It’s possible, if not probable, that the BBWAA will fail to elect Mike Trout next month as the American League’s Most Valuable Player for the fourth time in five years, a near half-decade-long stretch of what’s difficult to be viewed as anything other than illogical thinking or misguided debate mongering that, if continued, will likely be looked upon decades from now by the baseball community with a sense of regret and confusion.

This marks the third consecutive year (2014, 2015) in which I’ve updated the historical context of Trout’s current run, and each season, the already obvious becomes even more apparent: Mike Trout isn’t just the best player in baseball; he’s one of the greatest ever to walk the earth. He is Mickey Mantle. He is Willie Mays. He is Barry Bonds, before the steroids. Steroid-era Bonds aside, Trout’s probably the best baseball player most people reading this post have ever seen.

Every position player in MLB history with more bWAR than Mike Trout (47.7) over any 5-year stretch, ever:

 

— August Fagerstrom (@AugustFG_) October 4, 2016

The back and forth over the finer points of the subjectivity of the word “valuable” has grown tired, as has the common refrain of those who suggest “It isn’t the Most Outstanding Player Award.” And, it’s true — that’s not the name of the award. But, at a certain point, doesn’t “outstanding” win out? When the “outstanding” stands for “as or more outstanding than Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, Carl Yastrzemski and Joe DiMaggio ever were,” can’t that make up for whatever arbitrary standard one has set in order to create a universe in which all-time great season after all-time great season can be met with a second-place finish and a pat on the back at the end of the year?

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Following Torontos’ Wild Card-clinching win over the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Sunday, I asked Blue Jays reliever Joe Biagini if he’d just thrown the biggest inning of his life. Before answering, he paused to watch a champagne-soaked teammate traipse across the clubhouse, adorned in only a jockstrap, amid a cacophony of exultations.

“Probably,” mused Biagini. “Yesterday’s, today’s. They just kind of keep getting bigger.”

This one was huge. The 26-year-old rookie right-hander had entered in the eighth inning with the tying run on second base, and Dustin Pedroia — .318/.376/.449 on the season — due up. Two outs were needed to preserve a precious lead. That’s exactly what he got.

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Remember the kid in high school who always got straight “A”s? While everybody else was going about their business doing their best to stay afloat, that kid would seek out his or her own challenges just to try to make school interesting. Whether you loved, hated, or were that kid, you’ll never forget the way he or she seemingly operated at another level. In major-league baseball this year, there were a few players worthy of a comparison to that kid, but right now we’re going to talk about the one team who warrants the comparison: the Cubs. Specifically, we’re going to look at one way they challenged themselves and how it might pay off in the playoffs.

How do you improve when you’re already the best? That’s a somewhat obnoxious oversimplification of the situation the Cubs faced prior to the July trade deadline, but it’s not without merit. The Cubs have had ups and downs throughout the season, but it would be disingenuous to attempt to contend that a team ranking atop the majors in wins, team RA9, position-player wRC+, and defense is anything less than the best. They enter the playoffs the easy favorites on paper and, remarkably, that probably would have been true even if the team had failed to make a single upgrade at the trade deadline.

Of course, they didn’t stay quiet in July. As you know, their big splash was the acquisition of Aroldis Chapman – a move which helped shore up their bullpen as well as address their lack of left-handed relief options. Chapman has been predictably great for the Cubs and figures to be an important part of their postseason run, but that’s not the move we need to talk about. The Chapman acquisition is important, but its impact is boringly straightforward. The more intriguing move was the acquisition of another left-handed pitcher: Mike Montgomery.

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Episode 687
Dave Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs. During this edition of FanGraphs Audio, he discusses David Ortiz’s credentials for the Hall of Fame; examines the concept of externality, from the field of Economics, in the context of baseball; and provides a status update on the actual, current members of the Dodgers’ pitching staff.

This episode of the program either is or isn’t sponsored by SeatGeek, which site removes both the work and also the hassle from the process of shopping for tickets.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 27 min play time.)

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Today is the day without baseball, and without the ability to watch baseball to pass the time, we turn to something even more frivolous: discussing baseball awards to pass the time. MVP and Cy Young thinkpieces have been flying across my Twitter timeline all afternoon, while our own Eno Sarris ponders evaluating managers statistically for his award vote. And, while Gold Glove finalists won’t be announced for another few weeks, the data is all there, so I might as well continue my annual tradition of objectively crowning the year’s best defenders, according to the publicly available metrics on hand.

Regarding eligibility, I used the same qualification rules used by Rawlings for the official award. If you’d like, you can find those here. Only players who qualify for the actual award qualify here. Once having my player pool, I pulled three advanced defensive metrics for consideration: Defensive Runs Saved, calculated by Baseball Info Solutions, Ultimate Zone Rating, calculated by Mitchel Lichtman and used as the in-house FanGraphs metric, and Fielding Runs Above Average, calculated by Baseball Prospectus and used as their in-house defensive metric. I summed the three, then averaged them together to figure a “total” defensive runs saved number.

