Staff Awards Picks
While the AL MVP discussion has probably reached the point where there’s not much left to say, there are a few other postseason awards that are up for grabs. This year, a good chunk of them are pretty clear cut, with our staff mostly selecting the same guys at each spot, with there only really being one or two races where there was much division among the ranks. We simply asked for winners, rather than a full ballot, so don’t take a player’s absence from the list as a lack of recognition, as there are a few guys who I’m sure were second on a lot of people’s ballots. Without further ado, let’s get to the picks, with the number of first place votes in parentheses.
AL MVP: Mike Trout (25)
He got all 25 votes, including mine. No big surprise here, and we probably don’t need to spend too much time on this one, given all the discussion over the last few weeks.
NL MVP: Buster Posey (14), Ryan Braun (10), Andrew McCutchen (1)
I’ve leaned towards Yadier Molina for the last couple of weeks, but Posey just continued to crush the ball down the stretch and opened up a large enough offensive lead that it felt like a stretch to give it to Molina, though the difference is quite small. In fact, the arguments for Braun and McCutchen are plenty valid, and I’d say there are a group of candidates from which you can’t really go wrong this year. There are no bad choices in this mix.
AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander (22), David Price (3)
While Price’s lead in both wins and ERA will probably be enough to get him the actual Cy Young, our staff went with the guy who leads in both a WAR based on FIP and one based on runs allowed. While Price was excellent, it’s hard to ignore the defensive differences between the two teams and wonder whether this would even be a race if the two had switched teams. Price is a legitimately great starter, but Verlander is probably the best pitcher in baseball right now, and I was one of those who felt that he deserved a second straight Cy Young Award.
NL Cy Young: R.A Dickey (12), Clayton Kershaw (11), Johnny Cueto (1), Craig Kimbrel (1)
Easily the closest race, Dickey barely sneaks out the win, though I cast my lot with Kershaw. They were both so good that it’s really splitting hairs to choose between them. For all intents and purposes, this is a tie. Interestingly, no one was wooed by either Gio Gonzalez or Kris Medlen, who I thought might sneak in on a ballot or two.
AL Rookie of the Year: Mike Trout (25)
Maybe the easiest vote in the history of postseason awards.
NL Rookie of the Year: Bryce Harper (23), Wade Miley (2)
Harper wasn’t quite unanimous, but his strong flourish to end the season helped make this less of a race than it would have been had we polled the staff even a week or two ago. Jim Breen cast one of the two votes for Miley, and will be explaining why he went against the grain in a separate post on the site shortly.
Below are all the individual selections for the voting staff members. Cast your aspersions appropriately, and remember Detroit fans, most of us voted for Verlander!
| Name | AL MVP | NL MVP | AL Cy Young | NL Cy Young | AL Rookie | NL Rookie |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Remington | Trout | McCutchen | Verlander | Dickey | Trout | Harper |
| Ben Duronio | Trout | Braun | Verlander | Kimbrel | Trout | Harper |
| Bill Petti | Trout | Posey | Verlander | Dickey | Trout | Harper |
| Bradley Woodrum | Trout | Posey | Price | Dickey | Trout | Harper |
| Brandon Warne | Trout | Posey | Price | Dickey | Trout | Harper |
| Carson Cistulli | Trout | Braun | Verlander | Dickey | Trout | Harper |
| Chris Cwik | Trout | Braun | Verlander | Dickey | Trout | Harper |
| Colin Zarzycki | Trout | Braun | Verlander | Kershaw | Trout | Harper |
| Dan Wade | Trout | Braun | Verlander | Dickey | Trout | Harper |
| Dave Cameron | Trout | Posey | Verlander | Kershaw | Trout | Harper |
| David Wiers | Trout | Braun | Verlander | Kershaw | Trout | Harper |
| Eno Sarris | Trout | Posey | Verlander | Dickey | Trout | Harper |
| Eric Seidman | Trout | Posey | Verlander | Dickey | Trout | Harper |
| J.P. Breen | Trout | Braun | Verlander | Kershaw | Trout | Miley |
| Jack Moore | Trout | Posey | Price | Dickey | Trout | Harper |
| Jeff Sullivan | Trout | Posey | Verlander | Kershaw | Trout | Harper |
| Jeff Zimmerman | Trout | Posey | Verlander | Cueto | Trout | Harper |
| Marc Hulet | Trout | Posey | Verlander | Kershaw | Trout | Harper |
| Matt Klassaan | Trout | Posey | Verlander | Kershaw | Trout | Harper |
| Michael Barr | Trout | Braun | Verlander | Kershaw | Trout | Harper |
| Mike Newman | Trout | Posey | Verlander | Kershaw | Trout | Harper |
| Mike Petriello | Trout | Braun | Verlander | Kershaw | Trout | Harper |
| Paul Swydan | Trout | Braun | Verlander | Kershaw | Trout | Harper |
| Wendy Thurm | Trout | Posey | Verlander | Dickey | Trout | Harper |
| Zach Sanders | Trout | Posey | Verlander | Dickey | Trout | Miley |
Not a single vote for Todd Frazier? Numbers nearly identical to Harper and helped lift the Reds while Joey Votto was out of the lineup.
