Valuable or Not Valuable, Not Less Valuable
I wrote about my feelings on the MVP award earlier today, and I’d say at this point, I’d consider myself somewhat apathetic towards the actual result. People are going to define Most Valuable however they want, and in general, there’s little desire for a consistent, logical approach to coming up with an answer. For many, part of the appeal of the award is its ambiguity. I don’t really like ambiguity all that much, so that part of the process doesn’t appeal to me. And that’s okay. This award doesn’t have to appeal to me. I can sit at home and celebrate Mike Trout tonight whether anyone else is or not.
That said, before I bow out of the conversation entirely, I do want to ask one additional question of those who prefer their MVPs to come from winning teams: why are you simultaneously in favor of Mike Trout finishing second?
The must-come-from-a-winning-team argument can essentially be summed up in the feeling that the goal of every team is to make the playoffs, and any contributions that do not result in the achievement of that goal are of minimal value, because there is no real difference between 70 wins and 90 wins in terms of postseason qualification. All that matters is achieving the final goal, and without achieving that goal, everything was in vain.
I don’t necessarily agree with that position, but I can understand it, and to some degree, I understand that argument’s appeal. But what I don’t understand is why people who believe that argument are still willing to put Trout on their ballot at all, especially above every player in the league not named Miguel Cabrera.
If we disqualify Trout, and every other player on a non-playoff team, because his contributions didn’t result in achievement of The Goal, then what makes Trout more valuable than Josh Donaldson, Evan Longoria, Jacoby Ellsbury, or Max Scherzer? Each of them were clearly excellent in 2013, and for each of them, their achievements helped propel their team to the postseason.
The A’s won the AL West by just 5 1/2 games, and if you remove Josh Donaldson and replace him with a Triple-A scrub, they probably don’t make it to October. Take Scherzer — or any of the Tigers starters, really — out of their rotation and the Indians probably win the AL Central. The Red Sox don’t win 97 games without Ellsbury in center field. Why is Trout more valuable than any of these players, when their superb performances resulted in playoff berths for their teams and Trout’s did not?
These arguments, to me, seem incongruous. On the one hand, it is essentially dismissive of Trout’s performance accruing any value, because his team failed and so his contributions were rendered meaningless. We don’t think Donaldson, Ellsbury, or Scherzer’s contribtions were meaningless, though, so why is it completely acceptable to use this logic to exclude the best player from the first spot on the list but not the second, third, fourth, etc…?
I will readily admit to being biased in favor of logical consistency, and I struggle to see that here, so perhaps I’m missing something. Perhaps there’s a way to reconcile the belief that Trout’s performance has little value compared to Cabrera but more value than other players on winning teams who were 95% as good as Cabrera. I don’t see how those two beliefs co-exist, but I’m open to hearing how these two beliefs are not contradictory.
So, MVPs-must-be-from-winning-team believers, what’s the difference? Why can the best player be the second most valuable, but not the first most valuable? Why is this not a logical contradiction? Why does the take-him-off-the-team-and-they-don’t-make-the-playoffs argument only work for Miguel Cabrera and no one else?
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
1500+ words to explain that your apathy regarding this award?
Good try.
Apathy towards the final result doesn’t necessarily imply apathy regarding how people approach it.
Doh! – ‘explain your apathy’ is what I meant.
I would expect no less effort from someone in Dave’s position, in explaining why he doesn’t care about an association’s most significant award. Better that he lay out his reasons than simply dismiss the award outright without saying why.
There are several counter-arguments that point out pretty clearly how silly it is to say a player isn’t really valuable because his team isn’t making the playoffs anyways.
1. Flip it. If a team wins their division by 10+ games, then they couldn’t possibly have an MVP winner, because they’d have won their division anyways. How valuable is their best player, really? They’d likely be in the same position either way.
2. Play it out further. If a team wins their division by 1 game, then literally every player who helped them win a single game is more valuable than Mike Trout. Because each of them made the difference between making the playoffs and not, whereas Trout did not. Ergo, using this logic, Brandon Inge was more valuable than Mike Trout last season.
Here’s an analogy to consider. We each want to buy something that costs $1. I’ve got a quarter, 8 nickels, and 10 pennies. My “team” of coins is worth 75 cents and falls short of being able to buy the item. You have one dime and 18 nickels. Your “team” is worth $1, and you successfully buy the item.
If your dime more valuable than my quarter simply because it led to a successful item purchase?
Hey, how about a citation there, big guy? That looked really familiar to me because you just copied and pasted and old post of mine!
To James’ first point… the Angels would have to be MORE than 10 games in first place for Trout not to matter. That’s how good he is.
Here’s a link to the post from which you sourced this thing you did not write.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/trout-and-cabrera-here-we-go-again/
The voters overall think being on a winning team is just part of the equation, not a prerequisite, thus feel no inconsistency in voting Cabrera 1st, Trout second and then, say, Donaldson 3rd. Also, the voters basically feel they are voting for best hitter. All other things being equal, best hitter on a winning team. Or, all else equal, best hitter who plays a fielding position. Thus, again,would not feel it inconsistent to vote Cabrera 1st, Trout second, and, say, Ortiz 3rd (if his batting stats were equivalent to Cabrera’s).
I’m not saying this is the right way to vote, but it seems to be the collective mind of the voters and isn’t really very inconsistent (or a logical contradiction), even if it doesn’t appear to value fielding, base-running or positional scarcity as much as we may believe it should.
Another salvo in a debate that certainly should be had, regardless of whether it results in changes in the thought process behind the award. So two things:
1. I figured I would toss another wrench in an objective argument (and not saying I believe in MVP voting this way):
Mike Trout is cost controlled, and puts up MVP caliber numbers while being paid league-minimum-ish. And the Angels spoiled it.