You already know this, but the numbers don’t always agree. Sometimes, people don’t like that, but it is what it is. That’s why I prefer to look at them all. I’ll always be confident in the defender who’s rated as positive by all three, moreso than the guy rated positive by two and average or below average by another. By the same token, I’ll always be confident in the defender with one excellent grade and two average grades, moreso than the guy with three average grades, because the numbers see something excellent in the first guy that isn’t apparent in the other. That excellent grade isn’t coming from nowhere. The numbers are subject to noise, but they’re not liars, and I think we can all agree that, generally speaking, they pass the eye test.

For catchers, things are a bit trickier, and the model used by Baseball Prospectus is the only one that adjusts for things like the pitcher (on throwing and blocking) and the umpire and batter (on framing), so I’ve just pulled straight from BP’s leaderboards there. UZR doesn’t exist for pitchers, so only DRS and FRAA are used.

Enough of the methodology mumbo-jumbo. Awards time.

While Masahiro Tanaka wasn’t recognized as a finalist in the official voting last year, he did place third in this study, and this year, he ought to take home the hardware. Since entering the league in 2014, only Dallas Keuchel and Zack Greinke have more Defensive Runs Saved than Tanaka, who is both efficient at controlling the run game, and also fields his position well, due in part to good fielding stance, quick hands, and athleticism, all of which are on display above. Apparently it’s also beneficial to pitch in Canada with a two-letter first name that ends in “A.”

Iron Gloves: Carlos Rodon (-4), Jered Weaver (-4), Ivan Nova (-4).
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Ben and Sam conduct multiple Mike Trout drafts and discuss DJ LeMahieu’s batting title, the AL Cy Young race, Vin Scully’s sign-off, and more.

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Depending on your perspective, you might think that Eric Hosmer had a career season. After all, he wasn’t just an All-Star, he was the All-Star Game MVP! He hit 20 homers for the first time — his 25 dingers were six more than his previous season best. And he drove in 104 runs — 11 more than his previous best. And yet, for the third time in his career, he was a replacement player or worse in terms of WAR. Did Eric Hosmer just have the worst 100-RBI season on record?

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Importantly, for the Cubs, this season isn’t over. Obviously, this season isn’t over — in a sense their real season hasn’t begun. We’ve known the Cubs would make the playoffs for something like five and a half months, and only now do they get to compete for the grand prize. Because there are games remaining, this might not seem like the best time to examine the 2016 Cubs through a historical lens.

I believe the opposite, though. At last, we have final, official regular-season statistics. Those are the stats that matter the most. And even though the Cubs are clearly Team No. 1 moving forward, the odds are still better that they don’t win the World Series. They’re probably going to lose, somewhere and somehow. And I don’t want to allow for playoff emotion to color the way people feel about this analysis. This season, the Cubs won eight more games than anyone else. The Cubs had a better run differential than anyone else, by a margin of 68. Clearly, they were really good. But how good, historically, when you’re talking about more than 100 years?

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I’ve got a vote for American League Manager of the Year this season and I’m terrified. My first vote as a member of the Baseball Writer’s Association, and it’s the impossible one.

Maybe impossible is too tough a word. I’m sure I’ll figure something out in time to submit a vote. But evaluating the productivity of a manager just seems so difficult. We’ve seen efforts that use the difference between projected and actual wins, or between “true talent” estimations for the team and their actual outcomes. But those attribute all sorts of random chance to the manager’s machinations.

I’d like to instead identify measurable moments where a manager exerts a direct influence on his team, assign those values or ranks, and see where each current manager sits. So what are those measurable moments?

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The 2016 regular season has come to an end, and tomorrow, the postseason begins. The Blue Jays and Orioles square off for a winner-take-all game to determine who advances to play the Rangers in the ALDS, and then on Wednesday, the Giants and Mets do the same to see who gets to try to take down the Cubs. Both games look like they could be a lot of fun, with lots of homers possible in the AL Wild Card game, and lots of strikeouts likely in the NL match-up, which will feature Noah Syndergaard and Madison Bumgarner.

I know the play-in games aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m a fan of this format. The Wild Card games are some of the best drama baseball provides, and starting off the postseason with a couple of elimination games allows the playoffs to get off to a very exciting start.

It is, of course, a wild and dramatic change from MLB’s regular season. That six month marathon tests teams on their depth, on how well they can mix and match different pieces when injuries strike, on whether they have enough good role players throughout the roster to make up for the inevitable slumps from the star players. The postseason is much more of a sprint, a three week attempt to have a couple key guys get hot and carry the team to 11 or 12 wins in 15 to 20 games. Rotations shrink, bullpen usage goes up dramatically, and one player really can make a dramatic difference in a team’s results.

Postseason baseball is a very different game than regular season baseball. And because of that, it is both great and terrible at the same time.

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