I need to vent about this whole Cabrera-Trout argument

[DrungoHazewood]

There's a reason I supported Cabrera over Trout and not Cano, Hamilton, or Beltre, all of whoms teams had tough schedules and all had records better than the Angels. I would've voted for Cabrera because he most impacted where his team finished out of those 5. Without Cabrera, the Tigers finish second and miss the playoffs. With/without Trout, the Angels finish 3rd and miss the playoffs. That is the reason I believe that Cabrera should win the MVP. I don't view the MVP as the best player in baseball award if I did I would support Trout. I view the MVP as most valuable to his team, and I don't think you measure that in WAR.

So why not Adam Jones? Without him the Orioles miss the playoffs and they were in a harder division and had a better record.

[Riggodrill44]

So why not Adam Jones? Without him the Orioles miss the playoffs and they were in a harder division and had a better record.

Eh, the Orioles most valuable player(s) was the bullpen to me. Without Jones we probably miss the playoffs, but I think we still are over .500. Without our bullpen performing like it did what Jones did kinda becomes moot.

[Loophole]

Eh, the Orioles most valuable player(s) was the bullpen to me. Without Jones we probably miss the playoffs, but I think we still are over .500. Without our bullpen performing like it did what Jones did kinda becomes moot.

1. Wait, so now being over .500 matters?

2. Without Jhonny Peralta performing like he did what Cabrera did becomes moot. Peralta for MVP!

Backflips.

[DrungoHazewood]

Eh, the Orioles most valuable player(s) was the bullpen to me. Without Jones we probably miss the playoffs, but I think we still are over .500. Without our bullpen performing like it did what Jones did kinda becomes moot.

But the whole idea of the MVP is "best-ish guy with a good story on a team that just barely made the playoffs." Without Adam Jones the Orioles most certainly don't make the playoffs. Heck, if Adam Jones had broken his wrist in mid-August the O's very probably don't make the playoffs. He was the single most crucial player in getting a team that had been crapulent for nearly 15 years into the playoffs in arguably the hardest division in baseball.

By the "not best player, but most crucial to getting to the playoffs" angle the MVP race comes down to Jones and Reddick. Cabrera splits the vote with Verlander on the Tigers (and they played in a weaker division so the O's/A's/Yanks playoff spots counted more), the Yanks would have replaced Cano with a salary dump, Hamilton and Beltre get dinged for their team's collapse that nearly saw them miss the playoffs...

[Aglets]

The bottom line is if you show me ANY kind of award that is given through a voting process, I'll show you an award that has subjective criteria. I'll show you an award that was given where the winner did not receive 100% of the vote.

It happens everywhere, from the Academy Awards, to American Idol, to Major League Baseball.

So whether you guys like it or not, we cannot just write a computer program that calculates the MVP for us. Well, I suppose we could, but it's not going to happen within any of our lifetimes I would bet.

When you have two different people voting, of course they are not always going to have the same perspective.

Drungo's awkward rephrasing of the MVP criteria is closer to how I would define "valuable" in terms of MVP......but I would reword it slightly further.

I think of it more like this:

"out of the teams that made the playoffs, this player was the best-ish."

I don't really care too much about the 'good story' part. I would pick Miguel Cabrera over Adam Jones or Josh Reddick because I think Miguel Cabrera is a better player than those two.

[DrungoHazewood]

Drungo's awkward rephrasing of the MVP criteria is closer to how I would define "valuable" in terms of MVP......but I would reword it slightly further.

I think of it more like this:

"out of the teams that made the playoffs, this player was the best-ish."

I don't really care too much about the 'good story' part. I would pick Miguel Cabrera over Adam Jones or Josh Reddick because I think Miguel Cabrera is a better player than those two.

Without the "First Triple Crown in Generations" story line Cabrera is behind Cano and no better than a tossup with Beltre and Verlander among playoff teams. If you don't include the compelling narrative bit Robinson Cano should have been the MVP using your criteria.

What is the "-ish" part for if not a fudge factor that inevitably comes down to story?

[luismatos4prez]

If Trout was equal to or only slightly better than Cabrera, the team-dependent arguments would come into play. But, Cabrera wasn't even in Trout's league as an overall player. Nobody in the AL was.

[DrungoHazewood]

If Trout was equal to or only slightly better than Cabrera, the team-dependent arguments would come into play. But, Cabrera wasn't even in Trout's league as an overall player. Nobody in the AL was.

Apparently for a large percentage of the voters Trout was ineligible for anything but a consolation prize, down-ballot vote because he didn't appear in the playoffs.

[Riggodrill44]

1. Wait, so now being over .500 matters?

2. Without Jhonny Peralta performing like he did what Cabrera did becomes moot. Peralta for MVP!

Backflips.

1. What I was saying was that the bullpen was more important to our team than Jones was. Jones having that season with one of the bullpens from years past doesnt get us more than 75 wins.

2. You mean .8 WAR replacement level Jhonny Peralta with a .689 OPS and average at best defense? Yeah, the Tigers couldnt have replaced him with a shortstop that would do any better than that.

[Loophole]

1. What I was saying was that the bullpen was more important to our team than Jones was. Jones having that season with one of the bullpens from years past doesnt get us more than 75 wins.

2. You mean .8 WAR replacement level Jhonny Peralta with a .689 OPS and average at best defense? Yeah, the Tigers couldnt have replaced him with a shortstop that would do any better than that.