2. Can we please have a not-graphs article about the most thumbs-upped/downed comments of all time on fangraphs?
I still have a job to do, and that job requires me to talk about the things going on in baseball that people are interested in. Writing 1,500 words on Nick Punto wasn’t an option.
And what are you going to tell us next week when you deliver 1500 words on Nick Punto?
That’s the beauty of Fangraphs. Deep dives on the fecklessness of MVP voting and Nick Punto, or an unheralded minor leaguer whose name has hopelessly infected Cistulli’s brain. Room for all of that.
I like Nick Punto!
Me too!!!!
But I’m interested in Nick Punto!
I’m interested in disillusionment towards popular awards as well, though. Hence my fangraphs readership.
I didn’t mean to sound like I was complaining. I enjoyed and agree with both posts on the topic. I just thought it was funny when you claimed apathy towards the result, and then said “I can sit at home and celebrate Mike Trout tonight whether anyone else is or not”.
Enough already, please just congratulate Miggy, even if like Verlander two years ago, it’s through gritted teeth.
Everyone realizes that they probably won’t get to have gay sex with Mike Trout whether he wins MVP or not, right? Either way you can masturbate while calculating his UZR and chatting with KLaw all off season. Carry on your discussion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
Why do people who oppose the managing editor of Fangraphs views so adamantly read his content? Why do they resort to ad hominems and lazy homosexual slurs? Why can’t they simply answer the question laid out in the article, instead deflecting the logical inconsistency in their positions?
I’d be much more interested to read an article about Nick Punto if that’s actually what you care about than a cynical attempt to get page clicks by writing about something you think is irrelevant.
This is essentially the appeal of Carson Cistulli. No one really cares about what he writes, but no one’s more sincere/tries harder.
Writing 1500 words on Nick Punto is a privilege.
I’ll wager that there will be 1500+ words arguing Nate’s comment before all is said and done.
I voted -1 because this post in no way approaches 1500 words, this Fangraphs.
618 words to be exact.
You’re welcome.
This post plus the post from earlier in the day, do in fact add up to over 1500 words.
I’ll celebrate Mike Trout with you tonight…
further taking the argument to its logical extremes — why does Cabrera’s season matter? Sure, they made the playoffs, but if finishing the season not-last in your division has no value, why does finishing the season at best third in the majors have any? The Tigers didn’t win the WS, so Cabrera’s contributions are meaningless. Jacoby Ellsbury, mvp, best player on the only team where what the players did mattered at all.
Well, the Illogicites actually do have a good response to that: the awards are voted before postseason play begins, so they had little way of knowing that only Red Sox players should be eligible.
I’m reminded of the FJM piece that had a baseball-playing tarsier at first base for the final out of the World Series. He catches the ball, he’s the MVP. After all, without that last out, who knows what would have happened? Isn’t that the definition of value?
I agreed generally with Dave, but my problem is, what is the point of the MVP if every year we just hand it to the player with the most WAR? I’m not sure that’s a great process – highest WAR equals auto MVP win? Don’t get me wrong, I love WAR (even though its not a perfect stat and needs improvement – in particular the DH penalty seems excessive and I’d like to give hitters some credit for sequencing), but is it really the ONLY method of comparative player evaluation? It’s silly to make team success such a big part of the MVP conversation, but isn’t there some room for subjective judgement apart from sabermetric analysis?
I think you missed the point of the post entirely.
You are setting up a strawman. No one is arguing that the MVP should be determined only by WAR.
I’m pretty sure that is what Dave is arguing…what would he say MVP should be decided by if not WAR?
Dave is arguing that the context of team success should not influence who is the most valuable player. In other words, Dave is asking the question, “Why do some use Detroit’s success to argue that Cabrera should be MVP, when the MVP is awarded to an individual player?”. Dave is not arguing that Mike Trout should win the MVP because he had more WAR than Miguel Cabrera.
I think he would say WAR should narrow the field, and then to distinguish between candidates in the top WAR band you can look at factors not accounted for by WAR, such as performance in high-leverage situations. You’ll also want to consider how much you trust the individual components of WAR; high degree of confidence for offensive WAR, lower for defense, such that you might want to regress outlier defensive stats towards the mean to distinguish otherwise-similar candidates.
I’m 99% sure that Dave IS arguing that Mike Trout should win the MVP because he had significantly more WAR than Miguel Cabrera (and that it is ridiculous to disqualify Trout b/c the Angels sucked).
However, I completely agree with Anon21 with his proposed method of incorporating WAR into an MVP decision. That would be how I would use WAR to vote for MVP if I had a vote. I suppose there would be a band of 1 or 2 wins that would allow for some finer-grained analysis, but for the past two years the WAR totals for Trout v Cabrera has been so obviously lopsided in favor of Trout there is no reasonable stat-based argument that could be made for Cabrera.
I would imagine Dave sees it similarly, but I would be really interested to see Dave write a piece on the process he would use to vote for MVP (though he claims to have some disdain for the award, and rightfully so, we can all agree it’s a fascinating discussion and the fact that he wrote two long articles in one day implies he has some opinion/interest on the matter). Something like WAR (70%), defense/BABIP regression (10%), wPA or high-leverage performance (10%), and team success (10%) maybe?
I DO think it’s very important for someone in the sabermetric community to explain (to baseball writers and stat skeptics in general) how WAR should be used as a primary component in player comparison but not the EXCLUSIVE data point. I fear sometimes that the stat community wields WAR as a cudgel to bludgeon the writers with (“you’re so dumb, WAR says trout is MVP, how could you think otherwise”) without acknowledging that WAR is not a perfect stat and that other factors could be considered in the discussion.
@Troy:
Then I advise you to work on your reading comprehension, or at least stop projecting other posts points onto this one. Dave doesn’t even mention WAR in this post, and the point of this particular post is an offshoot of whether trout or miggy should win the award.
