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A question was recently asked of  14 players. It doesn’t have an easy answer. Given the subjectivity involved, it doesn’t even have a right answer.

Who is the best player in the game?

Their responses are listed below in alphabetical order.

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Michael Bowden, Chicago Cubs pitcher: “Miguel Cabrera.” [No elaboration.]

Jackie Bradley, Jr. Boston Red Sox outfielder: “The best player in baseball is Mike Trout. He’s got the overall package. It’s not just hitting — and he can definitely hit — but also his defense and his base paths. He’s got the whole package.”

Chris Davis, Baltimore Orioles infielder: “Miguel Cabrera. We’re talking about a guy who might win the triple crown again this year. It’s ridiculous that he did it last year and might do it again. He’s hitting about .350 and he’s not even 100 percent healthy. I’d say he’s definitely the best player in baseball right now.”

Brian Dozier, Minnesota Twins infielder; “Miguel Cabrera is the best hitter. He separates himself from every other hitter in this league, because he hits for both power and average, which is tough to do. As far as offensive categories, he’s definitely the best. As good as Mike Trout is, he’s also only in his second year. Miggy has been doing it for 10 years. It’s not like he plays a bad third base, either. I‘d have to go with Miggy as the best player in the game.”

Brian Duensing, Minnesota Twins pitcher; “Miguel Cabrera. Personally, I don’t know if it’s possible to get him out. He plays a decent third base. He has a lot of power and can hit to any part of the field. It’s tough to say [best] in all of baseball, because we don’t see the National League guys as much, but Cabrera is the first player that comes to mind.”

Sam Fuld, Tampa Bay Rays outfielder: “Mike Trout. He dominates in all three facets of the game: hitting, baserunning and defense. He looks and runs like an NFL linebacker but possesses as good a set of baseball skills as just about anyone in the game.”

Adrian Gonzalez, Los Angeles Dodgers infielder: “Miguel Cabrera. Absolutely. He’s the best hitter, and he’s pretty good defensively, too.”

Casey Janssen, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher: “I’ve got to say Miguel Cabrera. He’s the biggest threat there is at the plate, and he plays a good enough third base. He puts the team on his back. He has presence. When you play them, you circle his name on the lineup card.”

Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher: “Mike Trout. Miguel Cabrera is the best hitter in the game, no doubt, but Mike Trout is the best player.”

Adam Lind, Toronto Blue jays outfielder: “Mike Trout, I guess, if you’re going to go with overall. He does everything.”

Nate McLouth, Baltimore Orioles outfielder: “I think Mike Trout is. He can do everything. There are a handful of guys you could pick, but as far as all-around game, he’s the best there is.”

Hunter Pence, San Francisco Giants outfielder: “I think it’s safe to say it’s between Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera. WAR? I think it’s kind of a silly statistic. I don’t even know what factors are involved. I remember reading about it a while ago and seeing that you can lose points for the position you play. I don’t understand all that stuff. If I was to look at what I think helps wins games, it’s run production: RBI and runs scored. OPS is a powerful stat, and stealing bases, and defense. That’s what I would look at. It’s fun to analyze that stuff, though.”

Buster Posey, San Francisco Giants catcher: “Can I have two? Miguel Cabrera or Mike Trout. Is that a pretty common answer? It would be a tough call there.”

Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Boston Red Sox catcher: “If you’re talking all-around player, it’s Mike Trout. He plays good defense, steals bases, hits for power, hits for average. If you’re talking best hitter, even if he’s mediocre at his position, you’ve got Miguel Cabrera. He’s just an unbelievable hitter. But best overall player, Mike Trout.”