1. But our bullpen having a season like that without Jones upping his game doesn't result in the playoffs. What's the difference? .500 matters more than playoffs? They both matter? Neither of them matter at all? This is all ridiculous and convoluted?

2. I was using fWAR. Wanna use bWAR? Austin Jackson, 5+ WAR. Why not vote for him over Trout? No way the Tigers make the playoffs with a replacement player instead. Why vote for Trout at all? You could probably fill all ten spots with players whose absences would've prevented their team from reaching the playoffs. I can count four on the Tigers alone, after Cabrera. Fielder, Jackson, Verlander, Scherzer. All four of them were more valuable than Trout because their value took their team to the playoffs. Why is it only the #1 spot where this criteria matters? 2 through 10 are all usually best-to-tenth-best. For some reason the criteria for the #1 spot doesn't apply to the rest. So why even vote on 2 through 10 if the writers are going to use a different scale in judging value? Why does this idea of "valuable = playoffs" get thrown out the window as soon as you hit #2?

Are you starting to see how none of this makes any sense?

[Riggodrill44]

1. But our bullpen having a season like that without Jones upping his game doesn't result in the playoffs. What's the difference? .500 matters more than playoffs? They both matter? Neither of them matter at all? This is all ridiculous and convoluted?

2. I was using fWAR. Wanna use bWAR? Austin Jackson, 5+ WAR. Why not vote for him over Trout? No way the Tigers make the playoffs with a replacement player instead. Why vote for Trout at all? You could probably fill all ten spots with players whose absences would've prevented their team from reaching the playoffs. I can count four on the Tigers alone, after Cabrera. Fielder, Jackson, Verlander, Scherzer. All four of them were more valuable than Trout because their value took their team to the playoffs. Why is it only the #1 spot where this criteria matters? 2 through 10 are all usually best-to-tenth-best. For some reason the criteria for the #1 spot doesn't apply to the rest. So why even vote on 2 through 10 if the writers are going to use a different scale in judging value? Why does this idea of "valuable = playoffs" get thrown out the window as soon as you hit #2?

Are you starting to see how none of this makes any sense?

1. If we are just looking at the Orioles, I would rather have had the bullpen performing like they did, than just the season from Jones. Now, the Angels needed Trout more than they could have used Cabrera, and I believe the Tigers needed Cabrera more than they could have used Cabrera. And the need for Cabrera to perform was greater than the need for Trout to perform for their respective teams to finish as they did.

2. Because as I pointed out in my second post, Trout did accomplish somthing truly amazing, he was easily the best player in baseball. But that is not what most valuable player means to me. Thats why I would've voted for Cabrera over Trout in a either/or situation. I'm not saying I wouldn't have voted for Cano, Beltre, or Hamilton instead.

[Aglets]

Without the "First Triple Crown in Generations" story line Cabrera is behind Cano and no better than a tossup with Beltre and Verlander among playoff teams. If you don't include the compelling narrative bit Robinson Cano should have been the MVP using your criteria.

What is the "-ish" part for if not a fudge factor that inevitably comes down to story?

Blech, you're saying I should vote for a Yankee now? Not happening!

The 'ish' comes down to arbitrary intangibles that voters are free to define however they like. If you've ever lived in America you've probably witnessed some sort of election, so you are probably aware that to a pretty significant extent, there is a 'popularity contest' factor. I'll concede that in Cabrera's case, clearly the Triple Crown carried a ton of weight. I don't really agree with that, but it is what it is.

I'd be really interested to know how this vote would've turned out if Cabrera's AVG/HR/RBI numbers were lowered just a tad so he didn't get the magic Triple Crown. I think it would've been much much closer to 50/50.

[Nigel Tufnel]

I was killing time in lieu of working, and I found this Posnanski column from a couple of year ago. It's a long read, but it's pretty interesting - it ends up being mostly about WAR, but begins with a poker analogy to discuss MVP voting. Here's the set-up:

But before going to WAR (alert: I will try to avoid war puns from now on), let me talk a bit about this little discussion I had with Bill James.

Here was the starting point: Poker. Let's say you're playing three down, five-card stud poker (first three cards down, last two up). OK? You've been dealt four cards so far, and this is what you have:

2H 2D KS 8C*

*I'm suspect you know this but that's the two of hearts, two of diamonds, king of spades and eight of clubs.

Your opponent, though you don't know it, has this:

JC 8S 8D JS

So, basically, you have almost nothing, a pair of twos. This seems really good to you for reasons that are not especially clear to anyone else. Your opponent has two pair -- jacks and eights. You have not read him right and you are sure he's bluffing and so you put everything into the pot -- your house, your car, your big screen TV, your prize copy of The Machine (now in paperback!), everything. You have a very serious gambling problem, my friend, and you should look into that.

Then it's down to the last card. He gets the ace of spades. You, against ludicrous odds, get the 2 of clubs, which gives you three deuces -- YOU WON! Woo hoo! The Giants win the pennant!* You run around, do a dance, act like a big jerk, and the guy across the table is crying because he put all of HIS prize possessions into the pot (including his copy of The Soul of Baseball), and he knows that he just got beaten by someone who does not know what he/she is doing.

*Top 32 sports calls is coming this week.

From here, Bill asks a simple question:

Which card is the MVC -- Most Valuable Card?

http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-i-like-war-with-poker-talk.html