In any case, one can (and many have) made an argument for trout that doesn’t mention his Wins Above Replacement.
(1) He’s arguably the second best hitter in the American league this year.
(2) He stole 30 more bases than the first best hitter in the American league
(3) He plays a demanding defensive position, and by eye/metric, he played it well. Miguel Cabrera did not.
Regardless of how you value defense, there’s no question that Trout plays a more important position defensively, and does a better job than Miguel Cabrera (who by eye is one of the worst defenders at a less important position). Sure Miguel had a better year than trout offensively, but trout had nearly as good a year as Miguel while playing a more demanding position.
While WAR does effectively capture what Trout has done, IMHO, you don’t need to cite WAR to see that…
I’m not sure why you’re pretending that WAR isn’t at the heart of the debate over Trout vs Cabrera. The point of WAR is to properly value park effects, linear hit weights, baserunning, defense, and positional value – the three points you just made in Trout’s favor (better baserunner, better defender, played a more challenging position). I’m not disagreeing that taken separately, the components of WAR favor Trout just as his total WAR does. But why are you arguing that? (also, by the metrics
My point is can we only judge players based solely their INDIVIDUAL advanced sabermetric production alone (wRC+, DRS, BsR), or does CONTEXTUAL analysis (playing through injuries, BABIP luck, hit sequencing aka RBIs, the reliability/accuracy of defensive stats vs the eye test, lineup protection, team wins, “clutchness” or leverage, historical achievements like a Triple Crown, the value of ISO in an era where power has become radically depressed, playing more games against weaker competition, etc) have any place at all in the conversation? Of course, some of those elements can be approximated using statistics, while some can’t.
We know Dave believes team success should have essentially no bearing at all on the winner, but does he believe that position player value is 0% related to context? I’m not talking about park effects and run environment, but rather the more nuanced and difficult to quantify factors that I referenced above. For example, he made a suggestion that pitcher WAR should be valued at something like 70/30 between FIP and RA9 since we should acknowledge that pitchers have some control over balls in play. I feel we should also acknowledge that hitters are more than just their individual production. Can we develop some contextual element for position players that feeds into WAR? (some combination of % runners driven in, wRC+ of hitters in same lineup, ERA- of opposing pitchers, adjusted wPA, DRS of opposition).
@Troy:
*sigh*
“I’m not sure why you’re pretending that WAR isn’t at the heart of the debate over Trout vs Cabrera.”
Because it isn’t. Personally, I don’t trust WAR, I almost never use it for any purpose at all, yet I have no problem making a case for Trout without it. You don’t need to look up WAR to see that Mike Trout has had a better season than Cabrera. The fact that WAR confirms that Mike Trout played better baseball during the regular season makes me more likely to believe WAR, not the other way around.
“The point of WAR is to properly value park effects, linear hit weights, baserunning, defense, and positional value – ”
Yes, WAR attempts to take into account how a baseball player hits, runs the bases, and plays defense. In other words, the purpose of WAR is properly value what a player does (i.e. hit the ball, play defense, and run the bases). Is there some other aspect to the game by which a player can influence success? Perhaps we should value cheerleading from the sidelines?
That being said, I actually don’t like WAR as a metric. Mostly because I think it is an flawed assessment of a player as it doesn’t measure defense and positional adjustments very well. I respect the attempt at producing a metric that captures what a baseball player does. Apparently, you don’t want to value what a baseball player does but rather what their team does around him.
As someone smarter than I posted on here earlier: let’s say I have a dime and 18 nickels, while you have a quarter and 5 dimes. If we were to evaluate the success of buying a $1 item, is your dime more valuable than my quarter? If you think so, wanna trade your quarter for my dime?
“(playing through injuries, BABIP luck, hit sequencing aka RBIs, the reliability/accuracy of defensive stats vs the eye test, lineup protection, team wins, “clutchness” or leverage, historical achievements like a Triple Crown, the value of ISO in an era where power has become radically depressed, playing more games against weaker competition, etc)”
Some of these measures ARE incorporated into other metrics, and most of these are player-dependent. When evaluating MVP, it is perfectly reasonable to use BABIP or RBIs, because that’s what the player did, and the MVP award isn’t given to the most talented player. The only one you cite that is truly team dependent is team wins. If we’re talking about historical context, how about the fact that Mike Trout put up the best season by a centerfielder in the past 30 years?
“I’m not talking about park effects and run environment, but rather the more nuanced and difficult to quantify factors that I referenced above.”
What difficult to quantify factors do you speak of? You reference multiple context dependent statistics that are pretty straightforward to calculate: BABIP, win probability added (i.e. clutch), time playing through injuries, RBIs, regression of defensive statistics, triple-crown (i.e. batting average, RBI, HRs), strength of schedule). None of these are particularly nuanced.
Lots of people are dumb. Some of them happen to be baseball writers. However, they are not dumb for ignoring WAR, they are dumb for not thinking through what makes a great season for a baseball player.
Trout isn’t the best player because he has the highest WAR. Trout has the highest WAR because he is the best player.
But that’s not what this post was about. It was about the fact that you’re not supposed to win an MVP award if your team misses the playoffs, but somehow it’s fine to finish second. It’s a logical inconsistency.
Troy clearly didn’t even read this article.
The point of an award is to give it out to the person deserving of it, not to create a debate about who’s earned it. If WAR is the tool that best measures value (an arguable point) than the player with the highest WAR total should get the award and the fact that there isn’t any further analysis to be done shouldn’t be seen as a negative.
