Today I'd like to take some time to talk about an important debate that's going on in diners, in bars, and in living rooms throughout America.
No...not the Presidential debate.
I'm talking about the American League Most Valuable Player debate.
The leading contenders vying for the votes of the members of the Baseball Writers Association of America are Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers and Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
I think that the debate over who should win goes beyond the players and says a lot about we as a society make decisions and how our decision making processes have evolved over the years. Read on and allow me to explain.
First, let's break down the case for each player in terms of statistics and some of the major arguments for and against their winning the MVP award:
Miguel Cabrera - 3rd Baseman, Detroit Tigers
- Age: 29 years old
- Cleanup Hitter
- Batting Average: .331
- Home Runs: 44
- RBI: 139
- The first Triple Crown winner since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967
- On Base Percentage: .394
- Slugging Percentage: .608
- Stolen Bases: 4
- Considered a marginal defender at third base
- WAR (Wins Above Replacement): 6.9
- Team Record: 88-74 (1st Place in AL Central)
- Tigers are 87-73 with Cabrera in the lineup (.544 winning percentage)
Mike Trout - Centerfielder, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
- Age: 21 years old
- Leadoff Hitter
- Batting Average: .324
- Home Runs: 30
- RBI: 83
- A Rookie
- First major league player to everhit 30 home runs, score 125 runs and steal 45 bases in a season
- First to ever hit .320 or above with 30 home runs and 45 stolen bases
- On Base Percentage: .397
- Slugging Percentage: .561
- Stolen Bases: 49
- Considered a spectacular defender in the outfield
- WAR (Wins Above Replacement): 10.7
- Team Record: 89-73 (1st Place in AL Central)
- Angels are 83-57 with Trout in the lineup (.592 winning percentage), 6-14 (.300) without him
It's clear that each player had an absolutely tremendous season worthy of tremendous praise. What is not clear is who should win the MVP award.
In listening to and reading various arguments put forth for each side, I've been struck by how old fashioned and somewhat specious the arguments for Miguel Cabrera are and how modern and data driven the arguments for Mike Trout are.
Listening to talking heads on TV and sports talk radio, you'd likely think that there was no debate and that Cabrera was the obvious choice for MVP. In their eyes, winning the Triple Crown and making the playoffs makes you an absolute shoe-in for Most Valuable Player.
After all, there hasn't been a Triple Crown winner since 1967.
But, is there really any merit to this argument? I'd argue no. The Triple Crown ought to be viewed as something of a novelty. An incredibly difficult novelty in today's game of singles-specialists and one-trick pony home run hitters, but a novelty nonetheless. Batting average and home runs are measures of batting prowess, but the onset of sabermetrics has shown us that RBIs are more a measure of one's teammates' ability to get on-base ahead of you than your ability to solely generate runs for your team. Generating a lot of RBIs is in large part due to the luck of often having your teammates in scoring position when you step up to the plate. Miguel Cabrera had 64 more at-bats with runners in scoring position (173-106) than Mike Trout, surely Trout's lack of RBIs can be attributed to his spot in the batting order and lack of opportunities with RISP. Why fault him for that?
And while the talking heads will give Cabrera a leg-up due to his RBI total, they give him a complete pass when it comes to his lack of stolen bases or defensive prowess. Rather than digging deeper into the numbers, they simply repeat "but Cabrera won the Triple Crown! No one's done that since '67" and follow up with a plethora of lofty statements on "presence" and "poise" without actually saying anything. And don't dare tell them anything about advanced stats, runs, or stolen bases, they'll simply dismiss it as "Billy Beane, sabermetrics non-sense."
As I see it, Miguel Cabrera is the MVP of the old guard and Mike Trout is the MVP of the new. In a world where data and analytics are king, Trout has to be the MVP.
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Whether we are aware of it or not, advanced data and analytics directly and indirectly play a major role in all of our lives. It's also getting harder and harder to get by on fluff alone. Whether its sports journalism or election coverage, people expect deep dives and advanced analysis over lofty (and lazy) rhetoric.
Data and analysis also dominates the professional world. You can't be a good trader without the ability to analyze complex markets and securities. "Big Data" has become a catch-all phrase for a young, fast-growing, and lucrative industry dominated by an array of startups and smart companies like IBM that learned to evolve with the times. The ability to understand and analyze complex data will give any professional or company a leg-up on their competition and put them in a good position for the long-term.
