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Reply to "Poll - Trout, Cabrera or other for AL MVP"

I wanted to provide a correction and a bit more historical context to the following, which I posted earlier:

quote:
Originally posted by EdgarFan:

... it is important to note that Trout's performance has been historic, too. If you look at the last fifty years, only 12 players have ever had better years in terms of purely offensive WAR (to placate those who dismiss WAR because of defensive stats - even though their own eyes should tell them that Trout is the FAR superior defensive player) than the 8.6 Trout produced this year (Cabrera had 7.5 offensive WAR). Those 12 are basically a Who's Who of players who are either in the Hall of Fame, or will or should be (at least if you ignore PED arguments about why they shouldn't): Aaron, Mays, Frank Robinson, Yastrzemski, Morgan, Ripken, Walker, Piazza, McGwire, Jeter, Bonds, A-Rod.


First, I was incomplete in my list of players who've lead MLB with more offensive WAR than the 8.6 that Mike Trout posted this year. In addition to those listed above, Rod Carew, Robin Yount, and Rickey Henderson also had seasons with more than 8.6 oWAR. Frank Robinson equalled (rather than exceeded) that total, as did Willie McCovey. But the point is still valid.

Furthermore, I want to point out that nearly every time the MLB oWAR leader has had 8.6 oWAR or more in the past 50 years, he has won the MVP. The only exceptions were in 1999 when Derek Jeter's 8.8 oWAR finished 6th in the voting (behind Ivan Rodriguez 4.3, Pedro Martinez, Robbie Alomar 6.4, Manny Ramirez 6.8 and Rafael Palmeiro 4.8), in 1998 when Mark McGwire's 9.0 oWAR finished 2nd to Sammy Sosa's 6.1; in 1964 when Willie Mays' 8.7 oWAR finished 6th (behind Ken Boyer 5.2, Johnny Callison 3.9, Bill White 3.7, Frank Robinson 6.6, and Joe Torre 5.2); and in 1963 when Hank Aaron's 9.2 oWAR finished 3rd (behind Sandy Koufax, and Dick Groat's 5.7). Simply put, when you put up the kind of offensive production Trout did this year, it almost always results in an MVP award, and when it doesn't, it generally looks kind of funny in hindsight.

In contrast, the 7.5 oWAR that Miguel Cabrera put up this year - which would have lead MLB if Trout hadn't been around - has only been good enough to lead MLB in 11 of the last 50 years (and some of those really shouldn't count, as they were "won" with a lesser number in strike-shortened years). Other than the historical significance of Cabrera winning the Triple Crown, it just wasn't *that* special an offensive year.

And remember, Cabrera played 161 games (to Trout's 139) and had 58 more plate appearances than Trout had, but Trout still put up superior numbers in *overall* offensive performance - counting everything, not just BA, RBI, and HR.

Since Trout got less than a full season to put up his numbers (through no fault of his own), it is instructive to look at the RATE of his production and compare it historically. If you look at oWAR on a per game, it is clear how special (and how much better than Cabrera's season) Trout's season was.

In the fifty years before the 2012 season only 10 of 55 season leaders (there have been several ties), by six different men, have ever exceeded the per game offensive production Mike Trout posted (Barry Bonds 2001-2004, Jeff Bagwell in 1994, Robin Yount in 1982, Mike Schmidt in 1981, George Brett in 1980, and Joe Morgan in 1975-76). All ten won the MVP. The two most recent Triple Crown winners before Cabrera (Yaz, Frank Robinson) also won the MVP, both with per game rates of offensive production slightly *less* than Mike Trout's.

In contrast, of those same 55 MLB oWAR seasonal leaders over the previous 50 years, Miguel Cabrera's per game oWAR production would be better than only 4 of 55 (Carl Yastrzemski in 1968, Dave Parker in 1978, Cal Ripken in 1984, and Derek Jeter in 2006). Only one of those four won the MVP (Parker - who is one of only seven players out of those 55 who are not in the Hall, active, or on or soon to be on the ballot).

But wait, you might object, if ten guys in the last 50 years exceeded Mike Trout's production, that's a heckuva lot more frequent and less historic than winning a Triple Crown, which has only been done three times in that time frame.

Not so, and here's why: there are only three variables that go into winning a Triple Crown. There are many, many more ways of achieving 8.6 oWAR in 139 games. It might be doubles & triples, runs scored, stolen bases. It could be home runs and walks. It could be, literally, any combination of any and every valuable offensive thing that can be done on a baseball field, and it counts things that are valuable even if you don't lead the league in doing that thing. Everything counts. The Triple Crown looks at three things, and three things ONLY - everything else is ignored - and even then only if you happened to lead the league in all three things. Of course that will be more rare - even though Trout's level of production is still *quite* rare.

I don't remember if Three Bagger or JH pointed this out, but the three things we look at for the Triple Crown is pretty arbitrary, and we have better stats (such as OPS+, which is OBP plus SLG that is adjusted for league and park) than the ones they chose. Runs Scored could just as easily have been chosen instead of RBI, and OPS+ is without a doubt a better proxy of performance than looking at just batting average and home runs.

What if the Triple Crown called for leading your league in runs scored, OPS+, and stolen bases (as Trout did this year). Do you know how many times in baseball history a player has ever scored at least as many runs as Trout did, had at least as many stolen bases as he did, and had a 171 OPS+ or better? Trout, plus Ty Cobb twice (1911 and 1915), King Kelly (1886), Tris Speaker (1912), and Pete Browning (1887).

Do you know how many players have ever had a season with 125 or more runs scored, 45 or more stolen bases, 170 or better OPS+, and 30 or more home runs? One - Mike Trout.

And of course, I'm only focusing on offense. It is beyond dispute that Mike Trout offers fare more value as a defensive player than Miguel Cabrera does.

It is wrong to elevate a historical but not necessarily historically great season over another that *IS* historically great simply because one person managed to lead three fairly abitrary categories than have gained traditional significance, when the other was objectively better in almost every measurable way. Miguel Cabrera's season was NOT more rare, or better, than Mike Trout's, and IMHO Trout should win the MVP hands down.
Last edited by EdgarFan
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