Miguel Cabrera is AL MVP!

**JayVee** · 11-15-2012, 07:53 PM

I don't care what anyone else says, this award was well-deserved.

Miguel Cabrera of Detroit Tigers beats Mike Trout of Los Angeles Angels for American League MVP - ESPN

**JayVee** · 11-15-2012, 08:00 PM

I have actually followed both arguments for both players, and I agree it should have been closer than it was. Cabrera won it going away. Trout should have been closer -- but it's good to see the hometown guy win.

Here's a good article examining both sides:

Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout race for AL MVP - ESPN

**tiger337** · 11-15-2012, 08:09 PM

I would have voted for Trout, but I am happy that Cabrera won. It's due recognition for three consecutive MVP-level seasons,even if he didn't necessarily deserve it in any one year.

**Buddha** · 11-15-2012, 08:13 PM

"deserve" is a very subjective thing. There is no one number that can quantify a player's value to his team. Cabrera is a worthy MVP this year.

**JayVee** · 11-15-2012, 08:17 PM

Exactly. It's completely okay, in my mind, for more than one person to "deserve" an award. I just think Cabrera deserved it more.

**CapitalTigers** · 11-15-2012, 08:38 PM

Originally Posted by tiger337

I would have voted for Trout, but I am happy that Cabrera won. It's due recognition for three consecutive MVP-level seasons,even if he didn't necessarily deserve it in any one year.

Don't get how you could vote over a Triple Crown

**tiger337** · 11-15-2012, 08:43 PM

Originally Posted by CapitalTigers

Don't get how you could vote over a Triple Crown

The triple crown is cool because not too many players have done it and it has historical significance. I'll probably remember the triple crown more than the MVP. However, it is not a good representation of a players value. It doesn't say anything about how much a player contributed with his speed and defense which are two areas where Trout excelled.

**Yoda** · 11-15-2012, 08:43 PM

Because a triple crown doesn't account for every aspect of the game that adds up in a player's overall value. It isn't "Best Hitter Award".

I'm pretty thrilled he won though! I never thought I'd get to see a Tiger win after '87 and '07, but two years in a row now! Pretty awesome.

**kgeorge78** · 11-15-2012, 08:49 PM

MLB network actually put on a pretty good show - I was pretty pumped tonight

**Shelton** · 11-15-2012, 09:16 PM

Enough....

**DTroppens** · 11-15-2012, 09:17 PM

He was one of a couple of guys I wouldn't have been too concerned with winning it.
The other one player was second.

**catswithbats** · 11-15-2012, 09:23 PM

I also would have voted for Trout, but I am happy that Cabrera won.

**tiger337** · 11-15-2012, 09:27 PM

Originally Posted by Shelton

Enough....

Agreed. I'm tired of it, but I can't stop...

**tigers84roar06** · 11-15-2012, 10:15 PM

2nd year in a row a Detroit Tiger is MVP! Kept the MVP in the D, as Verlander had hoped :) Cabrera got 22 of the 28 first place votes. Tired of hearing about WAR. If you want to go by WAR, then Verlander should have won the Cy Young. Trouts team finished 3rd place. Without him, they still would have finished 3rd. Cabrera on the other hand had a spectacular September and very well could be why the Tigers went to the World Series and not finished in 2nd place in the Central. Miggy absolutely deserved to win!

**Charles Liston** · 11-15-2012, 10:15 PM

Originally Posted by tiger337

The triple crown is cool because not too many players have done it and it has historical significance. I'll probably remember the triple crown more than the MVP.

Exactly. I can tell you for sure that Robinson and Yaz did the Triple Crown in '66 and '67. Did they win MVP? Yeah probably, I'd have to look it up.

That was 3 phenomenal individual seasons in a row back then - Robinson, Yaz, and then McLain in '68.

**ErieTigerFan** · 11-15-2012, 10:25 PM

Originally Posted by CapitalTigers

Don't get how you could vote over a Triple Crown

Correct answer!

[Edited due to inappropriate content. Dude, you've been here long enough to know not to post stuff like this.]

**john doe** · 11-15-2012, 10:33 PM

Yes!!!!Miggy, by a landslide, as it should be. Trout?....uh....no.

Hall of Famer Al Kaline had some of the highest praise for Cabrera this summer.