A vote for Miguel Cabrera over Mike Trout is a vote for a simpler time that has passed us by and shows a willful ignorance on the part of the voter.
Now, with all that said - my vote actually goes to Derek Jeter. He's 38 years old, led the league with 215 hits, and has enough poise, grit, and determination to go around. I never said I wasn't a homer.
Where does WSO stand in the MVP debate?
It's obviously Trout. Trout is a helluva lot faster and better at his position, and still extremely productive at the plate.
Also Cabrera is a dbag.
Cabrera carried his team down the stretch and led them to the post season, Trout did not. Take Cabrera off the team and the Tigers don't make the playoffs, he is the most valuable player to his team.
I know you said you chose Jeter, I would actually chose Cano. Take Robinson Cano off the Yankees and they do not make the playoffs
Isn't that what WAR measures?
The Angels won more games than the Tigers while playing in a much tougher division. Put the Tigers in the AL West and they very well may have finished in last.
Even so, the entire point of WAR is to measure a player's overall value. Going by Baseball-Reference's calculation, Trout is far more valuable than Cabrera (and any other player in the league, for that matter.) Not to mention, if Trout had played all season (he was brought up at the end of April, inexplicably), the Angels may very well have made the playoffs (look again at their record with Trout and without him.)
I was being facetious about my Jeter for MVP pick, though Jeter is my favorite player of all time by far and I'm a HUGE Yankees homer.
You'd think that after what the As pulled off with Billy Beane and what the Sox pulled off with Theo at the helm, the old guard would admit Sabremetrics has value.
What pisses me off, is that when watching games, you still just see Avg and RBIs when a player is up to bat...Why not show OBP and OPS?!? that is a much more valuable stat than avg...avg tell you so little. a guy with a .260 avg with a .380 OBP is much more valuable than a .310 hitter with a .330 OBP all else equal.
I guess they have to keep the product dumbed down for the masses? Point is the only thing that makes baseball worth watching (IMO) is the stats / strategy that is involved..it is an inherently slow / boring game until you dig into the #s and stats. That is the juicey stuff that makes the long pauses in between pitches bearable.
I think simmons suggested also installing a Pitch Clock...so pitchers have a max of 10 seconds to deliver the ball to home plate when they get it back from catcher. the games are painfully long. Without tivo, I would die...and when I go to a live game, it feels like it's crawling.
Compare this to soccer, it's a joke.
Yes the Angels won one more game, both teams had pretty slow starts. I just am not a fan of all these sabermetrics and "what if" numbers. Sports are becoming to technical and forget about the importance of actually playing the game. I watch what Cabrera did the past few weeks and he just carried his team to the division title.
Trout is an unbelievable talent, had a historic rookie year. Overall I believe he was the better player this year but if I needed someone to bat in the bottom of the 9th of the WS I would go Cabrera all day long.
Also, isn't Comerica a very pitcher friendly park? (not sure about this)
You convinced me - Trout...although I think it says how poorly my Sox have been doing that I had never heard of him. baseball was over for me over a month ago.
The most bullshit statement in all of commentating is "take this guy off the team and they don't make the playoffs". That can be said about so many players on any playoff team and it doesn't matter. Winning games is a function of so many moving parts, only a few of which can be controlled by one single player. Wins and playoffs in my mind is bullshit in MVP voting for that reason.
Just to keep it apples to apples though, you could always say if LAA brings up Trout and lets Abreu go in spring training, then they make the playoffs.
Good post. Trout is the obvious choice. Here is another good article to read:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/trout-versus-cabrera-offense-o…
While I see you compared Angels record in American League Central they are in West. That should be at least footnoted. That said both did remarkable things this year and set history. Co-MVP?
Best slugger is Cabrera, but MVP is Trout due to defense and speed to offset lower power numbers(plus less games)
Trout hands down. I hate when people look at only offensive stats to crown the MVP. This game is about defense too. I understand that Miggy switched positions this year to accommodate Prince and that the switch in position probably caused him to be a defensive liability at 3rd but come on, he was never a GREAT 1st basemen either. He was good, but not Texiera like. He was an average defender at best. Look at Trout, he has essentially taken CF away. Balls that normally would be hits are outs when Trout is out there. Look at the amount of homers he has robbed or the runs he has saved from being scored. According to fielding metrics, he has SAVED 20+ runs because of his defense.