The best part about the Trout/Cabrera discussion is that the old school way of thinking/scouting can still make the argument. Cabrera is a liability at 3rd base, and as a base runner. These are facts that don’t require advanced metrics to realize. He’s hurt and already a poor defender. His injuries make him a terrible base runner. Meanwhile, Trout plays defense we see with our eyes independent of UZR and steals bases that we track and has highlights scoring from 1st on singles to right. And best part, even in the old school offensive categories, he stacks up pretty well. I always see the Cabrera lovers as people who somehow can actively disregard 2 major facets of the game when discussing value. A scout from 1960 would write, “Doesn’t move well in the field. Likely move to 1st. Doesn’t run well.” on Miguel’s report card. Yet, defense is a new fandangled thing we SABR folk jibba jabba about.
You can argue MVP independent of WAR and still be smart about it.
When WAR presents a clear winner, then it’s a pretty clear indication that player should win. Trout has had a 2 WAR lead over the next best finisher for each of the last 2 years. If his lead over Cabrera was less than 1, people wouldn’t be so vehement in their support for Trout. It’s because his lead is so commanding, leaving little doubt he really was the best player in baseball for each of the last two years.
I agree with you Troy. Dave is clearly upset that Trout didn’t win the award. He probably has a soft spot in his baseball heart for Trout. And no, that isn’t some gay reference Old School. Every post asking for some definition on how the MVP is decided whittles down to WAR! If the BBWAA had to completely define their voting criteria we’d then see, as Troy shows below how it should come down to most parts WAR. WAR is a very important idea to Dave. And that drives his soft spot for Trout. If we simply decide on some sort of WAR based calculation the voting would become obsolete. Dave would lose his vote but gain some place in history. Negative that!!
Dave, THEY just don’t understand.
Dave, I might suggest that tonight would be a good night to start drinking.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffin glue…
Maybe I’m missing something, but this argument seems to work of a faulty assumption (or the idea of only a few people): That ALL performance is rendered meaningless because you don’t make the playoffs.
I could be wrong, but I always thought the assumption was that making the playoffs is a boost to the “value” of the player who made it, not a lowering of Trout’s “value”. It’s less that Trout’s value becomes less, but that Cabrera’s becomes more.
The argument that this should apply to non-Cabrera players is true, but I think that largely just is because Miggy is so good with the bat: People are still distrustful of one-year sample sizes on D, whether this is a good idea or not is debatable, and Miggy’s offense is pretty crazy. Miggy’s 192 wRC+ this year is the 3rd best in the last 10 years, the only two people who are ahead of him are…Barry Bonds and Barry Bonds. His wOBa is 5th, behind only 2003 Albert Pujols (Who only missed MVP that year because 2003 Barry Bonds was crazy) and 2008 Albert Pujols.
But my point is that I feel it is less “Mike Trout is worthless”, although I imagine the “We can lose without ’em” trope will be touted out in the arguments, but “Miguel Cabrera gains more value”.
For me, I’m fine with Miggy or Trout as MVP. Trout has obviously been insane, but Miggy just put up one of the best offensive seasons in 10 years. They’re both very deserving. (I pretty much had the same stance last year: Cabrera did some great stuff and the Triple Crown has historical, though not statistical, value and Mike Trout was…well, he was Mike Trout)
Whether a team makes the playoffs has no bearing on the relative value of its players. As someone posted in other thread, that’s like saying a King is more valuable than an Ace because on one hand a King came up on the river.
Regarding your argument on wRC, please. Mike Trout had a wRC+ of 176 this year, AS A CENTERFIELDER.
When was the last time we saw a wRC+ greater than 170 from a player who played centerfield for 100+ games? Fred Lynn in 1979 for the Red Sox.
For a centerfielder, Mike Trout had a top 10 season by wRC+ since 1930. Miguel Cabrera, as a glorified DH playing third base, doesn’t even make the top 30.
I am not the kind of person who thinks that making the playoffs really has any bearing, barring exceptional circumstances (Like if the team is in a heated race and a guy hits like 6 HRs to win 3 straight games to get into the playoffs by 1 game or something), but I do think that the argument is often misunderstood and that that was the case here, taking it to hyperbolic or assumed levels.
Trout put up crazy wRC+ numbers and crazy WAR, but Miggy put up some insane offensive numbers too and that really shouldn’t be brushed aside. Also, I wouldn’t call Miggy a glorified DH: According to FanGraphs positional adjustment, he was actually more valuable at 3rd base this year than DH. (DH is -17.5 with a 0 in defense, Miggy scored -14.8 with a +2.0 positional adjustment, which means even without the adjustment it is 16.8 vs. 17.5, though the 17.5 would probably go down to 16.5 or so when counting games not played…so basically, the +2.0 and -17.5 means Miggy is more valuable at 3rd than DH, 14.8 vs. 16.5 or so)
Also, your bit about Miggy’s wRC vs. Trout’s is absurd, as Miguel Cabrera is 3rd in wRC+ among third basemen since 1930. You can’t say that Mike Trout had a top 10 season in center, then use all-time non-positional data for Miguel. Switching to DH doesn’t help either: The best DH season ever is 185 wRC+ by Manny, or 7 less than Miguel. If you wanna say he should be at 1B and Prince should DH, Miguel is still 11th all time among first basemen, just beating out 1971 Hank Aaron.
I would also like to add that you are wrong about Mike Trout having a top 10 season by wRC+ since 1930 at CF: He’s tied with 1964 Mantle and 1971 Bobby Murcer for 11th. That’s close enough that I don’t care, but it does annoy me when you say Cabrera “doesn’t even make the top 30” when that only applies to the list of all hitters ever from 1930 on, which you obviously did not do with Trout. (All time, Miguel is tied with 1932 Babe Ruth at 34th, Trout ties with 10 players for 96th with 2 of them being other center fielders)
So on one hand, you question the value of defense above replacement numbers, and on the other, use it to argue that Miguel Cabrera is better at 3rd base than as a DH. More so, if you want to include said defensive numbers as a factor for MVP consideration, then again, Trout beats Miguel handedly.
