Naturals third baseman Miguel Cabrera
For the second straight year, the American League MVP vote caused a lively debate about the meaning of “value” and the use of new advanced stats to determine said value. The end result, both years, was a MVP win for old school stat champion Miguel Cabrera over sabermetrician darling Mike Trout. The debate was/is slightly different when it comes to fantasy baseball since fielding value is meaningless and base running only matters in terms of stolen bases and runs scored. Trout received strong consideration for the DTBL MVP award last year, falling a little short. But this year, he wasn’t even the second choice. This wasn’t terribly surprising since almost the only reason why Trout was deemed more valuable than Cabrera by some is because the gap between the two players on defense was so enormous. Again, fielding doesn’t matter in fantasy baseball, so for the second straight year, Naturals third baseman Miguel Cabrera is the DTBL Most Valuable Player.
Had the 2013 season ended in August, even sabermetricians would have been on board with a Cabrera AL MVP, despite his defensive flaws. But multiple injuries plagued him through the final month or so of the season, making him a shell of the player he had been up to that point. A healthy Cabrera is simply the best hitter in baseball right now. Although he did not threaten to win the triple crown this year like he did in the AL in 2012 (and came close in the DTBL as well), he still finished at or near the top of the league in four of the five offensive categories. The one category he led, batting average, was the category that kept him from winning the DTBL triple crown last year. Cabrera hit a robust .348, 25 points higher than any other player. He hit 44 home runs and drove in 137 runs, bested by only Chris Davis in each category. He finished third in the league with 103 runs scored. Had he been healthy down the stretch, a .350/50/150 season was within reach. But it is hard not to be impressed with his actual numbers.
Cabrera has replaced Albert Pujols as the safest bet in baseball to put up obscene numbers year in and year out. He has hit .320 or better in eight of his ten DTBL seasons, all with the Naturals. Only once did he fail to hit 30 home runs (2006) and he has NEVER had a DTBL season with fewer than 100 RBI. So basically, the worst season of his career was still better than what all but a handful of players did this year. It bodes well for a team’s offense when they can pencil in a likely .320, 40, 130 from their best player every year. Although the Naturals were unable to defend their title this year, Cabrera was obviously not the reason.
The MVP vote was very interesting. Cabrera won fairly comfortably, but he was not close to being a unanimous selection. He was first on seven ballots, second on two and third on one for a total of 89 points. Cougars outfielder Chris Davis had a huge breakout year, slugging 53 home runs and also leading the league in RBI. He wound up leading the way among a pack of three players who fell a little short of winning the award. Davis received two first place votes and four seconds, but was inexplicably left off one ballot. However, it didn’t cost him first runner up status as he finished with 59 points. Another breakout star, Jackalope first baseman Paul Goldschmidt finished third. He accumulated 48 points, just barely edging out Trout’s 46. Trout did receive one first place vote, but otherwise wasn’t strongly considered. Like Davis, he was also surprisingly left off a ballot. Finally, the biggest oddity of the vote was the fifth place finisher. Not that he didn’t deserve to finish fifth, but it is strange to see the most consensus in the vote to be for a player finishing fifth. Eight out of the ten voters believed Mavericks outfielder Adam Jones was the fifth most valuable player in the league. Sure enough, he came in fifth with eight points. Also interesting was NL MVP Andrew McCutchen receiving just two votes, putting him seventh.
Click here to view the full MVP voting results.
Thanks to everyone for getting your ballots submitted so quickly. With that, we are now ready for winter. Since most people seemed to prefer the late roster cut deadline we implemented last year, I think we will keep it that way permanently. So the no-trade period will continue until after roster cuts are made in early February. If you have ideas for 2014 rule changes, feel free to send them my way or get a discussion going on the message board (although site traffic will probably be very light the next few months).
Have a great Thanksgiving!