According to WAR, had the Angels called him up sooner, they would be in the playoffs, is that not value? Is it Trout's fault that he was in the minors for the for the first few weeks of the season? Also, I'm pretty sure he was platooning until the Angels got rid of Bobby. Let's throw a few more Trout stats out there.
Trout is the first player in history to steal 45 bases, hit 30 bombs, and score 120+ runs. Youngest player to ever steal 40+ bags in one season since like 1905. Not to mention he has the highest stolen base success rate since the 30s. Finally, if you believe in saber metrics, Trout's 10.7 WAR is like the 20th highest ALL-TIME.
well this wasn't a terribly biased discussion from the start...
Well, if you're in the Cabrera for MVP camp, state your case. Though, it'll be tough for you to be unbiased with a Detroit Red Wings avatar.
Agree 100% on the pitch clock. At-bats take too long, games shouldn't take 4 hours to watch considering how little action there is in a typical baseball game.
I also agree that we'd do ourselves a favor by adding more stats to the typical player data when he comes to bat. I think batting average is interesting, but to your point, why not have a few more things listed there, too? Baseball GMs don't give much of a shit about RBIs, so why not focus on the stats that they care about?
Some pitchers purposely take extra time to mess up a hitter's rhythm. For example, you'll see pitchers taking extra time to throw to Texiera because he does that weird thing with his bat. Also, with a runner on 1st, pitchers again will hold onto the ball to mess up a runner's rhythm. That's some what of a strategy right? Do anything possible to make a player feel out of touch/rhythm. What do you say to the managers who use this tactic to their advantage? Sure, you can get a pitching clock in the game...but wouldn't that lead to more steals/hits causing longer innings which will cause game times to increase anyway?
Great counterpoint.
How about instead we limit the amount of time batters can spend outside of the box in between pitches? i.e.) cutting down on things like David Ortiz's obsessive crap between swings?
I don't think it would lead to meaningfully more hits or runs at all. The pitchers have timing too...so hitters also step out of the box to throw off a pitchers timing. All I'm saying is that when the pitcher gets the ball in his glove, he has 10 seconds. If you count out 10 seconds, that is a TON of time. Maybe you make it 12 seconds to make it less dramatic in the first year. The time saved would be about 1 hour per game, so you may even see the average dip down under 3 hours (= good thing). Rules change over the years...the mound was raised at one point, right? I think a lot of runs but a faster game is what baseball needs. The point is what causes outs is balls in play. It's the unlimited pitch-outs, the long inning changes, etc. that is dragging things out.
Basketball dramatically improved it's product with a shot clock, why can't baseball do the same thing with a Pitch Clock? That way, most at bats would last ~1 minute...you could then have ~45 seconds before the next batter has to see his first pitch so that there is still some time for color commentary. Still plenty of times for ads in between innings...Baseball obviously knows this is an issue and has been trying to address it over the years (mostly unsuccessful so far).
Cabrera. His team was not really in the mix 3 weeks ago, and most thought Leyland would be fired at the end of the season. 3 weeks ago the Angles were in the mix. But Cabrera put his team in the playoffs and Trout didn't.
The triple crown IS a significant achievement. Just because general managers put more emphasis on walks nowadays and have a whole slew of statistics to back up their signings doesn't diminish the importance of batting average, rbis and home runs. By the way, the Oakland A's, the originiators of the whole OPS trend, went a different direction this year. They set the all time record for team strikeouts and still made the playoffs.
Yes, Comerica Park sucks long ones for hitters like Cabby
WAR is adjusted for ballparks. Even with the parks taken into account, Trout is on top (according to WAR).
While we're on the topic, what do we think about pitchers winning MVP
Patrick, thanks for posting that. I think an argument against clutch works best in baseball over just about any other sport since you have so little control over when you'll have a chance to have an at-bat. You can't choose to bat in the bottom of the 9th with two outs and the bases loaded, you get there by happenstance.
I think that, in other sports, clutch is far more of a real thing. Take basketball, for instance. If the game is on the line and you're down by two, you're going to want the ball in the hands of your best player.
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