Leaving that aside and focusing on the numbers, Miguel Cabrera had a UZR of -16.8. A difference of 1 between DH and 3B is not enough for me to consider them separate. While we don’t have advanced metrics going back until 1930, we do have metrics going back until 2002. Miguel’s season ranks 4th worst over the past decade. Had Miguel played a different position, a replacement-level player would contribute more defensive value at 3rd. His position on the diamond is sub-optimal from a roster perspective.
As a result, I don’t care how Miguel Cabrera’s 2013 season stacks up to other 3rd baseman, or even 1st baseman, because he had one of the worst defensive seasons for a 3rd baseman in the past decade. In order to justify an MVP, you basically have to argue that Miguel Cabrera’s hitting was historically significant. Therefore, if I’m going to judge Cabrera as a baseball player, I’m going to take his hit stats in comparison to every other hitter, independent of position.
You are right that I don’t make the same comparison of trout. I don’t because trout was an average centerfielder who had one of the best offenses a centerfielder ever had. My argument is that trout, given that he is a decent centerfielder, had an amazing year with the bat. Miguel Cabrera also had an amazing year with the bat, but defensively he was little better than a DH, and so his season does not stack up as well historically.
I’m amazed by how people are refusing to judge Miguel’s season in the context of his historically atrocious defense. This isn’t a sabermetric issue; simply put, it seems some people don’t value defense at all.
*No, I’m 100 percent correct about Mike Trout being a top 10 centerfielder. As a criteria, I picked 100 games started in centerfield to justify being in that ranking. Stan the Man Musial did not play 100 games in centerfield in either 1948 nor 1949, which knocks him off the list.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/musiast01.shtml
As an aside, I would be cautious about using the offensive rankings on the fangraphs page for specific positions; if you check hitting stats for all players at one position, the list will include the season hitting stats for any player who played at least one game at the position. For example, if you filter hitting stats for all catchers, the full hitting stats will be displayed for players who caught at least one game.
My apologies, btw, if my initial reply misled you to think that I was comparing Miggy to other 3rd baseman. Your point was that defense is difficult to measure, so if you look at hitting stats Miggy’s season stands out.
I completely agree, the 34th best season by a hitter in 84 years is a truly elite season. There’s no question that Miggy was a much better bat than Trout.
My counterpoint is to ask two questions: how much better, and does that overcome differences in defense?Even by eye, Miggy is at best a poor defensive third baseman (even by standard metrics, he sports a .966 fielding percentage, and let’s be honest, an eye test will confirm that he has poor positioning and slow speed) while Trout is at least an average centerfielder. Therefore, even a coarse, pessimistic, and qualitative view of defense would value Trout’s offensive season in the context of the average centerfielder. When one does so, one sees that the value of being an average defensive centerfielder makes trout’s season much rarer than the pure hitting value of Miguel Cabrera’s season.
If one were to do a similar rank comparison into account, I think one should control for the fact that Miguel Cabrera is also a poor defensive third baseman. I think it’d be tricky to do without advanced metrics, unfortunately, because frankly, I’m not sure comparing him to the average third baseman is even reasonable. Besides, no one is arguing that his playing third benefits his case for MVP.
That is what people say though. People who argue against Trout will sometimes imply that a player on a non-playoff team cannot win the award in their mind, or they will straight out say that Mike Trout’s performance means nothing because “what’s the difference between winning 80 games and winning 70?”. That means no amount of value for a non playoff team can ever match the value of a player on a playoff team, which means a player on a non-playoff team has no value.
Dave is responding to actual things that people actually say. He is just asking that if they really believe what they are saying, that they apply their belief consistently.
I think the explanation comes down to how “valuable” is defined. Are we defining valuable in the usual way (i.e. the player that contributes the most value), or are we defining valuable in an unusual way (i.e. the player on a playoff team that contributes the most value). I think that for some of these people, “Valuable Player” defines the best player on a playoff-caliber team. For such people, there is no logical inconsistency, they simply define “valuable” as “player on a playoff team”. Is this a weird definition? Certainly.
Of course, these people are few and far between. The majority of people that use such a definition do not use it consistently; they use it for the player they “like” the most. If the player they “like” is not on a playoff team, they’ll use the former definition. In other words, the only logical consistency for most people who use this definition is that they “like” a given player and will use any reason to justify why said player is an MVP.
I agree that the whole ‘winning team’ argument is pretty ridiculous, but I think that those taking this stance are essentially using it as an alternative justification, rather than admitting the obvious– most baseball fans/writers just don’t value defense. Although I’m fine with the 30 year old Cabrera beating out the much younger Trout (see Martin Scorcese, Susan Lucci, or any other actors who won awards because of their entire body of work), Cabrera will win MVP not because of his greatness over a long career but because his offensive numbers, including advanced stats like wOBA, wRC+, OPS+, eclipse Trout. WAR is not perfect because its comprised of imperfect inputs, but until defense is better measured and its metrics more digestible, writers and fans alike will hesitate to vote for something they don’t understand. Possible soluton:Field f/x.
Then how does Pedroia win the award in 2008? By your logic, Milton Bradley, A-Rod, or Carlos Quentin would have been more deserving candidates that year.
This is getting crazy. Do we really need Field FX to realize that Mike Trout is hugely more valuable on defense than Miguel Cabrera? To vote for Cabrera, you’d need to believe that they were close to equal on defense, which just seems absurd on its face.
ok, so you’re saying that people don’t understand how to measure defense. What about baserunning? Are you forgetting that after you get a hit you have to actually run the bases? Unfortunately for the Tigers, they couldn’t pinch run for Cabrera, which undoubtedly cost them runs. Meanwhile, Trout is a phenomenal baserunner, who created many runs for his team. Shouldn’t the fact that Trout scored more runs on a pathetic Angels team be ridiculous, when looking at how Cabrera scored less runs playing on a stacked Tigers team?