“Nearly identical numbers to Harper”
Exactly.
(Exactly why he didn’t get a single vote, that is)
I went back and forth between Miley and Frazier before ultimately going with Miley. It was a close call, with Harper being my third choice.
How is Frazier above Harper? Was it the lower wOBA, the worse counting stats or the fact that he plays 1B/3B instead of CF?
Did you vote at the beginning of September, David? I can see the case for Miley over Harper but not one for Frazier.
Frazier was arguably Cinci’s MVP this year, given his production as [essentially] Votto’s replacement. Harper’s overall numbers are a shade better, but Frazier had more impact IMO.
Okay, so you’re coming at it from that angle (which is fine) – but by the same token Harper carried the Nats’ offense when he came up [as an injury replacement for Ryan Zimmerman], when their outfield would otherwise have been something like Nady/Ankiel/Bernadina [with Morse and, later, Werth hurt].
His impact in September may have been “unnecessary” given the Nats had all but sewn it up, but don’t overlook his initial impact in May.
I’m sure everyone will also remember how much older Frazier is than Harper. That should have at least some bearing, especially with such a massive gap.
I think probably because he has 100 fewer plate appearances. His offensive numbers are basically identical to Harper’s, you’re right, but 100 more PAs of that production, plus better defense, makes Harper the clear winner of the two.
That’s a clown question, bro.
WAR.
Even if you’re a traditionalist, Harper wins out. Frazier has more RBIs. They tie in BA. Harper has way more R, more HR, way more SB, and played highlight reel defense. Frazier was a much batter offense player than Harper on Sept. first, when the Frazier story started getting traction. Harper was one of the best hitters in baseball in September and erased that gap.
“…much batter offens[ive] player…”
Hehe.
I see they were close in BA, wOBP, & wRC+, as well as a few other stats, but check out the differences in their RE24 (Harper by +6.79), WAR (Harper by +1.9), & WPA (Harper by +0.78).
“Nearly identical numbers….”
Well I guess if you completely disregard defense and baserunning…
what you like Trout for MVP? But Miggy leads the league in RBI’s and HRs. WTF!!!!
original.
If only Miggy had lead the league in Runz and Winz along with Ribeyez he could have captured the useless stat triple crown too.
Runs, as a stat to measure the quality of one player’s season, sure, kinda useless. As a means to victory on the diamond? Pretty essential. If you score a lot of runs, you probably get on base a lot and you probably have a lot of value to your (hopefully) playoff bound team.Every teem needs a guy who can get on base and steal a bag to get into scoring position, then stretch a long single by the next batter into an RBI. Just because SABR hasn’t caught up yet in terms of how to objectively evaluate skills or contributions like that in a useful way doesn’t mean it’s useless or without value.
I used to be meatman at a grocery store. Back then I think I could have led the league in rib eyes.
If he actually lead the league in ribeyes, I’d be much more likely to consider him. mmmmm, ribeyes.
