Cage Match: Cabrera vs. Trout 2 - Electric Boogaloo.

The debate for AL MVP just won't die, as two of my good friends spent well over an hour arguing over text messages (that I was unfortunately a part of) whether Miguel Cabrera or Mike Trout deserved the award. The argument got so heated that one of them, who also writes a blog on this website, decided to write up a post illustrating his point that Cabrera deserves it more. To that end, and the end of the regular season, I have decided to write a response piece to him.

Great, here we go again. 

Here's the second-to-last paragraph of my original post on this matter, one that I believe demonstrates the point best: "According to the sabermetrics, every math geek's best friend, Trout is leading baseball with a 10.4 WAR, Wins Above Replacement, which factors in a starting player's performance and determines his worth compared to that of a replacement-level bench player. Cabrera is only at 6.7. Trout's BABIP, Batting Average on Balls In Play, is an outrageous .374, while Cabrera's is only (used very sarcastically) .328. According to UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating), a metric that determines a player's worth defensively, Trout is absolutely spectacular, rating a 13.3 in the field, whereas Cabrera is a -9.2 at third base, as if there was any more proof necessary that he's unfit for the position. When it boils right down to it, Cabrera may have Trout beat offensively (and not even by that much), but defensively, sabermetrically, and overall statistically, Trout bests his contemporary without question." Now, this isn't to say that Trout deserves it outright. Sure, the sabermetrics are on his side, and he became the first rookie to have a 30/40 season (30 home runs and 49 stolen bases, which put him one swiped bag away from claiming the very first 30/50 season in baseball history). There's much more to consider. Such as, yes, the Triple Crown.

11 players in history had achieved the batting Triple Crown before last night. However, the last one, Carl Yastrzemski of the Red Sox, did it in 1967. While some have come close, that means 4 and a half decades have passed since it's been accomplished. Until last night. Cabrera finished the regular season leading the American League in batting average (.330 to Trout's .326), home runs (44 to Josh Hamilton's and Curtis Granderson's 43), and RBIs (139 to Hamilton's 128). It goes without saying that this is one of the most difficult personal achievements in the game. It's rarer than a perfect game, harder than a 4-homer game, and requires more durability than a 50+ stolen base campaign. Cabrera had to play in nearly every single game, make every single at-bat count, and never give an inch while swinging his mighty bat. Any time he would falter, Trout, Hamilton or someone else may have been able to step in and overtake his lead. He had to sustain this extremely high level of performance not just for a few days, or a few weeks: Cabrera performed like this from the first day of the regular season all the way to the last one. That's 6 months of non-stop top-quality work. I've worked at my low-level retail job for 5 years now, and I can't say that I put together 6 months total of hard work that comes close to matching what Miggy did from April until now. And while there is plenty of precedence for a batter winning the Triple Crown but not the MVP (looking at you, Teddy Ballgame), that doesn't excuse the voters for not properly recognizing the level of difficulty it requires.

Now, with all of that said, does that alone mean that Cabrera was More Valuable than Trout? Some will say yes simply because the Tigers won their division and are in the playoffs, while the Angels are flying significantly lower than they were this offseason. There are plenty that will point to last year's NL MVP race, when Brewers left fielder Ryan Braun won the award over Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp. Some say Braun won it with slightly inferior numbers, simply because the Brewers made the playoffs. However, the BBWAA votes on the award right before the postseason, meaning a deep run in October does not factor into the MVP race at all. So Trout missing the playoffs doesn't necessarily count him out.

Seriously, can't we just vote them both?

Guess what? It's time for everybody's favorite new segment, More Sabermetrics To List About Mike Trout And Miguel Cabrera Regarding The AL MVP Debate That Just Won't Die!

• According to ESPN Stats & Info (and the same biased friend who advised me on the last post), 65 percent of Trout's plate appearances came against pitchers with an ERA lower than 4.25, compared to only 55 percent of Cabrera's.
• Cabrera's strikeout percentage is 14.1, compared to Trout's 21.8. In addition, Miggy's walk percentage is 9.5, while Mike's is 10.5. This helps to explain why their OBPs are nearly identical (Trout leads with .399 to .393).
• However, the slugging tells a different story: Cabrera's slugging percentage is .606, which beats Trout's by 42 points (.564). You can always bring up the little matter of Trout missing nearly the entire first month of the season. You can also stop reading this blog, because we're not accepting any excuses.
• The WAR hasn't changed much, with Trout's staying at 10.4 and Cabrera rising to 7.2.
• Pitchers seem to fear Cabrera more, issuing him 17 intentional walks to Trout's 4. That alone could help Cabrera's MVP case, as opposing teams view him as a more difficult at-bat than Trout. Of course, Trout has Albert Pujols coming up shortly after him, whereas Cabrera is followed immediately by Prince Fielder. Neither get walked on purpose very often.
• Quick, what is WPA? If you guessed Win Probability Added, and I'm sure you did, you're right! What is it, you ask? Quite simply, it's the difference between the expected win total for a team, and the actual win total. +WPA accounts for how many wins a player is accountable for. Trout's is 14.03, while Cabrera's is 16.27. Neither are much better than each other, but they blow the rest of the league away.
• Conversely, -WPA shows how many negative wins (more commonly known as losses) a player can be blamed for. Trout's -WPA? -8.38. Cabrera's -WPA? -11.76. So, as valuable as both men have been, they've also hurt their respective teams in a few ways. Kinda shocking, right?
• Finally, there's Clutch. Yes, this is an actual statistic, that measures how much better or worse a player gets when a game is on the line. My father, my brother and I had a heated discussion a few months ago about whether or not a "clutch performance" could be properly quantified, and in a statement I will find myself repeating many times as I get older, you were right, Dad. According to this stat, Trout registers as a -0.53, while Cabrera is a -1.37. Believe it or not, these are not terrible stats. A negative Clutch stat is not only common, but a 0 is given to players who rise to the occasion frequently, so a positive number means a player is outrageously good when the game gets intense. Just for a frame of reference, a player who is considered to be Clutch above nearly all else right now registered a -0.24. Do I really even need to mention that it's Derek Jeter, or can you just tell?

What was my point? I honestly forgot.

Right. The race is too close to call. Hell, I keep changing my mind on who should win so frequently, I flip-flopped at least 4 times just while writing this post. The point is, there's no wrong answer. The advanced metrics may be kinder to Trout, but that doesn't necessarily make him valuable to a team that isn't playing any more games until next March. On the other hand, Cabrera's Triple Crown and the Tigers playing postseason baseball shouldn't automatically outweigh the contributions of his contemporary over the past 5 months.

What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts, complaints and insults.