AL MVP vs TC

[metsmarathon]

and yet, trout is out-hitting the most-feared hitter on his team.

albert's slash line is 0.289 / 0.347 / 0.523 good for an 0.870 OPS and a 143 OPS+
trout's slash line is a whopping 0.325 / 0.398 / 0.564 good for a 0.963 OPS and a 170 OPS+

[Frayed Knot]

"Most feared"? Probably not. But he's had a better year than the 'more feared' Pujols and that's what we're supposed to be deciding here.

[batmagadanleadoff]

2012 is Pujols' worst year ever, in a career spanning 12 full seasons.

Some worst season.

[Frayed Knot]

Agreed that it's a great 'worst year'. That doesn't mean we should base this year's MVP vote on the idea that the totality of his career makes him "more feared" than his younger teammate and therefore treat it as a mark against Trout.

It's not as bad as those who argued for Jeter winning the MVP a few years back (2009 I think) as some sort of cumulative achievement award* even while admitting that he wasn't the best that season, but it's still not sound logic.







* Let's save those for dying actors, OK?

[metirish]

The point Ron was making more strongly though was if Cabrera wins the Triple Crown then he is clearly in his opinion the overwhelming choice for MVP.....

[batmagadanleadoff]

Frayed Knot wrote: Agreed that it's a great 'worst year'. That doesn't mean we should base this year's MVP vote on the idea that the totality of his career makes him "more feared" than his younger teammate and therefore treat it as a mark against Trout. It's not as bad as those who argued for Jeter winning the MVP a few years back (2009 I think) as some sort of cumulative achievement award* even while admitting that he wasn't the best that season, but it's still not sound logic. * Let's save those for dying actors, OK?

I haven't been following this story. Do some writers believe that Pujols should win the 2012 MVP based on achievements from prior seasons? Not that it would surprise me.

[Frayed Knot]

No, but I've heard arguments against Trout based on the idea that, because he's teamed with Pujols, he can't be most valuable because he's not "The Man" on his own team.
As Vic implies with his most recent post here: some voters and pundits seem to allow themselves to be twisted into knots digging for the most convoluted definition of MVP rather than accepting the simplest and almost certainly original intent.

[Frayed Knot]

metirish wrote: The point Ron was making more strongly though was if Cabrera wins the Triple Crown then he is clearly in his opinion the overwhelming choice for MVP.....

And, on that, I disagree. Or at least I disagree with the notion that he should be the MVP solely because of that reason.
I'm not dismissing pro-Cabrera arguments, just the ones which lock into that particular 'If/Then' inevitability.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, Cabrera hitting .326 vs. .328 hardly changes his case all that much.

[Lefty Specialist]

Cabrera has the first Triple Crown in 45 years on a team going to the post-season. If that isn't MVP material, I don't know what is. Trout will have more chances, whereas Miggy could get into a drunken bar fight and have his hamstring severed by a broken beer bottle this winter.

[metsmarathon]

trout has the second highest OPS in the AL (naturally behind miggy), but also has the most stolen bases in the majors and plays great D. bbref has the defensive difference at over two wins. oh, he's got a higher OPS+, as his home park suppresses offense whereas miggy's boosts it.

miggy's season is one for hte history books, sure, but trout's is one for the ages.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Nice article on Cabrera's Triple Crown on Grantland written by an acquaintance of mine.

[m.e.t.b.o.t.]

m.e.t.b.o.t. approves.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8508692/washington-nationals-mike-trout-win-al-mvp-according-wpa-espn-magazine

[Edgy MD]

I like how the URL betrays that the original headline writer didn't know what team Trout played for.

[MFS62]

Edgy DC wrote: I like how the URL betrays that the original headline writer didn't know what team Trout played for.

Maybe he was Dizzy.

Later

[Ceetar]

Edgy DC wrote: I like how the URL betrays that the original headline writer didn't know what team Trout played for.

Trout, Harper, it's all interchangable "OMG look at what the rookie is doing!" raving.

I keep looking at the title of this thread and wonder what Terry Collins has against the AL MVP.

[Edgy MD]

Me too.

By the way, the "not the most feared hitter on his team" argument could conceivably apply to Cabrera and Fielder, no?

Most valuable --- it's not that complex.

[Frayed Knot]

Smoltz was on the verge of demeaning "new age stats" in the AL MVP argument but got cut off by the 3rd out before finishing his point.
Here's the part that kills me about much of that kind of discussion: the folks making it are complaining that stats are taking preference over something like the Triple Crown while seeming to be totally ignorant of the fact that the TC itself is based on nothing but stats.

