OT- Miggy front page ESPN story

Submitted by Rather be on BA on

http://espn.go.com/blog/spring-training/post/_/id/872/an-incredible-journey-for-miguel-cabrera

I really enjoyed this read and figured I would share it since there are a lot of Tigers fans/baseball fans around here. 

I particularly liked Torii Hunter's quote about his biggest surprise since joining the Tigers is how happy Miguel Cabrera is.

I still don't feel like the guy ever got the credit he deserved for his season last year and found it (and still find it) insulting that many people thought Trout should have won the AL MVP.  Maybe a few more seasons like it will wake everyone up to how great he is, a World Series title for the Tigers would be nice too.

MichFan1997

March 8th, 2013 at 1:05 PM ^

War is a end all stat, because it certainly has its own huge to work out, but imo it is the best snap shot stat out there to judge a player. It deemed trout to have had on of the 30 or so greatest seasons of all-time, regardless of rookie status or not. I certainly would hope he would get that sort of fanfare for a season like that if he's 20 or if he's 35

Rather be on BA

March 8th, 2013 at 1:20 PM ^

I will admit that I do not have the same knowledge of all of these advanced sabermetric measures in baseball that many people do, but I am concerned with a stat such as WAR.  How accurately can a single statistical measure evaluate a players value?  Is this really a better way of judging a player than the judgement and analysis of a HUMAN BEING?  Should we just change the MVP awards to the WAR awards?  Death to the maths!  /s.  But seriously, I am pretty skeptical of WAR and many other stats like it.  I believe it should be taken into account, but too many people want to say "better WAR = better player" and I think that is a dangerous statement to make.

MichFan1997

March 8th, 2013 at 1:00 PM ^

Counters just for fun. 1. Playoffs should never have anything to do with an mvp award. What if Miggy won his triple crown in Houston? Would he not deserve his mvp in that case? 2. Isn't a 10 war season from a rookie even more rare than a triple crown? 3. Why do we care so much about the triple crown anyways? Yes, home runs are important. But batting average judges a single to be just as valuable as a home run. It also thinks walks don't exist at all. Never mind the rbi, a.k.a. the most team dependent and lineup positional driven stat ever conceived. Just a few thoughts I have. Any rebuttals?

The Dutchess

March 8th, 2013 at 1:41 PM ^

1. Playoffs I think could matter because if the team misses the playoffs with the player, he's not as valuable as someone who helps the team go to the playoffs and generate more value by more home games and ticket sales.  The Angels probably would have sold as many tickets without Trout. (yes, other factors, blah blah but w/e)

2. If playoffs shouldn't matter, being a rookie definitely shouldn't.  That's like the Te'o effect.  Just because your fake girlfriend fake died, doesn't mean you deserve a Heisman.  (However clearly all of sports media disagrees).

3. That's why there's slugging percentage and OBPS, both of which Cabrera is awesome.  

4. My personal most important factor if I had a vote would be to take the guy off the team and see how good they are.  The Tigers would have been bottom of the central without cabrera.  There were times last season that I think him and fielder generated like 70% of runs or hits or something I can't remember.  

5. Also, lastely, sometimes I think these awards are cumulative.  The guy had his worst season in 3 years (statistically) and still won the triple crown. That's crazy to me.  

MichFan1997

March 8th, 2013 at 1:56 PM ^

On the playoff thing though. The angels won more games than Detroit. So is it trouts fault that his team didn't know how to be located in the Midwestern region of America? I also want to point out how much I dislike slugging percent as a stat. Now this isn't a Miggy vs trout issue, just my own aside. Slugging is calculated in such a way that it thinks a home run is worth 4 singles. This, in turn, disrupts ops, which has its own flaw of judging the already flawed slugging to be equal to the more important (yet flawed itself for the same reasons as batting average) on base percentage. For example, two players have an ops of .800. One player has a .300 obp and .500 slugging. The other has an equal .400 split. Who is the better player? There is a stat called weighted on base average that fixes this. It assigns a value to singles and home runs, for instance, based on how much an average instance of one of those events increases your shot at scoring. (single is worth about 0.7 runs, hr is something like 1.3). This is one of the key ways war is determined as far as just batting in concerned. Now, Miggy is still likely to have a higher wOBA than trout, but I just figured I'd share that.

nmumike

March 8th, 2013 at 1:59 PM ^

4. Take Miggy off of the Tigers and they do not go to the playoffs, take Trout off of the Angels and they still do not go to the playoffs. Both players had fantastic seasons last year, and both deserved to be in the discussion, and I think they picked the right guy for MVP. Here is to hoping he has another year similar to that and the Tigers make the playoffs again!

maize-blue

March 8th, 2013 at 4:13 PM ^

I say f#@! Trout and the metrics. Baseball shouldn't be over thought. See Ball-Hit Ball. Cabrera does just that.

LSAClassOf2000

March 8th, 2013 at 5:20 PM ^

"Cabrera also is working on nine consecutive seasons with an adjusted OPS-plus of 130 or better. Here are the names of the only other players to do that before age 30: Cobb (11), Mel Ott (11), Mickey Mantle (10), Rogers Hornsby (10), Hank Aaron (9), Jimmie Foxx (9), Tris Speaker (9) and Pujols (9)."

If you aren't into Sabermetrics, OPS is "on-base plus slugging", or a measure of a players ability to get on base and hit for some power. I saw this in the article and thought this was an interesting bit or trivia as this is a select list. Indeed, Cabrera's career OPS is 0.956, which would be 5th among active players and 20th on the all-time list at the moment. 

One interesting thing about WAR and its relationship to the MVP voting this year is that, if you sorted the list of the top 10 candidates my their WAR, the winner would be Trout (as someone mentioned) and the runner-up would be Robinson Cano. Miguel Cabrera would be a solid fourth in that sorting.  

bacon1431

March 8th, 2013 at 8:16 PM ^

I actually love saber metrics, but I just found it funny that this past season was the first time I heard it enter the discussion quite frequently in MVP voting.

I like WAR but the defensive component doesn't attract me because defensive stats still have a long way to go compared to offensive ones.