quote:Originally posted by bball123:
"I can't argue that WAR does include more things but I am more on the side of KISS (Keep it simply .....). I think it was Albert Eistein that said to the effects that make things as simple as possible, but not more simplier."
Actually, I believe the principle you are describing suggests that when two theories describe a phenomenon equally well, then it is always preferable to choose the simpler theory. The three Triple Crown stats do not do an equal job - or even close - to any of the newer metrics, be it WAR, offensive WAR, OPS, OPS+, wOBA, wRC+ - any of them. They may be more complex, but that does not make them meaningless (or "speculative") and the trade-off for complexity is much better accuracy in describing the value of the thing they measure. And ALL of those tell us that Mike Trout had a better year than Miguel Cabrera.
quote:"If it is that simply to win a triple crown, why haven't Bond, McGuire, Alex R., Josh H., Prince F., etc and etc won it previously? Why it takes 45 years for the moon, sun, earth and the stars to line up for another triple crown winner?"
Nobody said it was simple to win a Triple Crown, but if you are suggesting that the fact that all these great players have not won a Triple Crown somehow diminishes their greatness, I don't see how you can make that argument - I think you are clearly mistaken. And if you are suggesting that, because Miguel Cabrera has won a Triple Crown and these great players have not, then Cabrera must be the equal of or better than them, that too is very faulty logic.
I am suggesting to you that the Triple Crown has historical significance, but it does not automatically mean a Triple Crown winner the best season, or even a histirically great season (though that will usually be so), any more than a player's failure to win a Triple Crown means he did not or could not have had a great season. There's a lot more to consider, when looking at a player's value, than just BA, RBI, and HR.
Furthermore, there are a lot of other meaningful, traditional statistics. I can (and did) come up with a combination that shows Mike Trout's year is even more rare than Cabrera's Triple Crown. So what? The question is, what makes the particular statistics chosen a better measure of "value" than others that were not chosen, or which are omitted entirely?
quote:"I still don't understand why BA, HRs and RBIs do no matter any more or is not important."
I don't think anybody said this. At least I did not. Batting average, RBIs, and home runs are still very important, and relevant. They are just *less* important and relevant to describing a player's overall value than some other statistics. They just do an incomplete job, and/or rely too much on the contributions of others outside of the player's control.
For instance, batting average pretends that plate appearances in which a batter gets on base and doesn't make an out - which is truly the only way to advance winning in a game that is limited ONLY by a finite number of outs -don't matter. That's ludicrous, and a very simple reason why on-base percentage is a far superior way of judging a hitter.
Similarly, I suspect when the Triple Crown first became popular, home runs were included because we want to know something more about the hitter than whether he just gets on base. Power is important...but looking just at home runs is a poor way of measuring a player's power. Doubles and triples matter, too. Rather than just looking at home runs, slugging percentage is a clearly superior way of looking at this.
Runs batted in are important, too, but highly dependent on the contributions of teammates, and of line-up position. And runs scored are arguably just as important. Who is to say that the guy who gets the hit (or even the out) that allows a guy like Mike Trout - who gets on base at a terrific clip, often by way of extra base hits, and advances himself more often and more successfully than any player in the league - to score deserves more credit for that run than Trout does? Not all RBI are created equal....
So, for instance (and without getting into any "advanced" stats), looking at something like on base + slugging percentage, which does a reasonable job of replcating what a full-on "linear weights" analysis of the value of every thing that can possibly happen in every base-out state in describing winning baseball, is far preferable to looking at batting average and home runs. And if you can adjust for differing park effects (as OPS+ does) - because we all know that hitting at a place like Coors is not the same as hitting in a place like Safeco - you're even better off. Guess what? OPS+ shows Mike Trout had a significantly better season than Miguel Cabrea did.
There are other, better statistics that also account for things like baserunning, GIDP, and better "weight" the significance of OBP versus SLG. Those are the statistics that go into the components of WAR. If you are so sure that the defensive parts of WAR are crude and meaningless (I am not), then look just at offensive WAR (which also favors Trout) - but that doesn't mean you can ignore defense and not trust your own eyes, which should tell you that Mike Trout is light years better defensively than Miguel Cabrera.
"KISS" makes sense only when you aren't leaving out things that we KNOW are important to winning, valuable baseball performance - like *all* XBH, runs scored as well as RBI, baserunning, and defense. If you have to ignore those things in the name of "simplicity" you aren't doing yourself any favors and you aren't going to be very accurate in measuring "value."