Postseason predictions coming later today?
Some CF bias here on Fangraphs
More like a WAR bias.
Miley has the same WAR as Harper. I think he’d be at least a close second in this poll. Its disappointing to me that a website based on statistical analysis would go overwhelmingly in favor of Harper based on what I can only guess is hype.
Everyone in the poll probably had him as a close second for ROY. And anyway, Harper put up the same WAR in one less month.
For ROY quality should matter more than quantity, IMO.
What are the official criteria for Rookie Of The Year?
Are they the same as the MVP criteria, or are writers allowed to interpret the award [even] more widely?
@ Stan By B-R’s WAR model, Harper was more than a win ahead of Miley. Also, being statistically oriented does not mean that one ignores important achievements, it means that one puts them in their proper context. Anyone who doesn’t think the obvious tie-breaking nod goes to Harper is just being stubborn.
More like center fielders are awesome.
Isn’t the WAR positional adjustment for 3B, 2B, and CF 2.5 runs?
It isn’t so much bias as awesomeness in terms of defense when discussing Trout and Harper. While Harper will throw direct to home rather than hit a cutoff man more than he should, his arm strenghth is incredible and has made 3d base coaches and aggressive runners look foolish for even trying. Any discussion of the Nats this year should recognize just how good the non-Morse portion of the line-up is, and Harper and Espinosa are the most outstanding defensive players on the team.
I think a awesome defensive CF deserves some points over a bad defensive 3B,yes.
The lack of variance in the voting is proof positive that all FanGraphs writers just look at WAR and nothing else.
Yes, it would have been good to see some votes for Cespedes and Darvish in ALROY, wouldn’t it?
It wouldn’t have been hard for the writers to tell us their second and third place picks and why for A.L.ROY. A case can be made for several A’s pitchers for third.
That’s not a very well thought out argument, is it?
..orrrr that several of the awards (AL MVP, AL CY, AL ROY, NL ROY) are such slam-dunks that it’d be odd to expect other names to pop up.
….orrrr I was being sarcastic.
really, really bad sarcasm
The fact that Gio Gonzalez got zero votes and RA Dickey got the most votes proves that you are wrong.
Yep. When you look at WPA and other “total value” metrics for pitchers, Gio is surprisingly low in the ranks. Dickey and Kershaw are also well ahead of Gio in FDP, and they should get some credit for that (especially Dickey, since knucklers are known to have some real BIP talent.)
Another non-WAR argument comes from Harper. He and Miley basically tied by fWAR (b-r WAR has Harper ahead by a lot). Why do you think more people voted for Harper? Could it be that there’s something special about a player who didn’t even need to play a full minor league season before he was ready to be one of the best outfielders in baseball? Harper’s accomplishments this season are obvious tie-breaker considerations, and they’re not based in WAR.
@ philosofool
Harper did play an entire minor league season in 2011, plus some time in the AFL in 2010 and some time at AAA this year.
Highest ever WAR for a teenager, same WAR in a full month less.
@stan Harper played 97 games in 2011 and 21 in 2012. That’s not an entire season. I forgot about the AFL, but it’s not like we usually count such leagues as Minor League seasons.
He had 680 PA in various professional, non-MLB games before arriving at the majors. There’s something pretty incredible about what Harper has done this season. Miley is a pretty standard ROY contender, Harper just put up one of the most noteworthy season in baseball history.
@philsofool
WPA for starters?
Tom Tango is wagging his finger at you.
You would really need to see the down-ballot votes to know that.
You are right. There is no way thy could look at defense, baserunning, wOBA, OBO, wRC+ or any of the other stats where Trout was superior to the triple crown winner.
Does getting 28 saves for the Rangers in 2001 really qualify Jeff Zimmerman to be the celebrity guest voter for this?
And now let’s look at Sean Connery’s wager for AL MVP. Mr. Connery’s answer is… “Mike T.” Mike T from Sean Connery. Now let’s see his wager… “its.” Its? I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, Sean Connery seems to have written Mike….Tits.
