Awards Week

[Frayed Knot]

Brian Kenney (sp?) of MLBN put it as simply as he could during the award presentation show (I've heard him do the same elsewhere) without even getting into WAR or how it's calculated or whether it's accurate.
-- He started by acknowledging the superiority of Cabrera's hitting this year but then factored in Trout's edge in all "the little things" that the anti-stats voters/fans claim to know, see, and value so much more than those shut-in nerds. He showed the differences in net stolen bases, plus extra bases taken (1st-3rd or 2nd-home on singles, 1st-to-home on 2Bs, etc.), plus the huge gulf in GiDPs ([u:3nhdzytg]28 vs 7 !!![/u:3nhdzytg]) and with simple addition & subtraction showed how those factors more or less (depending on how heavily one wants to weight such things) made up for the difference in raw offense that traditional stats give to Cabrera. And that's all before we even get to defense. Once one calculates, or even guess-timates, the gap between what no one disputes is a superior defensive CF vs a pedestrian-at-best corner infielder, it's not crazy at all to think that the non-TC winner was actually valuable and it doesn't even require an advanced math degree.

[Ceetar]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Just had a free hour while Artie was sleeping; made the mistake of using said hour to check out MLB Network's AL MVP roundtable "debate" (with Keith Olbermann, Joe Posnanski, and-- ick-- Chris Russo prominently featured). So, so much "winning matters" stuff, especially from ex-jocks (Harold Reynolds and Sean Casey chief among them). It's enough to make you think that ex-jocks should be eliminated in toto from any EVALUATIVE discussion, and stick only to the how-you-play analysis. Honestly, I'd much rather hear from ex-GMs like John Hart-- or even a Jim Bowden-- when you're talking about player-evaluation. Hell, just ONCE I'd like to hear someone rebut a "you never played the game/you don't know what it's like" argument with a "you never put together a player-eval/three-team trade."

An integral part of Moneyball imo.