Naturals first baseman Miguel Cabrera
Since the World Series ended a few weeks ago, the biggest debate in baseball has been Miguel Cabrera vs. Mike Trout, who should be the American League MVP? It’s been dubbed “Old School” vs. “New School” in terms of player evaluation. “Old School” being traditional statistics like batting average, home runs and RBI and “New School” methodology using stats like WAR, OPS+ and UZR. This isn’t the first time this debate has popped up. Statheads claimed victory in 2010 when Felix Hernandez won the AL Cy Young award despite only recording 13 wins that season, a total which many believe would have disqualified him in years past.
So this year we have Cabrera, who led the league in those traditional batting stat categories, thus earning him the first Triple Crown in 45 years. And then we have Trout, whose base running and defensive prowess helped him put together what the advanced metrics would tell us was the greatest non-Barry Bonds steroid-aided season in at least 20 years. The debate for DTBL MVP was similar, except in fantasy baseball, we don’t care about defense. Nonetheless, the same two players figured to be the top contenders for the award. In the end, and quite surprisingly to yours truly, Miguel Cabrera wound up winning both awards in fairly comfortable fashion. He is the 2012 DTBL Most Valuable Player.
The Naturals path to the DTBL Championship has been well documented by now. But Cabrera’s contribution to that title cannot be overstated. The Naturals offense took some huge blows, dating back to last winter when Victor Martinez tore his ACL, causing him to miss the entire 2012 season. It continued throughout the year when they lost several other key players to injuries, most notably Troy Tulowitzki. However, the offense was just good enough to keep them in the race, almost entirely thanks to Cabrera. He hit .330 with 44 home runs, 139 RBI and 109 runs scored. He led the DTBL in HR and RBI, but did not win the Triple Crown in this league, finishing fourth in batting average. Only Trout scored more runs than him, so Cabrera finished in the top four of every offensive category except stolen bases. Needless to say, he led the Naturals in all four of those categories as well, with only Andrew McCutchen even coming close to him in most of them.
Cabrera was a first round selection of the Naturals back in 2004 and won the DTBL Rookie of the Year award that season. He has now won three DTBL titles. Carl Crawford is the only other player who has contributed to all three of the Naturals championships, though Crawford’s contributions were quite limited this year. Cabrera has bounced around at three different positions for the Naturals (OF, 3B, 1B), but his hitting has remained consistently solid. Albert Pujols is probably the only other player who has consistently produced at such a high level for almost a full decade now. This is his first DTBL MVP award though. Cabrera has an incredible .321 career average. He passed the 300 home run milestone late in this season (now has 309 in his DTBL career). He also surpassed the 1,000 RBI mark this year too. He is the Naturals’ franchise record holder in every offensive category except stolen bases. Having played almost entirely at third base this year, next year he will shift back to 3B in the DTBL as well, creating some exciting possibilities for the Naturals.
So that brings us to Trout. The DTBL Rookie of the Year easily could have won this award too. He led the league in runs and stolen bases, and even edged out Cabrera in batting average in this league since the Mavericks missed out on his first few MLB games of the year. Trout bested Cabrera in three of five fantasy categories. Also, the Triple Crown wasn’t in play here either. So how exactly did Cabrera win this award? Well, one crucial tie-breaker could have been the fact that the Naturals finished one point ahead of the Mavericks, making them the league champions. In extremely tight races, team success can certainly enter into the equation. Personally, I think the Tigers making the playoffs and the Angels missing out was a poor reason to vote Cabrera over Trout in the AL race considering the Angels actually won more games than the Tigers. But it is a totally justifiable reason to give the nod to Cabrera in this league. Also, some may have decided that Rookie of the Year was enough of an honor for Trout this year. Surely, there will be other MVP opportunities for him down the road.
What surprised me was the way the DTBL (and AL) vote turned out. Not only did Cabrera win, but it wasn’t really that close. In fact, Trout was closer to finishing third than he was to winning the award. Cabrera received seven first place votes, two seconds and one fourth for a total of 87 points. Trout was only at the top of two ballots and received 66 points. Jackalope outfielder Ryan Braun received a first place vote as well and finished just seven points behind Trout. Braun was barely even in the NL MVP discussion, but that is almost certainly due to what many believed to be his tainted 2011 NL MVP award. He had another terrific season but was bested by a pair of players who had historic years. Cougars outfielder Josh Hamilton finished in fourth place and another Natural, Andrew McCutchen, finished fifth. So second through fifth places were all occupied by outfielders. NL MVP, and Demigods catcher, Buster Posey came in sixth.
Click here to view the full MVP voting results.
Before I wrap this up, I want to go back to the Cabrera/Trout debate and add some of my personal thoughts. First of all, I have been amused/amazed by the fallout from yesterday’s announcement. Some statheads are in complete bewilderment, thinking this result is a slap in their faces. On the other hand, some “traditionalists” are using this opportunity to mock these people they view as “new-age nerds”. I think both sets of people are acting ridiculously. A vote for Cabrera OR Trout is completely justifiable. They both had tremendous seasons. Personally, I voted for Trout in this league and would have done the same if I had an AL MVP vote, but I completely understand Cabrera winning this award, and actually expected it.
One thing people need to keep in mind is that there is no 100% foolproof way of judging a player’s value with statistics. WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is probably the best metric at our disposal today to do that, but even WAR is flawed. First of all, there isn’t even an agreed upon formula for calculating WAR. The two most cited WAR producers (FanGraphs and Baseball Reference) use different formulas, and thus have different results. Also, one major piece of the formula is defense. While defensive stats are getting better every day, they still need to be taken with a grain of salt. For example, am I supposed to believe Alfonso Soriano was the 12th most valuable defensive player in baseball this year? That’s what FanGraph’s UZR rankings tell me. Anybody who watched Trout and Cabrera play can tell you that Trout was a far, far superior defensive player. However, judging exactly what the difference between the two players was, in terms of value to their teams, is nearly impossible. Personally, I believe the defensive ratings for those two players are fairly accurate, but this is only my opinion and is very much open to debate.
On to the rest of the post-season! I still have one more season recap to write (covering the non-contenders), so look for that soon. Then we’ll start focusing on 2013. By the way, I am definitely implementing the suggested rule change to push back the roster cut deadline. I haven’t set the official deadline yet, but it will probably be in early February. You still will not be able to trade players until cuts have been made, so we are in a bit of a roster freeze period until the winter ends. At the moment, this is the only rule change I have decided upon for next year, but that may change. Further dialogue is encouraged.