Connery:
Suck mine, Trebek! Bahahahaha!
…and you wager….Texas, with a dollar sign
So price strikes out less, walks more, gives up more hits (despite a very superior defense), and throws less innings than verlander… and he got a couple 1st place votes? why? what does he do better? he doesnt even have the “i pitched for a playoff team” argument.
I’m a Tiger fan and I’m going nuts knowing that the awards voters are going to get it wrong this year. Trout is the MVP, but Miguel will likely get it. And Verlander is the Cy Young, but Price will likely get it.
Verlander did a little better by rates than Price, pitched in front of a worse defense, and basically went an extra inning every start. Price is very good but the narrative around Verlander will be that he wasn’t as good as he was last year, which is ridiculous, because he was almost exactly as good as he was last year.
This all day. I’ve already stretched so I can be ready to shake my head in a month.
That same narrative killed Kershaw all year. The curse of winning 20 games is the next time you don’t do it, your season is labeled “a disappointment.” Never mind that he led baseball in ERA again and was leading in innings and strikeouts most of the year, no mainstream baseball analyst could say a good word about his season it seems.
“[Verlander] basically went an extra inning every start.”
So David Price should be penalized because the Rays had Fernando Rodney this year?
Maybe they are discounting Verlander for being in the Central.
Price is the ERA, FIP, and SIERA leader. Legit groundballing ace with a ton of strikeouts. He’s a good pick to unite the saber and non-saber types alike.
And he threw 27.1 innings (over 3 full games!) less than Verlander.
xFIP yes (which is more of a determinant for future years, not this year), FIP no. And Prince beat him by 0.1 in SIERA, in 27 less innings. That’s hardly enough to warrant a Cy Young vote over JV.
ERA leader, by a smidge, and he has the rays defense. plus, its ERA
FIP leader, i think you need to check the stats again…..
Could Price be facing better opponents (on average)?
B-Ref has a stat that attempts to define this. It’s called RA9opp, or opposition. It’s the average number of runs scored by this pitcher’s opposition per 9, adjusted to a league-neutral context. But Verlander/Price are nearly identical (4.48/4.47).
I can understand the winner for NL Cy Young, but how does Cliff Lee, with the best K/BB ratio (BY FAR), best SIERA, best xFIP, and 7th most innings pitched not even get a vote?
Well, he’s 6-9, so clearly does not know how to win.
But it would have been nice to see a 5-3-1 ballot scoring system just to see how much love he did get; I actually suspect his W-L record still has a small effect – subconciously or otherwise – even amongst the fangraphs’ staff.
If a 6-9 pitcher is relying on advanced metrics to make his Cry Young case, he had better be the best pitcher in the league by advanced metrics, not in a virtual tie for third with a guy who won 20. A Cliff Lee vote would have been absolutely ridiculous.
What are you picking and choosing your metrics? He dominated in K/BB rate. He was 1st in SIERA and xFIP.
I know he’s not going to get the actual Cy Young vote. I just figured that with a more sabermetrically minded audience he would get some votes.
“Picking and choosing metrics” apparently applies to using the comprehensive stat for which this site is known. Lee has no case. If you completely absolve him of his problems with HRs and runners on base, that still only puts him on equal footing with Dickey and Kershaw, who don’t need any absolution.
Maybe the guy who invented SIERA would vote for Lee. Even he would feel pretty foolish about it.
How am I picking and choosing stats? xFIP, SIERA, and K/BB are all standard measures around here. His 3rd in WAR which is important, but these awards are not just who had the highest WAR.
Various articles on this site have pretty clearly laid out the distinction between FIP and xFIP as the former being a record and the latter being predictive. They wouldn’t vote for someone based on xFIP because doing so is essentially saying that they are choosing the Cy Young winner based on who will do better in the future, which is not what the award is for. SIERA is the same.
Also, in my understanding, K/BB rate is kind of a misleading stat that gives too much credit to low-walk pitchers, and that K-BB rate is actually better. For example, a guy with a K rate of 7 and walk rate of 1 will have a K/BB ratio of 7 and a K-BB rate of 6. K/BB would suggest that a pitcher with a K rate of 11 and BB rate of 3 should be worse at run prevention, all else equal, when in fact the opposite is the case.