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FINAL TALLY

Mike Trout: Seven votes (Bradley, Fuld, Kershaw, Lind, McLouth, Pence ½, Posey ½, Saltalamacchia)

Miguel Cabrera: Seven votes (Bowden, Davis, Dozier, Duensing, Gonzalez, Janssen, Pence ½, Posey ½)

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Note: Thanks to Eno Sarris for procuring the quotes from Adrian Gonzalez, Clayton Kershaw, Hunter Pence and Buster Posey, and to Brandon Warne of ESPN Minnesota for procuring the quotes from Brian Dozier and Brian Duensing.

A little under an hour east of here, rising behind one of the world’s largest free-standing natural monoliths, there lies a peak known as Hamilton Mountain. The trail up passes by a breathtaking waterfall and breathstopping cliffs, and the summit affords magnificent views of the Columbia River Gorge and the Cascade peaks towering beyond. As you head out from the trailhead, there’s only one way to go, passing through shrubs and underneath power lines before entering a forest. Soon, though, one arrives at a junction. There are two paths and a sign with arrows, reading “Difficult” and “More Difficult.” The choice is up to the hiker, but no matter which way you pick, you’re going to get to the top.

Mariano Rivera is retiring, which is going to allow us to re-visit the question of who is the game’s best closer. Not that we couldn’t address the question before, but Rivera was the default response, and sometimes people got emotional if you went another way. Now Rivera has removed himself from the pool, and there’s a small host of current candidates to take his place. Among them are Atlanta’s Craig Kimbrel and Los Angeles’ Kenley Jansen, and statistically it can be hard to tell the two apart. Remarkably, they occupy very similar planes. Remarkably, they get there along two very different paths.

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We don’t know each other, but we’re part of the same circle, in that we spend a lot of our time thinking about baseball analysis. And because we’re in the same circle, we share a bunch of inside jokes. They might not feel like inside jokes, but that’s precisely what they are. Jokes about Jose Molina framing pitches. Jokes about Yuniesky Betancourt playing defense. Jokes about Delmon Young playing defense. Jokes about Delmon Young playing offense. Jokes about Delmon Young acquisitions. We’ve all been programmed to make fun of Delmon Young, and so we’re also programmed to make fun of the teams that like to use him. At least, this was the case, and then Young wound up back on the Rays.

We’re all biased. When Young went to the Phillies, people ripped them to bits, even though Young technically wasn’t even guaranteed a job at first. When Young eventually wound up with the Rays, though, we all paused. We wanted to make fun, but because it was the Rays, we also wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. That’s something the Rays have earned, and now we figure when they do something weird, they must be up to something. Our assumption is generally that the Rays are right, even when we don’t know why, and the Rays made a particularly curious move on Wednesday against the Indians. It wasn’t the in-game equivalent of signing Delmon Young — who, incidentally, homered, off Danny Salazar — but there was something very much anti-traditional.

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Yesterday, the nation got to watch Francisco Liriano go up against Johnny Cueto. Come Thursday, Adam Wainwright and Clayton Kershaw are going to pitch, albeit not opposite each other. This is the playoffs, meaning the teams left are good, which means the players left are good, which means the pitchers left are good. There are going to be some incredible potential pitchers’ duels, and some of those are going to work out as actual pitchers’ duels. But Wednesday brings us a special one, even if the majority of baseball fans don’t know a thing about the guys taking the hill. As the Rays and Indians fight in the American League wild-card playoff, they’ll be throwing two of the league’s better and more unknown starters.

The Indians are turning to Danny Salazar, who’s far from a household name. Those who know him, at least, understand his sex appeal. The Rays, meanwhile, are turning to Alex Cobb, and there are people in Cobb’s own home who might not recognize him. Cobb certainly doesn’t have Salazar’s eye-popping stuff, but what the two do have in common are eye-popping numbers — numbers that put them in elite company. Numbers that make this a showdown to anticipate.

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One of the oldest cliches in baseball is that pitchers have to establish their fastball. The average Major League pitcher throws their fastball about 60% of the time, and any deviation from that can get you labeled a junkballer.

Francisco Liriano, with the Pirates season on the line, told that cliche to go pound sand.

