As a Sox fan trying to look forward rather than back (embracing 'there's always next year' fits like an old shoe, stinky yet comfortable), I've paid less than a little attention to the post season awards. But when I pull up Grantland's About Last Night blog post and read things like "Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera won the AL MVP award, beating out Angels rookie Mike Trout by a healthy margin. And now it's time for the ANGRY OLD SPORTSWRITER! "Look, I know all you stat nerds out there are going 'Wahhh, wahhh, Trout should have won because he has a higher WAR.' You know what I think of that? HAR. As in HARDY HAR-HAR, morons. There's so much Trout love going around that I think the sports world is full of bears. And guess what? Bears eat salmon, so you're wrong there, too. Get a grip. Miguel Cabrera won a Triple Crown, you sniveling little Adlai Stevensons. " I get intrigued. My morning Boston Globe view found this Eric Wilbur raging piece on a raging Keith Law, and with all the vitriol seen on Twitter I wondered what I actually thought about this race.
In the WAR battle it's Trout all over Miggy, 10.7 to 7.4. That's a big win. But Miggy did win the AL Triple Crown for the first time since Yaz in 1967, and I'm unabashedly a baseball history romantic, which is why it's taken me so long to stop worrying and love the steroid era. From Wilbur's piece and sports talk radio the last day or so I got the idea that Miggy was better than Trout the last month of the season and the Tigers made the playoffs and Angels didn't, so that's where I went, and here's what I found.
I compared the stats over the last 31 days for each player, which gives a starting date of 8/31 for Miggy and 8/30 for Trout. Thanks to BaseballHQ this is what I found:
At Bats Runs Hits HR RBI SB OPS
Trout 101 22 31 5 9 7 .932
Cabrera 108 22 35 11 28 0 1.067
That's crunch time in major league baseball, and even though Trout is a leadoff hitter, thus not in a position or asked to drive in runs, he had an outstanding last month. Now some context, where was each team in the standings and what ended up happening.
Team Angels 8/30/12 Tigers 8/31/12
Record 69-62 70-61
Games Back Wild Card 3.5 3
Games Back Division 8.5 2
Record Final 31 Games 20-11 18-13
Final Stadings 4 Back Wild Card Division Champ
Well isn't that interesting. The Angels killed it over the last month but finished third in the tough AL West while the Tigers beat out a fading White Sox to win the AL Central. What about the players around them? I'll keep it simple with teammate OPS numbers for the last month.
Trout's more or less lineup: 1. Trout .932 2. Hunter .899 3. Pujols .734 4. Morales .878 5. Trumbo .586 6. Kendrick .671 6. Wells .687 7. Izturis .550 8. Callaspo .699 9. Iannetta .601
Cabrera's more or less lineup 1. Jackson .742 2. Dirks .769 2. Raburn .393 3. Miggy 1.067 4. Fielder .584 5. Young .533 6. Boesch .461 7. Peralta .505 8. Berry .529 9. Avila .759
Cabrera had a much more fluid lineup. There were some other ABs to be had in the Angles lineup but not nearly as much of a revolving door as the Tigers. I began with the Angels lineup and saw how much better Trout was than the rest and thought this would nail it for him, then I got to the Tigers. Cabrera had a much more rag-tag group around him. Cabrera had 6 players around him at any time with sub .600 OPSs, Trout's team only had 2 sub .600 regulars.
All things considered, Trout did have an outstanding season and last month in crunch time, but Miggy had an otherworldly last month with a significantly weaker lineup around him. I believe in clutch, Big Papi in 2004 made it so. Trout was clutch, but Triple Crown Winner Cabrera was as much of a one man show as one player in a 9 player lineup can be when it counted the most. It doesn't knock Trout down a peg, it just lifts Cabrera up. There's no need for name calling or pitting new wave against classic rock, they both had incredible years any way you slice it, but Cabrera was the right choice.
Until next time,
The SAHD
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