This is what I was most surpised about. I damn near would have pick Cliff Lee myself. Of course, I definitely have a bias towards guys who can still strike people out with a low BB-rate, but there’s nothing wrong with that,
When you give up 1.2 HR/9 innings, it affects everything else.
And if Andrew McCutchen is getting some love, how about Chase Headley’s who’s not doing it based on a huge surge in BABIP and had 31 homeruns playing for San Diego?
the thing is that 25 people looked into their hearts, decided who they thought the best choice was, and voted for him and just no one picked chase because they liked other choices better. they probably like chase headley a lot as a person because he seems like a nice guy and it’s cool how he can hit baseballs well even in a giant stadium and because the padres are one of those plucky small market teams where everyone is kinda happy when they have a good player
I missed the deadline to have my ballot included, so I’ll list it here: MVP: Cabrera, Posey. Cy Young: Verlander, Kimbrel, RoY: Trout, Miley.
Liar, you didn’t pick Cabrera.
trollin
Shocked and disappointed that David Wright’s handsomeness did not sway a single vote his way.
What about Manager of the year? Or should I just use Pythag – Actual Record for the managerial mystery juice?
Kershaw has 22 WAR (at MINIMUM as he’s consistently outperformed his career 75 FIP-) at the age of 24. Wow.
Crazy. He’s almost half way to 50 and he’s still in the younger half of his 20′s.
Equally amazing: King Felix has close to 40 WAR at age 26.
I’m a little bit concerned that, since he obviously is successful in part due to his velocity, these are his prime years, but if he has a normal career arc and peaks during his age 27-30 seasons, then wow, we all have a lot to look forward to.
I’m curious, are the winners notified? If not, that might be a first step toward making the FanGraph awards something more than just what is reported on the site.
If only I could steal bases….then I could win the popular vote
Le sigh..
Should’ve been born into a different body, jerk!
or maintained the body he had at 20 instead of eating cheeseburgers.
if only you could play decent defense or were anything resembling fleet of foot
And play defense.
FanGraphs really does hate Cabrera.
Triple Crown and leads his team to the playoffs.
Cabrera gets credit for the fact that the Tigers won 1 LESS game than the Angels, in what was clearly a much worse division?
By the same token, LA had a superior team to Detroit before the season. Added a super-human season from Trout, the biggest name at the trade deadline and still only managed to finish one game ahead of Detroit.
Division or not, maybe the Angels just weren’t that good?
If Angels fans want to blame someone, they can blame Bartolo Colon.
your schtick got old about 3 MVP debate articles ago.
Nobody hates Cabrera – we just love Trout more.
Cabrera could hit .412, hit 86 HR and drive in 259 runs and FanGraphs would still ignore him.
Not even remotely true, Closed School.
Exaggeration! A Season like that would definitely not be ignored, because all his saber stats would be making calculators explode and we’d all have man crushes on Cabrera for that and the season-crushing 20 WAR he’d pick up even after being slow and having poor range is taken into account.
This site would become CabreraGraphs
Led his team to 88 wins! Woot! Did he lead his team to the playoffs or were they just lucky to be in the AL central?
So if the White Sox don’t all die in a plain crash he is suddenly less valuable?
The tigers won their division by 3 games. Therefore, losing three wins would cause them to miss the playoffs. Therefore, losing a player worth three wins would cause them to have three fewer wins and miss the playoffs.
Rick Porcello led the Tigers to the playoffs!
Considering this is a analytical stat based website site, it’s interesting how Dickey beats Kershaw despite Kershaw beating him all advanced statistics and nearly all basic stats. IDickey was amazing this year, but if we’re looking at just stats then Kershaw’s the winner.
Knuckle ball pitchers apparently DO limit BABIP more than the “normal” pitchers do. So using FIP doesn’t capture his skill the same way as it might for Kershaw.
it goes both ways. Kershaw has always had a low BABIP and we have four years of sample size on him so you can say he limits BABIP more than a “normal” pitcher as well.