Miggy will end the day as the active leader in BATOOTA:
http://www.fangraphs.com/not/humorousinsightful-baseball-termstatacronym-needed/#comment-309771
Would have liked to see Miguel Cabrera remain healthy. He actually was ahead of Trout in WAR at the point in the season when he became injured. He promptly hit and fielded horribly afterwards letting Trout walk away with the WAR title but I think it probably would have been close if not for that. Shame.
Disagree.
Cabrera started out on an all time great pace that he had never played at before. Trout has been far and away the best player in baseball since reaching the big leagues and he got off to a slow start.
Miggy had a big lead but sometime in June the pace the two players were on should’ve predicted a big margin of victory for Trout in WAR – of course I wouldn’t have predicted three games, so MC’s injury certainly cut into his total performance.
Cabrera was on pace for a 10 ware season all the way up to August, which is when he became injured.
I think Cabrera will win because the BBWAA, as a group, probably values the ways Cabrera contributes (hits and homeruns) more than the way Trout contributes (doing everything very well). I believe Cabrera would beat Trout in the MVP voting even if the Angels had made the playoffs and the Tigers had not.
As a group, the BBWAA is inconsistent in their valuations at best.
Some years they value hits/homeruns, other years its stolen bases. Still other years its historical milestones (i.e. most HRs, most RBIs, most SBs, whatever).
I agree some writers probably thought Cabrera was simply better this year. In the BBWAA’s release for the NL award, there was no mention of McCutchen’s OBP, but I was made aware that he was second in the NL in multi-hit games. Even without looking at team results, there are bound to be odd voting outcomes if that kind of thing is considered. Why would one even think to look that stat up?
Dave, I agree entirely. You see the same phenomenon in the NFL. Last year, I would have handed Calvin Johnson the MVP without a second thought, yet he wasn’t even in the running because he played for a 4-12 Lions team, regardless that he broke several receiving records.
I’ve always interpreted the MVP as most valuable to their team as a whole. Trout (like Johnson) was far and away the most valuable single player on any team this year.
Without a second thought? Adrian Peterson came 9 yards short of breaking one of the more prestigous records of all time, Earl Campbell’s single season rushing record, in addition to breaking other records (Like most games with 50+ runs, meaning he was breaking away a ton of plays) and it is generally considered easier to pass the ball than run the ball nowadays due to rule changes (Though I personalyl feel this is overstated, it is more that teams are making more pass attempts).
Even if you’d give it to Megatron in the end, since he actually broke the record while AP fell shy, I would have to think Adrian Peterson’s performance had to at least give pause, because it was also a historic season that broke records. (Adrian also almost broke Earl’s record despite carrying the ball about 30 less times, or roughly a full game. And while I know storylines shouldn’t matter, the fact he just came back from an injury that ends careers is amazing).
Why did I say Campbell? Is it because both start with E? @_@ I mean Eric Dickerson. (Who also had more rushing attempts)
Totally unrelated, but Ruki, your comments are generally well thought out, not in the FG party line, and reasonable. You would be a valuable contributor to the FG community blogs, and it would centralize and focus your contributions to this site.
I would subscribe to your newsletter.
You’re right, Ruki. I forgot the important part of my message.
My personal thought after the end of the 2012 season was that Calvin Johnson receives the MVP award, while AP gets Offensive Player of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year (although Peyton could have arguably received CPotY). AP’s achievements were nothing short of incredible; however, Megatron was quite literally Detroit’s /only/ offensive threat, thus (in my mind) making him more valuable to his team. On the other hand, AP’s approaching of Dickerson’s record made him a shoe-in for the OPotY.
I agree with Randy, you think your comments are very well thought out and reasonable.
@Paul – why does AP get comeback player of the year when he didn’t really miss any football? What is he coming back from? An injury? People do that all the time. Peyton missed football and returned to the game in epic fashion. To be the comeback player, you have to have left, per say, in order to then come back.
@royally
I’m not sure if you remember, but AP tore his ACL and MCL during the 2011 season; no one was quite sure how he would come back from that.
Given the differing marginal values of one more win to a team depending on their placement on the win curve, how close would their “value” be if you used the marginal $ increase from 68–>78 wins for the Angels and 85–>93 wins for Tigers (rounding here, which def works in Miggy’s favor)?
I’m sure this has been discussed, but I haven’t kept up very well lately.
The premise that voters disqualified Trout seems flawed. Voters who thought Trout had a better year than Cabrera but voted for Cabrera anyway just gave Cabrera a bonus (which we all agree was too big) for being on a playoff team. That bonus pushed Cabrera past Trout in their minds, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have voted Trout first if Cabrera hadn’t had a year like he did. A-Rod’s MVP in 2003 shows voters aren’t totally unwilling to vote for guys from non-playoff teams.
I think they essentially disqualified Trout from #1, but then graded #2-10 based on who was better.
WOW! Sullivan and Cameron are here. This is intense.
the problem you have with this vote is the problem most quants/sabermetricians have with this award: ambiguity. it seems to take context (team performance) AND individual performance into account, and the exact formula for it depends on a voter. OK, so? just because quants seem to think in terms of “if I can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist”, “if I can’t neatly/mathematically define it doesn’t matter”, it doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t appreciate the complexity. By the way, the award is clearly moving in the direction of sabermetrics, otherwise trout wouldn’t be 2nd, but until it gets completely there, relax a bit, and enjoy baseball.
Excellent mv. I agree 100%. That is good.
Josh Donaldson would have been a good choice.
Better WAR than Miggy. More important to his team’s success than Miggy was to his.
