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I need to vent about this whole Cabrera-Trout argument


luismatos4prez

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It really frustrates me when I see people railing on Trout around the web. I've been reading and watching a lot of material on this debate, because I feel like it's a very important debate for the future of baseball. As disgusted as I am that Cabrera won in a landslide, the push back I see out there gives me some hope.

"WAR is just an imaginary stat for nerds. It doesn't mean anything." That's a phrase I've seen written in so many different ways. People would rather blindly fight against something new, rather than take the time to understand it, and see the logical background to it. I'm hyperbolizing, but that has so much grounding in human history.

The close-minded baseball people seem to imagine the Trout argument as a bunch of geeks with calculators standing around one of those giant computers that spits out a reading that says "You have ___ WAR"

But, when did the argument for Trout vs Cabrera even become a matter of WAR?

The argument for Trout is not "His WAR was higher". The argument for Trout is that he was a better baseball player. Think about that.

What it really comes down to is this:

Player A is the best hitter in the league. He is also a terrible fielder, and a terrible base runner. Player B is the 2nd best hitter in the league. He is an outstanding fielder, and an elite base runner.

How can you possibly choose Player A?

P.S: I'm venting about the posts I've seen on much lesser websites than this one. Twitter, Facebook, various sports commentary websites, etc. I recognize that most of the OHers know more about baseball than I do, and I'm not lecturing you guys. Just getting my frustration out.

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How can you possibly choose player A? Because chicks dig the long ball. That's what it comes down to. People who ignore stats like WAR also tend to undervalue defense and base running. And on offense, the margin between the two looks bigger if you ignore base running and put a lot of emphasis on HR and RBI.

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Also, MVP also is about winning and the Tigers went to the World Series while the Angels, despite their huge payroll, missed the playoffs. The award is not "best hitter" it's Most Valuable and that leads people to value players on playoff teams over the others.

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Also, MVP also is about winning and the Tigers went to the World Series while the Angels, despite their huge payroll, missed the playoffs. The award is not "best hitter" it's Most Valuable and that leads people to value players on playoff teams over the others.

So Cabrera gets bonus points for playing on a team in a crappy division. I would give credence to the playoffs argument if the Angels (and the Rays) didn't both have better records then the Tigers, despite playing tougher schedules.

Do you think there is a chance that the Tigers would have made the postseason if they played in the AL East or West? Or that the Angels would have missed the playoffs if they played in the AL Central?

I don't think Cabrera was even the most valuable player on his own team.

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Also, MVP also is about winning and the Tigers went to the World Series while the Angels, despite their huge payroll, missed the playoffs. The award is not "best hitter" it's Most Valuable and that leads people to value players on playoff teams over the others.

How much your team wins is part of the MVP voting, but the fact that the Tigers went to the World Series didn't have anything to do with it because they submit their votes at the end of the regular season.

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The Angels would've had 95 wins if they got to play 54 games against the Twins/Indians/Royals.

Anyway I don't really get why "most valuable" only applies to playoff teams. If you were the difference between your team winning 65 games instead of 55, chances are you were the "most valuable" in the league. It isn't called the MVPWTMtPs.

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Cabrera accomplished something that has not happened since 1967. He won the Triple Crown. The last Triple Crown winners ( Mantle, F. Robinson, and Yastrzemski) all were the league's MVP. While I acknowledge the argument for Trout, I think that Cabrera deserved the award.

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Cabrera accomplished something that has not happened since 1967. He won the Triple Crown. The last Triple Crown winners ( Mantle, F. Robinson, and Yastrzemski) all were the league's MVP. While I acknowledge the argument for Trout, I think that Cabrera deserved the award.

And yet Ted Williams won the triple crown and didn't win the MVP, because someone else was the better all around player that season.

The triple crown is just three pretty arbitrary statistics.

If the triple crown was OPS+, Runs scored and Stolen Bases then Trout would have won it.

Batting average is no where near as useful a stat as OBP, OPS, OPS+ or wOBA and yet it is a triple crown stat.

RBI is even less useful and heavily dependent on the player's teammates.

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Cabrera accomplished something that has not happened since 1967. He won the Triple Crown. The last Triple Crown winners ( Mantle, F. Robinson, and Yastrzemski) all were the league's MVP. While I acknowledge the argument for Trout, I think that Cabrera deserved the award.

