MVP flip-flopping: Cabrera will win, but shouldn’t
Miguel Cabrera is going to win the AL MVP, and that’s perfectly fine. He deserves it. I don’t think he deserves it more than Mike Trout, but he’d be nowhere near the most undeserving MVP winner in history.
The guy won a freakin’ Triple Crown, and that hasn’t been done since 1967. You could argue that batting average and RBI are both overrated stats (I would), but even if you accept that they are, no one has led the league in average, homers and RBI since 1967.
So there’s that.
But, a couple things, some of which you’ve probably considered, some you maybe haven’t.
Cabrera is, at best, an average defensive player. At worst, he’s a bad one. He’s a non-factor on the bases.
Trout plays center field and left field, and most fielding measures (the same ones that rank Cabrera as the second-worst fielding third baseman in MLB, anyway) rank him as one of the top five defensive players in all of baseball. Regardless of what you think of stats like UZR, they treat everyone the same, and they rank Trout at the top and Miggy at the bottom.
Trout has a league-high 49 stolen bases in 54 attempts — an amazing 90 percent success rate. He’s better at going from 1st to 3rd on a single or 1st to home on a double than anyone in baseball (yes, they actually measure that).
So he’s very clearly the better player in two of the three major facets of the game for a position player.
As for offense, Trout didn’t win a Triple Crown, but he ain’t exactly a stiff.
A .326 average, .399 OBP, .564 slugging percentage. A league-high 129 runs, 30 homers, 83 RBI, 67 walks, 139 strikeouts. A .958 OPS.
Cabrera finishes at .330, a .393 OBP and .608 slugging percentage. 44 homers, 139 RBI, 109 runs. 66 walks, 97 strikeouts. A 1.002 OPS.
Trout’s adjusted OPS (which factors in ballpark factors) actually ranks Trout ahead of Cabrera (169 to 167).
The hitting edge goes to Cabrera, but barely. More power and more contact, slight edge to Trout in OBP, and while Cabrera has far more RBIs, Trout doesn’t get as many opportunities as a leadoff man. In fact, Fangraphs finds that Trout actually cashes in on RBI opportunities at a higher rate than Cabrera does, but I suppose it’s cheating to actually dig up stats like that, right old people?
Cabrera also grounded into a league-high 28 double plays. But he’s totally clutch, right?
A big argument will be that Cabrera “took his team to the playoffs” and Trout didn’t, but that’s a faulty argument at best. The Tigers won 88 games. The Angels won 89. And the Angels had two playoff teams — Oakland and Texas — in their division. The Tigers had the White Sox, Royals, Indians and Twins. Cabrera didn’t really “rally” the Tigers to a pennant (though he was outstanding down the stretch). The rest of the division stunk the Tigers to the pennant.
Expanding on that, Trout faced the pitching staffs of Oakland, Texas and Seattle 19 times. Cabrera faced Cleveland, Kansas City, Chicago and Minnesota 19 times. Only Chicago’s staff wasn’t terrible.
You could say that shouldn’t matter — you play the schedule in front of you — but then it isn’t all that fair to say Cabrera deserves points for hitting better down the stretch. Every game out of the 162 counts the same.
In fact, one of the best arguments you can make in favor or Cabrera is that he played in 161 games and Trout played in 139. That absolutely matters, and it’s a big reason that I won’t be upset when Cabrera wins.
I know. Just the other day I said I was coming around on Cabrera. I think maybe I was just trying to prepare myself for when Cabrera wins it. I don’t think he’s the right choice. Most of the Tiger fans beating the drums for Cabrera would be making the same case I am for Trout if he was on their team. I’m surprised by how blatantly biased some observers are (as we speak, Stu Whitney is working on a tweet to convince you Avisail Garcia deserves the Rookie of the Year over Trout).
Cabrera has had a historic season. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever see a Triple Crown winner in my life.
Then again, I didn’t think I’d ever see a 70-homer season in my life. Then Mark McGwire did it in 1998. And didn’t win the MVP award. Because he wasn’t the best player in his league that year.
Neither was Miguel Cabrera in 2012.