"He's the best hitter that's ever played in Detroit since I've been here, there's no question about that," Kaline said. "We might have had somebody with more home run power but overall, he's by far the best hitter that I've ever seen here. That's including myself, and I don't even want to put myself in the same category with him. He's the best."

**john doe** · 11-15-2012, 10:47 PM

Voting Breakdown: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...1E&output=html

**Nastradamus** · 11-15-2012, 11:00 PM

Originally Posted by Yoda

Because a triple crown doesn't account for every aspect of the game that adds up in a player's overall value. It isn't "Best Hitter Award".

I'm pretty thrilled he won though! I never thought I'd get to see a Tiger win after '87 and '07, but two years in a row now! Pretty awesome.

and even triple crown isn't indicative of best hitter necessarily. Its just as arbitrary as the stats Trout put up that were even more rare.

**Charles Liston** · 11-16-2012, 12:08 AM

I'm happy that he won, and surprised at the voting. I'd have said that they should have split it, it was that close. What really, really irks me is the commentary in the ESPN article linked above, and in the other links once you get to ESPN. For Pete's sake, enough about WAR. Where were these guys last year when according to WAR, Ben Zobrist was the MVP? I don't recall howls of protest. What B-R and the other WAR calculators need to do is fix the WAR formula so that in 2011 Zobrist finishes 20th, like he should have, instead of 1st. They can let me know when they do that. Until then, WAR is a pretty good formula if it confirms what your eyeballs tell you. Oh by the way, Zobrist was also the best position player in 2009.

Ironically I think that a big contributor to Cabrera's win was his glove. It would have been pretty hard to vote for him if he had made 40 errors, like a lot of people thought he would. But it turns out that if you hit it within 4 feet of him he'll probably make the play, and he has a fabulous arm. No lateral movement of course, but the combination of his glove and bat at third base, on balance, gives you an enormous competitive advantage.

The other key determinant in the MVP outcome was the Angels' management, those peckerheads, for farming out their best player at the end of spring training. If they hadn't, they'd probably have made the post-season and Trout's counting stats would have been even more impressive.

Something else that irks me about the ESPN talking heads is that Trout is some sort of "new-age" candidate while Cabrera is "old-school". That's because those middle-aged guys are too young to realize that Nellie Fox won the AL MVP in 1959 with a slash line of .306/.380/.389. His OPS+ was 113, not bad, but Mantle and Kaline did 151. A retroactive application of the WAR formula just tells you what your grandfather's eyes would have observed (or in my case, my Dad's), that Fox was the best defensive player in the league. And, he walked 71 times and struck out 13...13! So at the end of the day, Fox won the MVP in what in my opinion was the classic old-school vote - his glove and his specific batting skills were viewed to be superior to the offensive beasts like Mantle, Kaline, and Colavito. In fact, the runner-up was Aparicio, another glove man and a base-running demon to boot. The same arguments that would support Trout over Cabrera. Anybody who thinks that batting skills are overvalued by "traditionalists" wasn't around in the early 1960's to hear the older guys talk ad nauseam (seriously, I wanted to barf) about what a nice little ballplayer Bobby Richardson was. Trust me, Trout was the old-school candidate, not Cabrera.

**ben9753** · 11-16-2012, 12:12 AM

It's pretty ridiculous that you get 10 votes. This leads to to things like "he finished 15th in MVP voting in 2012" being said.

**ben9753** · 11-16-2012, 12:17 AM

I would've understood if Trout had won, but I would've been pissed, because then Verlander would've gotten robbed. So now it's ok, Verlander got his MVP/Cy Young last year, and Miggy gets his this year. It's all good in Motown.

**Chopper** · 11-16-2012, 12:25 AM

I have to somewhat believe the votes are based on Miggy's past performance. Trout is young and if he is the player that he was this year, for years to come, he will get a MVP. Miggy has been a great player through his career. You can't brush that aside but he still, until now, hadn't been the MVP. Credit is placed where credit is due and personally I feel the voters finally gave him that.

**FloridaTigers** · 11-16-2012, 01:10 AM

I'm glad Cabrera won, and I would have voted for Cabrera due to sheer bias.

**Scottwood** · 11-16-2012, 01:29 AM

How in the world did Raul Ibanez get a vote?

