carlton 12.1, Bench 8.5
1971 NL Jenkins 11.3, Torre 5.6
1935 NL Ferrell 10.4, Greenberg 7.4
Honorable mention: 1989 AL Clemens 11.8, Griffey 8.9
Edited to remove my confusion about BBR pitching WAR.
The system has won. We have collectively lost our soul (or gotten older, mellower, or something).
I'm certainly happy Miggy won but obviously Trout deserved it.
Condolences Angels/Trout fans!
I'm with Monty on this. It's the same way I feel about the "Batting Title" any more, even if that's an earned accomplishment.
I think that's part of it. I know WAR is a counting stat, but Cabrera did play 20 more games than Trout.
Think "Geocities site about an obscure anime show" and you'll get the idea.
Like others here, I think this award is going to the wrong person, but I don't think it's a criminal outrage. (The justifications from dimwits like Wilbon is far worse than Cabrera actually getting the award.)
If Curtis Granderson or Josh Hamilton had hit two more HR, Trout would have won. Is Miggy going to send Curtis and Josh a little something? Hell, If Mike Trout had three more hits, he'd have won. Is Miggy going to send Mike a thank you card?
I've seen variants of this written several places. There are so many good arguments for why Trout was the MVP, not Cabrera. This is not one of them. "If, if, if..." They didn't. If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.
Followed logically, you can use that argument to invalidate any argument about a player leading in multiple categories being award-worthy. I don't see that as helpful.
As it should.
If you're comparing two players, I do not care how they stack up against other players.
Now, if someone said that Cabrera would have been less valuable than HAMILTON if Hamilton had hit six more homeruns, then yeah, your point is fair. But it's pretty crazy to think that two long flyballs in Arlington dropping just short of the wall have anything to do with whether Cabrera or Trout was a more valuable player.
And I see it as quite helpful to acknowledge that differences such as those between 43 and 45, .329 and .334, 2.97 and 3.11, etc, are not definitive arguments for who is more valuable (EDIT: especially when, as Baldrick notes, we're not talking about head to head differences in those categories).
I'm confused. Are we talking about measuring value by what did happen? Or what might have happened? Or what didn't happen? I'm not saying category leading is a definitive argument for most valuable, just that trying to invalidate those leads with hypotheticals is weak and does nothing to embiggen your overall argument.
That is: category leading is NOT an argument for most valuable except insofar as it contributes to an actual case for being more valuable.
In fact, the very people who all voted based on the Triple Crown are now writing articles that make exactly this point. They are saying "OMG teh postseason" as the basis for their Cabrera-case. And Cabrera's HRs would count toward that goal exactly the same whether or not Hamilton hit those two extra HR.
As I said in a different thread, if people were honest and just said "Triple Crowns are cool and Cabrera was good enough that I voted for the Triple Crown, even though Trout was better" there wouldn't be a whole lot to get angry about. Yeah, I disagree with that. But at least it's honest. It's the faux-reasoning that really drives me bonkers.
Cabrera also led the league in slugging and OPS. If he hadn't led the league in slugging and OPS, he wouldn't have led the league in slugging and OPS, but I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove.
Yes and WAR, being a counting stat, already counts playing time. Maybe you think it should be a double-counting stat ha-ha-ha.
"How do you know a replacement level player WOULDN'T make that play? They're assuming!"
"It doesn't consider the other eight guys on the field. What happens if no one drives him in? He just has a single and a stolen base. Who cares?"
"What if some guy on the Marlins had... 11 WAR? That means HE'S the MVP? They lost 93 games!"
1958 is my favorite, I think - the MVP went to Jackie Jensen over Mantle. Mantle hit for a higher average, had more hits, scored more runs (led the league), hit more homers (led the league), drew more walks (led the league), had more total bases (led the league), stole more bases and was caught fewer times, played a tougher position, hit in a tougher park, and played for the team that won the pennant. He did miss four games, but they had the same number of plate appearances.
Jensen had 10 more doubles, though, and led the league in RBI. Plus, they'd already given Mantle the MVP in his last two years, both of which were transcendent; if they gave it to him when he was merely exceptional, he'd lose motivation to be transcendent again.
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