David Price gets hailed as the champion of traditional stats (wins, ERA), but one thing that doesn’t seem to get mentioned much is that he also led the AL in xFIP.
Thought it was FIP, not xFIP. Regardless, I’m not shying from my vote.
It’s xFIP not FIP, Verlander has him beat in FIP. I think a vote for Price is undefendable unless you just simply don’t believe in the advanced metrics put out by bbr and fangraphs.
xFIP is kind of useless because elite guys outperform it every year. Look at Verlander.
I think there’s a decent argument for voting for Kimbrel for NL Cy Young. He’s been THE best pitcher in baseball this season. Unfortunately, he’s had much fewer opportunities to pitch than the others, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that he has better numbers in nearly every rate statistic.
Does the Cy Young go the best pitcher or the most valuable?
If Aroldis Chapman didn’t start hiccuping, I would tend to vote for him.
By this logic, a reliever would win the Cy Young every year. It’s much easier to pitch in relief, and most relievers are failed starters.
But even using the criteria of “best pitcher”, pitching additional innings is a sign of quality. It’s true for starters vs starters, and it’s more true for starters vs relievers. It’s a much, much tougher job to face hitters multiple times.
If he was the best pitcher in baseball, he wouldn’t be in the bullpen.
i think kimbrel is a fair choice because the starter crop was so comparatively “meh” this year, but only in years like this with no outstanding starter should a reliever even be considered
Medlen was more impressive than Kimbrel.
“..with our staff mostly selecting the same guys at each spot, with there only really being one or two races where there was much division among the ranks.”
Or, with the Fangraphs staff engaging in a hell of a lot of groupthink.
I don’t think anyone felt pressured or coerced into their votes one bit.
More likely that most people just checked the WAR leaderboard and voted for whoever had the biggest number.
….Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
or, maybe they really, actually thought the same thing, which is based in a good deal of fact?
..nah, much more likely it’s just a big conspiracy to spite cabrera and the tigers for lulz
I love baseball statistics, always have, but I find it a shame that we reduce a great game down to obsure mathmatics to explain athletic achievement. We watch baseball (at least I do) to enjoy the skill these players are born with playing a game we love. Trout and Cabrera both enetrtained immensly and added to our enjoyment, there just has to be a gut feeling aspect of declaring someone the best.
I like to think that we enjoy it just the same, too. If we didn’t pick winners at the end of the season, I don’t know that our love for the game would waver one iota.
If you don’t like it, then just ignore the MVP debate. The award has a long history of giving lesser players the award, so there’s isn’t that much credibility in it in the first place. The staff at Fangraphs voted for Trout unanimously because the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of Trout being the better player this year, whether you use WAR or not.
The biggest issue with this – no one watches every plate appearance by every MVP candidates and every spot in the field. The gut feeling vote is about as good as drawing names out of a hat.
You are always allowed to remember whatever player’s performance from the season the most that you want. For most people, the player that gave them the most joy to watch won’t be the best. That’s not a bad thing. Aesthetic enjoyment is great for watching games, but it makes no sense for rewarding achievements.
I was surprised Dave said he thought Price would win. I don’t know that a .08 ERA difference and 3 wins means much to even the average baseball writer anymore.
have you been paying attention to the AL MVP discussion?
There’s a big difference between winning the triple crown and having a small edge in ERA and wins in the mind of writers. If Price had won the pitching triple crown you might have a point, but even that happens somewhat frequently.
Yikes, I’m a Twins fan and even I thought this little dig was unnecessary:
“remember Detroit fans, most of us voted for Verlander!”
You’ve seasoned a lot of your previous articles with little “take that”s at Detroit fans and Cabrera supporters too (“I know these new-fangled “advanced” stats can be scary…”). It makes you look really petty, and I’m usually a big fan of your work when you aren’t getting too absorbed in debates about stupid awards that go to the wrong person more often than not.