[Ceetar]

Frayed Knot wrote: Smoltz was on the verge of demeaning "new age stats" in the AL MVP argument but got cut off by the 3rd out before finishing his point. Here's the part that kills me about much of that kind of discussion: the folks making it are complaining that stats are taking preference over something like the Triple Crown while seeming to be totally ignorant of the fact that the TC itself is based on nothing but stats.

but they like those stats better!

[Frayed Knot]

Which would be fine if they'd actually say that.
But instead what they do is to frame it as a contest between those who believe in the superiority of the triple crown versus those who rely on "stats", as if the former isn't a subset of the latter; or as if believing in these stats somehow automatically incorporates observational judgement stats while believing in those stats automatically excludes it ["I don't read spreadsheets, I actually watch the games!!"].

If someone wants to argue that BA/HR/RBI are better stats than the "new age" ones they're deriding then they should make THAT case rather than treating the two as if they're two wholly different approaches.

[Frayed Knot]

Frayed Knot wrote: ... or as if believing in these stats somehow automatically incorporates observational judgement stats while believing in those stats automatically excludes it.

I caught a radio interview with Brian Kenny (Kinney maybe?) of MLBN a few weeks back. The host, an admitted skeptic towards, or at least ignorant of, 'new stats' was given to backing Cabrera for MVP simply out of habit but, to his credit, rather than deride the whole concept he knew Kenny would present (something Benigno, Russo, Francesa would do as a reflex) he simply challenged Kenny to make his case for Trout over Cabrera despite the TC season. Naturally part of Kenny's case (his view was not only for Trout over Cabrera but said it's not even close) involved things like the superiority of Trout's defense and base-running and he had a bunch of numbers to back his point including stuff like historically good rates of going 1st-to-3rd or 2nd-to-home on hits and getting to balls in the OF, SB rates, holding runners, etc. So in the process of it all he tried to put it into terms the non-believers could accept by explaining that this was just simply all the stuff 'old school' guys always talked about when discussing how good Mays was or about how Willie's game went far beyond the traditional stats because he did so many of the "little things" in addition to being at or near the top of the league in all the traditional categories. IOW, these new metrics Kenny was backing weren't a substitute for fan/critical observations they were merely a quantifying of and support for what the anti-stats folks think is missing from the newer approaches, and that the time-honored art of of watching the subtleties of the game are quite alive and well with the new regime even as it stomps all over the lawns of the old guard.

[ashie62]

The metrics people shall inherit the earth..

[Edgy MD]

On-base percentage has been around forever. And it's value has been well-known, if not frequently built around. It's just resentment of the opinions of mystery outsiders like James that leads anybody to still deride it.

Trout is an excellent basestealer, a wonderful baserunner, an ideal on-base man, and a very rangey defender. The idea that these things have value isn't new, isn't esoteric, isn't controversial, and certainly isn't "new age."

So, if you detect a value, it's the most natural thing in the world to try and figure out an objective way to measure how much.

[Frayed Knot]

I actually think that most insider-y baseball cover-ers, writers, and other keepers of the flame have long since come around to the idea that the TC stats and pitcher Wins aren't the alpha and omega of player evaluations.
It's more the all-purpose sports guy who says, 'yeah I followed baseball as a kid but now that I'm an adult I spend all my time following sports involving players under age 21 cuz that's what we do here in Bristol, Connecticut'. Plus there's all that time needed for studying betting lines and updating fantasy football rosters so there's no time for silly little baseball. In their minds they knew everything there was to know about that sport by the time they were ten.
Those were the ones most likely to have registered shock when Felix Hernandez won his CY a few years back with just 13 wins and are screaming the loudest now at even the thought of Cabrera not winning the MVP. But most in that crowd, by their own admission, have paid only passing attention to baseball in twenty years or more so they simply treat whatever changes in thinking that have taken place since then to be geeky nonsense because it puts them on the outside looking in and because it runs counter to what they knew to be true long before some of these guys telling them otherwise were even born.

The good news about that crowd is that they don't vote in these things.
The bad news is that they often have the loudest voices.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Frayed Knot wrote: The good news about that crowd is that they don't vote in these things.

You'd be shocked how much of that crowd does vote in these things... and I just don't mean "people who hew largely to the evaluative 'oldies,'" but people who pay only passing attention to baseball outside of the town/division they cover(ed), or even-- if retired-- to baseball in general.

[Frayed Knot]

But, unlike HoF voters who, if they choose, have essentially a lifetime pass to vote once they've earned it via their ten years on the beat, the MVP/RoY/CY voters at least all come from active baseball writers (two per city).
So the guy who stopped covering the sport in 1991, thinks no one is as good now as the ones he knew, when asked to name Chicago Cubs can only come up with Ryne Sandberg, and believes that Bill James and his followers are all communist agents, has no influence in post-season awards unless for some reason the current writers opt to listen to him.