**Casimir** · 11-16-2012, 07:32 AM

Originally Posted by Charles Liston

Where were these guys last year when according to WAR, Ben Zobrist was the MVP? I don't recall howls of protest. What B-R and the other WAR calculators need to do is fix the WAR formula so that in 2011 Zobrist finishes 20th, like he should have, instead of 1st. They can let me know when they do that. Until then, WAR is a pretty good formula if it confirms what your eyeballs tell you. Oh by the way, Zobrist was also the best position player in 2009.

That's terrific! The local sports radio drive home guy brought up the Ben Zobrist WAR from last season during an interview with Jay Jaffe this week. I am surprised he didn't mention 2009 as well as he is usually on top of such things. But there wasn't much response to that factoid.

WAR is a tool, not an end all. The Triple Crown is a rare accomplishment, not an end all. I think cases can be made for both Trout and Cabrera. I am somewhat surprised that the voting wasn't closer, but then again, some voters may have felt that since Trout won ROY, they could slide him to #2 in lieu of Cabrera who has put up some fine seasons.

I am still unsure how Verlander gets voted 3rd behind Weaver for Cy Young. Those are the guys that need to be called out.

**Antrat** · 11-16-2012, 07:47 AM

I'm so glad Trout didn't win. I don't trust players whose neck is larger than their head.

**rhino** · 11-16-2012, 08:08 AM

Awesome! Congrats to Miggy!

I feel very fortunate to be a Tiger fan right now and being able to watch Cabrera and Verlander put up numbers that place them among having some of the best seasons ever by MLB players.

Next year let it be Prince's turn!

**T&P_Fan** · 11-16-2012, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by ben9753

It's pretty ridiculous that you get 10 votes. This leads to to things like "he finished 15th in MVP voting in 2012" being said.

I think it's actually the coolest part of it all. Then when you're looking back with through baseball reference with your buddies and say something like, "did you know player X finished 13th in MVP voting?" We used to do that all the time in college.

As far as how the vote went, I think they got it right, it shouldn't have been close and it wasn't.

**froggyvk** · 11-16-2012, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by Casimir

That's terrific! The local sports radio drive home guy brought up the Ben Zobrist WAR from last season during an interview with Jay Jaffe this week. I am surprised he didn't mention 2009 as well as he is usually on top of such things. But there wasn't much response to that factoid.

WAR is a tool, not an end all. The Triple Crown is a rare accomplishment, not an end all. I think cases can be made for both Trout and Cabrera. I am somewhat surprised that the voting wasn't closer, but then again, some voters may have felt that since Trout won ROY, they could slide him to #2 in lieu of Cabrera who has put up some fine seasons.

I am still unsure how Verlander gets voted 3rd behind Weaver for Cy Young. Those are the guys that need to be called out.

Zobrist was 8th in Fangraphs' WAR, which handles defense a little better. Trout led in both versions of WAR by 2.5+ wins, while Zobrist only led the AL in rWAR by 0.5. Interestingly, since 2009 Zobrist does lead the AL in WAR, according to Baseball Reference, but I like FanGraphs version quite a bit better, and I think it's more of being a really good player for a span of a couple of seasons without actually being the best in the league, similar to how I feel about Jered Weaver as a pitcher, in addition to playing above average defense at 2B and RF and average defense at SS.

**redshark63** · 11-16-2012, 10:46 AM

Well, it's official now - B-R has updated Cabrera's page with his MVP!

Miguel Cabrera Statistics and History - Baseball-Reference.com

**Oblong** · 11-16-2012, 10:49 AM

Mitch Albom writes a column today that recycles every cliche out there against stat people into one column and on the flip side Keith Law says Cabrera winning the award is "embarassing". Tools. Both of them.

**tiger337** · 11-16-2012, 10:59 AM

Charles, WAR doesn't work well for players who play multiple positions because you are summing together the results of small sample sizes. This is why not many people insisted that Zobrist should win the award. A careful analyst should not just use WAR blindly. You should look at each component separately and see if it makes sense before adding everything together. In the case of Cabrera and Trout, there is no way you could reasonably construct WAR and have Cabrera finish ahead of Trout. The only way would be if you totally disregarded both base running and defense and assumed that they were equal in those areas. That is the reason they are being so adamant.