You’re about as close to objectively right as you can get about Trout deserving the MVP, but that doesn’t mean that the people who disagree with you are automatically homers or stupid and it doesn’t mean that everyone who is a Tigers fan is immune to thinking objectively about this.
Analysis yay, sour grapes and generalizing boo.
I will second that with I don’t know why Dave Cameron thinks everyone who disagrees with him on this must be a Tigers fan?
Are the 50% or so of MVP voters who vote for Cabrera all going to be Tigers fans? They just had a poll on ESPN for the MVP where something like 70% of people picked Cabrera across the nation, are they all Tigers fans?
I mean it is a little absurd on that point.
And people wonder why those who are heavily into sabremetrics are consider arrogant.
Many people who argue for Cabrera over Trout have fashioned the Fangraphs crew as Detroit haters. I don’t think that comment in the post was out of line.
The Fangraphs writers are really reminding me a lot of the Angels fans at the start of the season.
Person A: “Bryce Harper is really good!”
Angel’s Fan: “Mike Trout is better!!!!”
Person A: “Migeul Cabrera is awesome – that triple crown is pretty cool!”
Fangraphs Writer: “The triple crown SUCKKS and Trout’s is better!!!!!!”
Ok Trout lovers, enjoy stroking that Trophy while Miggy is playing in October….I’m a hars Sabremetric guy and know how special a player he is…I kick myself in the balls fro dropping him in one league still! But Cabrera crushed, and this was probably he 3rd best season hitting wise…and he’s in the playoffs…the Angels spent a Billion dollars on Albert, CJ and Greinke and all they had too do is start Trout on the roster from day# 1….
I’m going Cabrera by a shot glass of Scotch…very good Scotch!
While Trout almost certainly had the better year, I’d vote for Miggy just to watch fangraphs people get their panties into bunches.
Anyone who thinks fangraphs votes blindly based on WAR should look again at Kershaw and Dickey. Kershaw is a whole win ahead of Dickey in fWAR, and he also has him beat in RA/9 wins and b-ref WAR. Kershaw is also almost 40 points better in FIP and 9 points better in FIP-. Considering all that, I’m actually not really sure how Dickey came out ahead. It’s probably not the 6 innings of difference between them. I don’t think it’s the wins either. I think what happened is that since Kershaw was totally excluded from the Cy Young conversation all year, it creates a feeling like he wasn’t performing consistently throughout the year, while Dickey was. Dickey had all year to build a narrative while Kershaw seems like he just squeezed himself into the conversation at the last minute.
This is just speculation, so I’d like to hear some actual reasoning for why so many people voted for Dickey over Kershaw.
What kind of idiots are these staff voters? Miguel Cabrera wins the first triple crown since Yaz in 67 and these idiots vote for Trout.
I was just wondering around this site for the first time and found this stupidity. Good luck because your baseball credibility just went down the toilet with me.
It must be comforting to just accept that the triple crown is the most prestigious offensive feat a player can accomplish instead of having to do the tedious work of actually figuring out what makes a player valuable.
It must be equally comforting to just look up a WAR total at the end of the season and….presto….there’s your MVP. Better then the microwave oven
@Simple Minded
Because that definitely happens. After all, Posey was picked unanimously…
I also find myself wondering around this site. And wandering. Wondering and wandering. It’s all just a hodge podge of numbers and acronyms. Very confusing.
Question: How many extra WINS do you credit Cabrera with for voluntarily moving to 3rd base to allow the Tigers to sign Prince Fielder?
you are all too young to appreciate the triple crown…and, MIguel Cabrera should be the MVP hands down, no question, get with the program…a true baseball purist would know that…’nuf said
The sad thing is that they are absolutely convinced that they are correct. 25 automatons with no sense of history
Apt name, my friend.
Exactly! These people are also too young to appreciate the typewriter and the 8-track player.
Tradition!
Cabrera doesn’t get the MVP for the same reason Williams didn’t win in ’42 or ’47. Bad on the basepaths and bad with the glove.
Williams didn’t get the MVP in 42 or 47 because he was a dick to the writers and the Red Sox didn’t make the playoffs.