Ted Williams won the Triple Crown twice and was not named MVP either time.

1942: .356/.499/.648, 36 HR, 137 RBI. He lost to Joe Gordon, .322/.409/.491, 18 HR, 103 RBI.

1947: .343/.499/.634, 32 HR, 114 RBI. He lost to Joe DiMaggio, .315/.391/.522, 20 HR, 97 RBI.

Of course, WAR wasn't available in those days. FWIW, Williams led the league in WAR both times, by a large margin. DiMaggio ranked 7th in 1947, with less than half the WAR Williams had.

Mantle and Yastzemski easily led the league in WAR the years they won the Triple Crown and the MVP. Believe it or not, Frank Robinson actually was 2nd in WAR (7.3) the year he won the Triple Crown and MVP. The leader was Earl Wilson, who was worth 5.6 WAR as a pitcher and another 1.9 WAR as a hitter. He finished 14th in the MVP voting.

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And yet Ted Williams won the triple crown and didn't win the MVP, because someone else was the better all around player that season.

The triple crown is just three pretty arbitrary statistics.

If the triple crown was OPS+, Runs scored and Stolen Bases then Trout would have won it.

Batting average is no where near as useful a stat as OBP, OPS, OPS+ or wOBA and yet it is a triple crown stat.

RBI is even less useful and heavily dependent on the player's teammates.

Perhaps. However, his failure to win the MVP was just as likely payback from the reporters that he pissed off.

Like it or not, they are the arbitrary statistics that enabled Cabrera to win the award.

The Triple Crown is: Batting Average, Home Runs, and RBI's. Perhaps you can take solace in Trout winning your Triple Crown.

I'll respect your opinion. It is however, a measure of how good a hitter someone is. It's impressive to me that a power hitter like Cabrera hits for such a high average.

I'll grant you that RBI "opportunities" are dependent on a players teammates. I believe that knocking in said teammates is a measure of a player's production.

If Cabrera had hit .295 while leading the league in HR's and RBI's I think Trout would have won. Like it or not, the middle age sportswriters were more impressed with Cabrera than Trout.

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Perhaps. However, his failure to win the MVP was just as likely payback from the reporters that he pissed off.

Like it or not, they are the arbitrary statistics that enabled Cabrera to win the award.

The Triple Crown is: Batting Average, Home Runs, and RBI's. Perhaps you can take solace in Trout winning your Triple Crown.

I'll respect your opinion. It is however, a measure of how good a hitter someone is. It's impressive to me that a power hitter like Cabrera hits for such a high average.

I'll grant you that RBI "opportunities" are dependent on a players teammates. I believe that knocking in said teammates is a measure of a player's production.

If Cabrera had hit .295 while leading the league in HR's and RBI's I think Trout would have won. Like it or not, the middle age sportswriters were more impressed with Cabrera than Trout.

If Cabrera had hit .325 while leading the league in HRs and RBIs then Trout would've won it.

Are RBIs more valuable than runs scored? They're two sides of the same stat. It's arbitrary that everyone cares about Cabrera's record and no one cares about Trout's runs record (in a month less). It's especially strange seeing as Trout could never lead the league in RBIs batting leadoff. When you choose to value RBIs over runs scored, you're arbitrarily stacking the deck in favor of the guy that hits lower in the lineup, even though a #3 isn't inherently worth more than a #1.

And to me, it's much more impressive that a defensive whiz and Henderson-esque baserunner had more home runs and a higher average than Henderson ever did in a season.

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If Cabrera had hit .325 while leading the league in HRs and RBIs then Trout would've won it.

Are RBIs more valuable than runs scored? They're two sides of the same stat. It's arbitrary that everyone cares about Cabrera's record and no one cares about Trout's runs record (in a month less). It's especially strange seeing as Trout could never lead the league in RBIs batting leadoff. When you choose to value RBIs over runs scored, you're arbitrarily stacking the deck in favor of the guy that hits lower in the lineup, even though a #3 isn't inherently worth more than a #1.

And to me, it's much more impressive that a defensive whiz and Henderson-esque baserunner had more home runs and a higher average than Henderson ever did in a season.

#3 is worth inherently less then #1.

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