You are sure writing a lot for being “somewhat apathetic.”
He’s also a writer and employee, and people come to the site for his reaction. Your comment, OTOH, contributes nothing. Please stop.
Hence any free agents that sign with the Houston Astros this offseason are ineligible for the 2014 AL MVP (Kendrys Morales, take note)
Vote ron paul and mike trout 2016
How about the ‘didn’t make the playoff’ argument being ridiculous because it specifically says in the instructions that making or missing the playoffs doesn’t’ matter.
http://bbwaa.com/voting-faq/
Dear Voter:
There is no clear-cut definition of what Most Valuable means. It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the Most Valuable Player in each league to his team. The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier.
It doesn’t say it doesn’t matter – it just says it’s not a dealbreaker.
It’s an interesting article, but on some level it just sets up a straw man. The answer to Dave’s question is that most voters perceive the award as a combination of being the best player and contributing to a winning team, rather than strictly one or the other. And we know this. So if the most common interpretation could be mathematically expressed as something along the lines of (.5 * quality of play) + (.5 *contribution to playoff race), then it’s plausible that Cabrera could come out ahead of Trout, and Trout could still be the choice for 2nd place. In 2013, at least.
…obvious strawman argument. Absolutely no one thinks that only players from playoff teams have any value at all. People who place value in the player’s team making the playoffs see it as a component and not a qualifier. People who value logical consistency see no problem at all with someone who values the team making the playoffs also thinking Trout was the second most valuable player.
I really hope that this site never gets its wish to simply award the MVP to the player with the highest WAR. There are so many problems with it:
1) It’s incredibly boring. We’ve known for weeks Dave would have a fit when the MVP was awarded because we’ve known for weeks who would finish the season with the highest WAR. …there is a reason we don’t vote on who wins the HR crown…
2) The defensive component of WAR is largely error masquerading as precision in the calculations. We shouldn’t want to give an award to the player who randomly has the most sampling and measurement error.
3) The values assigned to the positional adjustment are largely just made up.
4) WAR does not measure what actually happened, but what you would expect to happen in a neutral environment. However, because team’s don’t play in neutral environments, the actual value that players provide does not equal WAR. In fact they may not even be all that strongly correlated. In actual value, things like sequencing and the performance of the players around you actually do matter. It’s a team sport. Big surprise. A walk is actually more valuable if you bat in front of Miguel Cabrera than if you bat if front of anyone else. It’s out of the player’s control, but it is true.
5) WAR is a counting stat and therefore favors hitters who bat at the top of lineups.
I don’t know if I understand all of it (WAR and UZR and other stats)DNA. But I like what you’re saying just the same. I love the site. I love the discussions, this discussion. But to say I don’t like the whole idea of MVP because I don’t like the result or they didn’t use my criteria…….I don’t like. And yes, WAR shouldn’t be used to decide the MVP. OR ANY CALCULATION YOU ALL WANT TO DEVISE! In the end it would simply be your new WAR.
Joe Posnanski made an interesting point in his follow-up to the MVP announcement. It’s difficult to parse differences in performance between elite players, but most seasons there are several players who perform at a level elite enough to justify consideration.
Basically, the collective voting bloc seems to identify the qualified candidates and then give credit for context. This year, Trout and Cabrera performed at such a high level that their normative ranks were beyond Cano, Davis, and Donaldson, so they were the only two actual candidates.
I don’t know how I feel about the method, but it seems to reconcile the inconsistency Dave identifies. The voters collectively act as if there’s a flow chart: 1) who is reasonably qualified? and 2) who demonstrated said qualification within the context of a successful team?
It’s not being viewed as a question of who’s on a playoff team and valuable, but who’s valuable and on a playoff team. The sequencing narrows the pool differently.
I’m a little confused about the inconsistency of arguments. A big deal has been out of Trout finishing 2nd to Miguel Cabrera but little or nothing has been made out of Carlos Gomez finishing all the way down in 9th. Isn’t the later more of a travesty that the former? Gomez by fWAR was the second best player in the NL and by bWAR was the best player in the NL. Yet he finishes 9th and barely a peep is made.
So in the NL a player who has a great case as to being the best player in the league barely finishes in the top 10 and nothing but in the AL let a player who has a very strong case of being the best player in the league only finish second and BAM arguments galore. That just seems hilariously wrong to me and I’m a Pirates fan who despises the Brewers.
That’s a really good question. I can think of three factors that may contribute to people not being as up in arms regarding Carlos Gomez:
1. A *huge* portion of his WAR comes from his defensive statistics, which are much less reliable than offensive statistics. Gomez is a terrific outfielder, but it’s hard to believe he was as dramatically better in 2013 than in previous years as the numbers suggest. In other words, he may really have been closer to the 9th-best player in the league.
2. His performance faded relatively dramatically following his spectacular first half. Right or wrong, this caused him to slip from people’s minds as a top player.
3. Residual frustration with last year’s MVP voting.
While it is dismaying that Mike Trout put up a second season of generational performance only to go unheralded, it does serve to perpetuate the churning forth of this polarizing machine we call Major League Baseball.
In sum: defense, baserunning, and offensive performance relative to position played continue to be undervalued. As a result, teams with otherwise crippling payrolls can continue to thrive on amassing undervalued assets, and lo: the Rays, the A’s.
It sucks, it’s an objective injustice in my humble opinion, but it’s part of the assembly that makes the dynamics of baseball continue to fascinate me when no other sports do.
I read a whole bunch of these comments, and I didn’t see anyone actually answering the question. So I’ll do my best. Full disclosure: I would’ve voted for Trout. But I think I may have an idea of why Trout is worthy of a 2nd-place vote.
