The Trout supporters would vote for him because he had the top WAR rating among all players. That thinking only reinforces my view that to satisfy stats zealots a list of statistics should be used to determine award winners and Hall of Famers. No voters would be needed.
First in WAR, first for m.v.p. Establish statistical criteria for the Hall of Fame and induct the players who clear the statistical hurdles. The reason the stats zealots would like this system is it would eliminate members of the Baseball Writers Association as voters.
That’s right, the stats zealots are envious of the baseball writers because they get to vote for these things and the zealots don’t. That is not to say that new-age statistics haven’t started creeping into the award decisions of some of the BBWAA voters, presumably the younger, less experienced ones.
...To me, the beauty of the BBWAA’s m.v.p. voting is it challenges voters to study and think about the contributions players made to the success of their teams. It raises interesting questions, too.
Should Trout, for example, be penalized in m.v.p. consideration because the Angels weren’t good enough to take advantage of what he did for them? In Prince Fielder, did Cabrera have more help in helping the Tigers win than Trout had from any of his teammates?
What fans and new-age nerds should understand, if they don’t already, is most valuable players is not the same as player of the year. Player of the year is much simpler to decide, and – who knows? – maybe Trout is the player of the year. But he is not the most valuable player, no matter what WAR says. WAR, you see, does not have a vote in this election.
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
1. Los Angeles El Hombre of AnaheimMy favourite part about the upcoming MVP sh!tstorm will be listening to traditional writers use the excuse "Cabrera helped Detroit get into the playoffs, Trout's team didn't get there", while forgetting that the Angels won more games than the Tigers.
Another fun narrative that will get thrown into the mix is how Miguel Cabrera was so great down the stretch and helped his team win games in September and make the playoffs. Discounting the obvious that September wins don't have any additional value, the Angels (18-11) actually had a better record than the Tigers (19-13) in September/October. The Tigers making the playoffs was really much more about the White Sox (13-18) crashing than it was about Miguel Cabrera putting the team on his back, but that will largely be ignored because it doesn't feed the narrative.
Which is possible, but my impression of the 4,500 or so Cabrera/Trout threads here is that people have pretty much unanimously agreed that Cabrera had a great year, the kind of year that often wins people MVPs. I've see it opined here that the Triple Crown is not very meaningful and that only dolts are interested in RBIs anyway, but by any possible batting metric, Cabrera rates really, really, really good, so nobody's much disputing his credentials, and that he has an entirely rational MVP case. (In fact, what doubts are expressed seem to take the form of skepticism over the defensive component of Trout's WAR.)
I'm not sure where this "sabermetric correctness" is on display. And as noted here ad infinitum, the BBWAA itself pretty much invented the idea of choosing a speedy glove man over a slugger as MVP – in fact the first year they ever voted, 1931, they chose Frankie Frisch over Klein, Bottomley, Hafey, Terry, and a number of other better hitters.
AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO HBP SB CS Avg OBA Slg OPS BR
600 76 142 26 3 17 75 81 128 9 9 6 0.237 0.336 0.452 0.788 77.98 -1.98
647 76 178 45 2 15 72 56 139 1 14 4 0.275 0.334 0.516 0.850 87.72 -11.72
624 104 177 35 4 27 98 61 102 10 19 4 0.284 0.357 0.588 0.945 102.53 1.47
662 139 204 53 6 25 137 74 117 9 8 4 0.308 0.385 0.647 1.032 124.16 14.84
603 87 170 36 6 23 82 73 112 6 8 3 0.282 0.365 0.584 0.949 101.04 -14.04
677 113 200 37 2 26 107 65 138 4 18 5 0.295 0.361 0.567 0.928 108.41 4.59
601 75 156 26 5 20 72 53 114 3 12 6 0.260 0.323 0.504 0.827 78.53 -3.53
647 107 189 56 1 26 107 56 143 5 7 4 0.292 0.353 0.631 0.984 109.17 -2.17
649 98 184 38 6 24 92 59 115 3 7 6 0.284 0.346 0.576 0.922 100.5 -2.5
BR = .47H + .38D + .55T + .93HR + .33(W + HB) - ABF*(AB - H)
These represent roughly the number of plate appearances a full-time player might have. I used .1 for ABF as Tango recommended to come up with absolute runs. As you can see, one of the estimates was off by close to fifteen runs. This is based on only nine examples. If that's batting runs, which have been dissected for years, what are fielding runs like? IIRC, AROM said that base-running runs had the least amount of error, but I really don't know
Honestly, I don't know where half of you guys find the time. I used to be able to BTF at work, but they filtered it out. Even if they didn't, more work has been assigned to me and I wouldn't be able to find the time to comment at work anyways. I am sure that I am not alone in this situation. I've been fortunate to keep my job during this recession, but They keep asking for more and more. Too, I got married and I am trying to keep my wife from being a BTF widow.
And along those lines, a digressive factoid: the NL WAR leader in 1931 was none of the above I mentioned in #5, but Watty Clark, a pitcher who went 14-10 for fourth-place Brooklyn. Clark led the league in justone category (HR/9), which probably wasn't printed in the papers much in 1931, and didn't even make many leaderboards (he was 9th in ERA). And yet he was named on at least one MVP ballot. I imagine some proto-saber type with hand-ruled spreadsheet and slide rule saying, dude, this guy suppresses the #### out of the home run, he's on my ballot. People in 1931 weren't any smarter or dumber or more or less innovative than we are today.
EDIT: Oddly enough, both focused on the business end of baseball.
You miss the point. Cabrera was clutch enough to have his performance in the AL Central, where his performance would have value, rather than the AL West, where his performance would have been wasted. Savvy voters realize that, and give it the proper weight.
Sorry -- that was a response to Chass, not you.
Player OPS+ Rbat HR BA PA R RBI Year Age Tm Lg H SBMike Trout 171 54 30 .326 639 129 83 2012 20 LAA AL 182 49
Hanley Ramirez 143 40 33 .301 693 125 67 2008 24 FLA NL 177 35
Bobby Abreu 143 38 25 .316 680 103 79 2000 26 PHI NL 182 28
Rickey Henderson 189 62 28 .325 594 119 61 1990 31 OAK AL 159 65
Rickey Henderson 157 48 24 .314 654 146 72 1985 26 NYY AL 172 80
Mickey Mantle 188 64 42 .304 654 127 97 1958 26 NYY AL 158 18
Indeed. Instead of letting Detroit move into the AL East or West, either of which would have given them a fourth-place finish, Cabrera (and Fielder, and Valverde, and Young...) exerted a sufficient gravitational pull to keep both team and city anchored in place, thus ensuring a playoff berth.
No problem. I thought it might have been a situation where regulars were tired of lurkers rehashing something that has been discussed over and over; like the time I went to Comics Curmudgeon and mentioned that Aldo Kelrast looked like Captain Kangaroo.
My favorite narrative is already on display -- you can't use statistics to determine the MVP, Cabrera deserves the MVP because he won the first Triple Crown in 45 years.
Superficially, maybe. The problem is Miggy was the best hitter in the league, but commonly accepted estimates of his base running and defensive value make his season something that is typically ends up being in the 5th to tenth most valuable player range each season.
His season wasn't extraordinary at all in value, but it was from a historic standpoint. Beating everyone in the league in the 3 highest regarded hitting categories is so difficult I'm actually surprised its happened as often as it rarely has.
Clutchiness on a level even Jack Morris never thought of. He pitched to the score, Cabrera hit to the division.
Yep.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main