Last September, the American League
had one of the toughest questions to answer: Who would be MVP? Miguel Cabrera was dominating the regular stats, and could see that Triple Crown finally come
back to baseball. But then a rookie named Mike Trout from Anaheim came out of
nowhere and was wowed by his sabermetric statistics.
Here were the stats from last year
(bold indicates league leader, WAR according to BaseballReference):
Miguel Cabrera: .330/.393/.606, 44
home runs, 139 RBI’s, 205 hits, 7.3 WAR, 29 years old in 2012.
Mike Trout: .326/.399/.564, 129 runs, 30 homers, 83 RBI’s, 49 steals, 169 OPS+, 10.9 WAR, 20 years old in 2012.
Both were all-stars and won the
silver slugger award. Cabrera won the MVP, while Trout won the Rookie of the
Year. Both votes weren’t even close.
If I had to pick who should’ve won
MVP, I probably would’ve gone Trout. At first I said Cabrera no doubt, particularly
because he won the Triple Crown, and nobody did that since Carl Yastrzemski in
1967 (he would win the MVP, and had a 12.4 WAR). But looking more into it, I
realized that his stats were just ok. He broke his career high in home runs and
RBI’s, granted. He also had the most hits in his career in a single season. He
batted .330, but his career high is .344. He also walked much less than in his
usual years. He only had a .393 OBP, which is usually good, but his career
average is .399. Last year he walked 66 times. This year he has walked 65
times. On average, he walks 78 times per year.
Cabrera also grounded into 28 double
plays, the most in the AL. His defense has never been superb either, having a
career -11.3 dWAR in his 11 year career. In fact, he probably had a better year
the year before, where he batted .344/.448/.586 with a 7.6 WAR.
Mike Trout has done the little
things better than Cabrera. He has plenty of speed, which helps a lot, and
grounded into only seven double plays last season. He takes much more pitches
than Cabrera, 2077 this year compared to Cabrera’s 1672. This has allowed Trout
to walk more or find his perfect pitch to hit. He leads the AL with 67 walks
this year, and had exactly 67 last year. His defense is much better, making a
robbed home run look easy. Last year he had a 2.1 dWAR, but this year it
actually is a mediocre -1.4. This might be because he can catch home runs with
ease, but he doesn’t have the best arm throwing at home. He has yet to make an
assist this year, or a double play. He can play any outfield position, which is
good.
Also remember that Trout is the
fifth youngest player in the MLB, he can still improve. Cabrera is 30, but is
actually playing the best he’s ever played.
They do have some of the same
stats, too. Both walk at about the same rate. Trout has 67 walks and Cabrera
has 65. Trout’s BABIP is .371 this year, while Cabrera’s is .372. They are tied
in runs at 79. Trout leads the AL with 143 hits, and Cabrera has 141. These
stats sometimes can determine an MVP, but this time, we can’t. On to the other
stats!
This year, Cabrera’s WAR is 6.1,
while Trout’s is 6.0. Right now, if MVP talking was put to the table, I would
say it’s a tie. I honestly believe that it could go either way. If I had to
pick somebody to win it, I would probably say Cabrera. He has to work much
harder to win the Triple Crown the way Chris Davis is hitting, but the fact
that Cabrera has already reached 100 RBI’s is phenomenal. He is having a much
better season than last year, which many thought was not possible. If I had to
pick one to put on “my team,” I would pick Trout, not only because he’s much
younger, but because they only pay him $510K. Granted, he will get a raise once
his contract expires.
Both these players are some of the
greatest players baseball has ever seen. If they keep it up, both will be in
the Hall of Fame. I love watching this race, and I’m glad that this is happening
once again.
Happy birthday, Mike Trout.
-Evan Boyd
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