My guess is that the “winner” is qualitatively different from the rest of the positions. Let’s say you line up all the players by WAR. Then you ask the question of the first player: “Did he help his team to the playoffs?” If the answer is “no,” you go to the second player. Then, you look at the difference in performance: is the gap between the two small enough that the “playing for a winner” factor overwhelms the difference in their performance? That number seems to be a moving target – different in the A-Rod MVP year in Texas and Andre Dawson’s ’87 win than in the Braun-Kemp debate of a couple years ago or the Cabrera-Trout debates of the last two years… but there were different voters each of those years, and that could explain the variance. Anyway, the REST of the ballot gets to be based on merit – just not the winner. That’s how I understand the logic of those voters working; that there’s a quality to a 1st-place vote that is fundamentally different, and whose “rules” the other positions aren’t required to follow.
What blows my mind is that for the NL voting, they effectively value a player’s all around game vs the traditional stats. But in the AL, they vote completely backwards from that. Let’s get some consistency. Either it should have been Cabrera and Goldy, because all they care about are traditional stats; or it should have been Trout and Cutch, because they’re valuing all around games. It’s like they just flipped a coin for both votes.
Obviously, the difference in both cases was team performance. If The Angels and DBacks make the playoffs and the Tigers and Pirates finish under .500, the results would have been reversed.
I understand that, I just don’t get how people can value team performance for an individual award at all. Does that mean we’re going to start putting heavy value on pitcher wins again?? It’s the same thing.
I really don’t think voters are saying to themselves “The MVP must come from a play-off team”.
I think voters are looking at two clearly elite players (as measured by many, different stats, not just one) and factoring into their analysis many other non-quantifiable attributes, one of which obviously is “was the player a key part of the team making the playoffs?” (no one is saying Don Kelly should be up for MVP becuase his team made the playoffs). Now, why are the voters asking themselves this question? Well, because its only relevant if the two leading nominees are so closely matched, even though they offer value to their teams in different ways.
Why do we care about the value to their team? Because that’s what the award is for. Its NOT “who is the most valuable?” Its not, read the voting instructions. The question being asked is “Who is the most valuable to his team?”
Its also made clear that the answer to this question is open to interpretation by the voter. Shocking as this may come to some, this means there is no one and only RIGHT answer. It means that minds are free to disagree.
Usually, disagreeing minds can see the arguments of the other side and can say “Yes, I see what you are saying, we just interpret things differently.” Instead, people, on both sides of the argument, are saying “I’m RIGHT, you’re WRONG no matter what you say”, which is of course a pity because we are all fans of this wonderful game.
Trout is awesome! Cabrera is awesome!
I can’t wait for spring training to begin!
Apologies if these points were already made, there are lots of responses thus far and my lunch break is short.
I was recently listening to Buster Olney’s podcast and one of his guests was rattling on about how this award is not meant to be for the best player, how the definition of value is debatable and how this an award for “value” produces much more interesting debates than an award for best player would. As with much of what Olney and co. say, this is silly.
It seems to me that:
1. This award was probably intended to recognize the “best” player. I can’t fathom whoever dreamed this up saying “being the best is all well and good but let’s single out the guy who has the most value.” Calling the award something like “best player” or “top player” would probably have a wierd conotation, almost coming across a bit rude to those who didn’t win it. I think they were trying to award the best player without having to call anyone the best player.
2. I don’t see how the best player in the game could also be the most valuable. I think value is inherent and independent of the player’s salary or team. Mike Trout is worth a hell of a lot more than your average player, and a bit more than Miguel Cabrera because he produces more of things that are valuable to a team with the goal of winning baseball games.
3. Debating “value” is entirely uninteresting in the way most voters and fans frame it. Who cares about rewarding a guy for being on a good team or for driving in runs? That’s boring. It is very interesting to debate who the best player is, even though it’s been pretty clear in each of the last two seasons.
Typo next to #2. Should be “I don’t see how the best player in the game could NOT also be the most valuable.”
I feel like it isn’t a winning team thing. It is a “back of the baseball card thing”. Imagine you are a old time beat writer for ____ team who doesn’t quite by in to sabermetrics. It to look at Miggy’s .342 batting average,44 HR,100 runs and 140 RBIs and see they are clearly the best along with OBP,SLG..etc. I know Trout is good defensively and Miggy is pretty bad. But since I don’t look at UZR, that is hard to quantify. Just how good was Trout or how bad was Miggy? Well unless I watched a bunch of Angels or Tigers games, I probably don’t know/remember.
Until defensive or baserunning metrics are widely accepted, I don’t see this changing. I feel like winning team does play a role, but I think if defense/baserunning as evaluated properly, he still would have won.
Also for those “value” people. Value taken literally mean “worth a lot of money” or ” worth a good price”.
If McDonalds sold real Filet Mignon for $1, it would be a great value. But using the winning team arguement would say “It can’t be good or valuable because it is from McDonalds, even though it is real filet mignon”…It would be absurd to say that.
There is no right way to award the MVP. The MLB MVP award is some award that someone just made up. It’s not a property of the universe. Someone could vote for a player because he was the player he most enjoyed watching, measuring “value” in terms of personal value.
Therefore, what we should ask ourselves is not “what is the right way to award the MVP” but instead “what is the best way to award the MVP”? In my opinion, baseball players and fans are best served by an award that seeks to recognize the player that best did what players are supposed to do – contribute to team wins.
It gives fans of non-contending teams something to root for. It gives recognition to players playing for teams that otherwise would get little attention. It reinforces that idea that effort, skill and determination are important. To me, it sends the wrong message to say that “the work you put in this year meant nothing because you lost”. If I try hard to achieve something that I ultimately fail to do, was my time wasted? I think answering “yes” is problematic.
I think voters place more emphasis on who wins.
After that, its just who they think is best.
Maybe?
This article makes MORE sense than any other baseball article I have read this year… and, I have read HUNDREDS!!!