That's not to say that a vote for Cabrera was wrong. I would strongly argue that Trout was the best player, but MVP does not have to mean best. I've seen a lot of people use criteria like team making the playoffs or second half statistics. It's fine to use those things if you are consistent and use them every year, not just the years they help your favorite player.

I also agree strongly that Trout's candidacy was not a new school thing. There is nothing new about looking at base running and defense. It goes all the way back to Cobb versus Ruth and Williams versus Dimaggio. This is what the Cabrera vs Trout debate should have been about. It's not old school versus old school. Its best hitter in baseball versus great all around player. It's a classic argument.

**Biff Mayhem** · 11-16-2012, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by Oblong

Mitch Albom writes a column today that recycles every cliche out there against stat people into one column and on the flip side Keith Law says Cabrera winning the award is "embarassing". Tools. Both of them.

As long as the mustard is still there.

**redshark63** · 11-16-2012, 11:05 AM

I'm sure it has been mentioned before, but Trout was shifted to LF in about 40 of his 108 CF starts, replacing Trumbo and Peter Bourjos replacing him.

Questions: Was/is Bourjos that much more superior an CF than Trout?
How bad was Trumbo in LF that required him to be substituted in 42 of his 66 LF games?

Trout obviously had an awesome year, but with all the talk of his defensive prowess, I figure that replacing Bourjos for Trumbo (in part) must be a notable defensive upgrade, considering Trumbo's solid offensive numbers.

Also do his innings/time in LF vs. CF factored into Trout's defensive ratings (higher weighting for CF vs. LF)?

**tiger337** · 11-16-2012, 11:37 AM

Angels fans have Bourjos ranked a little bit ahead of Trout on the Fan Scouting Report. They are both given high marks for range skills , but difference appears to be that Bourjos has a better throwing arm.

2012 Scouting Report - By the Fans, For the Fans

I suspect Leyland would probably just leave him in CF and have Bourjos replace Trumbo in left. Scioscia likes to manage more aggressively, whereas Leyland seems to like to leave things alone and not risk hurting a players confidence or insulting him.

And yes, innings in LF vs CF are factored into WAR. IN fact, Cabrera got more points for difficulty of position because he played 3B almost every game and didn't get switched to an easier position.

**redshark63** · 11-16-2012, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by tiger337

Angels fans have Bourjos ranked a little bit ahead of Trout on the Fan Scouting Report. They are both given high marks for range skills , but difference appears to be that Bourjos has a better throwing arm.

2012 Scouting Report - By the Fans, For the Fans

I suspect Leyland would probably just leave him in CF and have Bourjos replace Trumbo in left. Scioscia likes to manage more aggressively, whereas Leyland seems to like to leave things alone and not risk hurting a players confidence or insulting him.

And yes, innings in LF vs CF are factored into WAR. IN fact, Cabrera got more points for difficulty of position because he played 3B almost every game and didn't get switched to an easier position.

Thank you, Lee.

So Scioscia, in late innings, values Bourjos's better defense/lesser offense over Trumbo's offense/lesser(?) defense? Not necessarily unusual, but, I guess that speaks to Trumbo's defense as much as anything.

BTW, what did Angel fans think of Trumbo's defense?

**tiger337** · 11-16-2012, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by redshark63

Thank you, Lee.

So Scioscia, in late innings, values Bourjos's better defense/lesser offense over Trumbo's offense/lesser(?) defense? Not necessarily unusual, but, I guess that speaks to Trumbo's defense as much as anything.

BTW, what did Angel fans think of Trumbo's defense?

It's in the link above. Not terrible, but way below the other two.

**John_Brian_K** · 11-16-2012, 12:10 PM

Love this:

Here

"Bob Dutton, Kansas City Star: "Why Cabrera? The simple answer is I believe the players know more about what players do and mean in terms of value than I do. I talked to a lot of players (not just Royals) and to other reporters who talked to a lot of players -- and the result was overwhelming. They said Cabrera was the MVP and, generally, said it wasn't close."

**John_Brian_K** · 11-16-2012, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by Oblong

Mitch Albom writes a column today that recycles every cliche out there against stat people into one column and on the flip side Keith Law says Cabrera winning the award is "embarassing". Tools. Both of them.

Yup. I do not think Law had a vote, but I thought I heard him say (on the radio) 'on his ballot' he had Cano over Miggy and had Miggy thiiird! lol