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This evening, the Reds and Pirates will square off in the NL Wild Card game, with the winner advancing to play the Cardinals starting on Thursday. Last week, I wrote up my suggestions for how Clint Hurdle should handle his pitching staff, utilizing an army of relievers to keep the Reds left-handed bats at bay. However, the Pirates are not the only team that can and should go match-up crazy today, as Pittsburgh’s line-up essentially invites Dusty Baker to play the same kind of game.

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From last year until forever, maybe, one-game playoffs are going to be a part of our postseason viewing reality. Entire seasons are going to come down to nine-inning snapshots, meaning everything’s going to ride on winning those nine innings. One of the best ways to maximize win probability is to be aggressive with the bullpen. To be aggressive with getting it involved, and to be aggressive with changing it up. Starters, as a rule, get worse as a game goes on. Relievers are good, especially fresh. Almost every one-game playoff preview we write here will suggest a starter not last too long, because that tends not to be the sensible course. Monday night, there was a one-game playoff between the Rangers and Rays. The Rays opted not to use their bullpen at all. The Rays will face the Indians in Cleveland on Wednesday, in large part thanks to David Price.

So much of the pregame discussion focused on Price’s poor personal history against the Rangers over his career. Nevermind that Price has gotten a lot better, and that the Rangers have changed, and that they never met before in 2013. The talk was that Price struggled against Texas, especially in Texas. The Rangers, in theory, could go in with confidence, and Price came away with a complete-game seven-hitter, the Rangers scoring just twice and not really threatening after the sixth. Price didn’t pitch like he’d pitched against Texas. He pitched like he’d pitched overall.

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The Rays knocked off the Rangers by three Monday night, and the game, presumably, was not decided by a successful pick-off in the bottom of the first. However, it was a pick-off most interesting, given the actions of James Loney at first base. So while the pick-off is not what people will be talking about Tuesday, it seemed like this should be opened up for a poll, in order to gauge reader opinion.

Following, the play, along with the pertinent rules. Is this obstruction, or is this good defense on Loney’s part? Elvis Andrus was quickly erased, and the Rangers’ odds of winning dropped more than four percentage points. Who’s to say what the inning could’ve become? Do we even need to worry about the context or significance when talking about a rule-book gray area?

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Today marks, basically, the beginning of the postseason, as it’s now that good teams begin being eliminated. There are fewer games each day than before, with every game being more and more important, and there will be a corresponding level of daily analysis. People are going to try to find keys to individual baseball games, because this is how it’s always been, and it’s with that in mind that I’d like to issue you a quick reminder. Last year, MLB debuted the one-game wild-card playoffs. People tried to analyze Orioles vs. Rangers. They tried to analyze Cardinals vs. Braves. In the former game, Joe Saunders bested Yu Darvish. In the latter, the hosts were undone in large part due to errors by Chipper Jones, Dan Uggla, and Andrelton Simmons. The point of the lead-up is to try to know; the magic of the game is that there is no knowing. This is forever going to be the truth.

But it’s still fun to try, to pretend like we could figure things out, and tonight the Rangers host the Rays as the teams battle in a one-game playoff for the right to make another one-game playoff. The starters are going to be Martin Perez and David Price, and there’s something about Price people have honed in on. Price, see, has an ugly history against Texas, and this information is presented to make people think he could struggle again in another big game.

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Over the weekend, the Giants made the first big signing of the off-season, even though it wasn’t technically the off-season yet. Rather than let Hunter Pence get to free agency and potentially start a bidding war for his services, the Giants chose to sign him to a five year, $90 million contract before he got to test the market. I did a very short post in the aftermath of the deal, noting that Pence has pretty similar numbers over the last three years to what Nick Swisher did in his run up to free agency, but that the price to sign the two was pretty different. However, no decision on contract pricing is ever that simple, so let’s take a closer look at what the Giants are paying for in Hunter Pence.

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