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Home , Baseball awards, Emilio Bonifacio, Jeff Burroughs, Keith Law, Miguel Cabrera, Paul Konerko

November 16, 2012 Page 1 of 38

Clips (November 16, 2012)

November 16, 2012 Page 2 of 38

Today’s Clips Contents

From the (Page 3) robbed? No, deserved MVP award

From the Orange County Register (Page 4) AL MVP award is one thing Trout can't quite catch How the Angels may have saved a lot of money today

From ESPN.com (Page 7) Cabrera wins on narrative, not numbers Miguel Cabrera named AL MVP

From Angels.com (Page 10) Trout finishes second in AL MVP tally Hunter deal right move for Tigers ... and Angels Salmon: Maturation key to Trout's future success

From Fox Sports West (Page 17) AL MVP debate got unnecessarily rude

From SportsIllustrated.com (Page 19) Cabrera wins AL MVP but debate rages on -- and that's good Cabrera's win over Trout for AL MVP proves team results matter

From Yahoo Sports (Page 25) Culture war over Miguel Cabrera's MVP award win over Mike Trout showed beauty of

From USA Today (Page 27) Crown winner Cabrera edges Trout for AL MVP Trout deserved better in MVP voting

From the Vineland Daily Journal (Page 31) Trout learning to deal with new-found stardom Trout takes 2nd in MVP race

From the Wall Street Journal (Page 35) Does the RBI Mean Anything?

From the Boston Globe (Page 36) The Holy War of the BBWAA

November 16, 2012 Page 3 of 38

FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Mike Trout robbed? No, Miguel Cabrera deserved MVP award

By Houston Mitchell

9:14 AM PST, November 16, 2012

Many Angels fans are up in arms today over the fact that 's Miguel Cabrera won the AL MVP award over Angels center fielder Mike Trout, who finished a distant second.

The voting wasn't even close, with Cabrera being placed first on 22 of the 28 ballots cast by members of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America. Trout received the other six first- place votes and finished with 281 points. Cabrera finished with 362 points.

But really, it was an easy pick. Let's compare the two players.

Trout .326 with 30 homers and 83 RBIs. He led the league with 129 runs scored and 49 stolen bases. His OPS+ was 171 and his WAR was 10.7.

Cabrera won the , leading the AL in batting average (.330), homers (44) and RBIs (139). He also led the league in (.606). His OPS+ was 165 and his WAR was 6.9.

Trout was robbed of a after his standout play in center. Cabrera, at best, is an average .

So, it all comes down to how much credit you give Trout for leading in the sabermetric categories, such as OPS+ and WAR.

But the fact is Cabrera is the first player to win the triple crown since 1967. He led his team to the playoffs. It doesn't matter what sabermetric stat you come up with, you can't overcome those two facts.

Mike Trout is a great player, and will probably win several MVP awards before he is done playing. But this season, Miguel Cabrera was just a little bit better.

November 16, 2012 Page 4 of 38

FROM THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISER

AL MVP award is one thing Trout can't quite catch

The Angels’ rookie finishes second behind Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera of Detroit

By JEFF FLETCHER / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Mike Trout got caught in the middle of what was billed as a battle between the old and new schools of baseball analysis, and his supporters lost.

For all the numbers the Angels outfielder posted in his historic rookie season, he still came up short of Miguel Cabrera when the AL MVP was awarded to the slugger on Thursday.

Cabrera, who won baseball's first Triple Crown in 45 years, got 22 of the 28 first-place votes, with Trout taking the other six.

"I was a little concerned about the new things with the computers and I thought Trout was going to win because he had some numbers over me," Cabrera said. "I was just relaxed. If he won, it would have been OK, because he had a great season."

Trout, who won the Rookie of the Year Award unanimously on Monday, had plenty of admiration for Cabrera, too.

"He squares up almost everything," Trout said Monday. "When he hits 'em, they go a long way. It was pretty cool to be in center field and watch him hit."

While the knee-jerk summation of the debate was to pit old-school traditional stats against advanced metrics, it was really much simpler than that. The issue was how much of Trout's performance in the field and on the basepaths could overcome Cabrera's work at the plate, and whether voters would be able to overlook the fact the Tigers made the playoffs and the Angels didn't.

"I think the Triple Crown helped me to win this award," Cabrera said. "Thank God we got to the playoffs. I think that helped me a lot."

In the end, the vote was not as close as many suspected. The votes came from two writers representing each city in the . Here is a sampling of comments from some of the voters, who wrote about their decision or responded directly to a request from the Register:

•Susan Slusser, San Francisco Chronicle (Cabrera): "I'm in the camp that most valuable means most valuable to his team and not best player. Were this the Best Player Award, there is no doubt Mike Trout is the better all-around player. But Cabrera was at his best November 16, 2012 Page 5 of 38

down the stretch when the Tigers were scrambling for a playoff spot, and Trout was at his best in June and July, and that swayed me just a touch."

•Jim Caple, ESPN.com (Trout): "Trout's clear edge in fielding was the tiebreaker. So I voted Trout No. 1, and Cabrera second. I'm still not sure that's the right vote. But I'm not sure it's the wrong vote, either."

•Jeff Wilson, Fort Worth Star Telegram (Cabrera): "It wasn't an easy decision. I saw Trout play 18 times against the Rangers, and it seemed like he did something eye- opening in each game. But the difference for me was that Cabrera flourished in clutch situations throughout the season, and not just during his terrific September. Yes, the Angels won one more game than the Tigers, but Cabrera's contributions were the difference in them making the playoffs. That, to me, was especially valuable."

•Marc Feinsand, New York Daily News (Cabrera): "I thought Cabrera and Trout both had superb MVP-type seasons. In the end, Cabrera's performance from Aug. 1 through the end of the season – and the fact that his performance helped the Tigers reach the playoffs – probably tipped the scale. The Triple Crown had nothing to do with it; had or passed him in homers, I still would have voted for Cabrera."

•Tim Britton, Providence Journal Bulletin (Trout): "Automatically handing the MVP to a player because he won the Triple Crown would be as shortsighted – probably more shortsighted, actually – than handing it to whoever posts the best WAR () in any year. This is about recognizing the uniquely special season Mike Trout had in 2012 – the kind of comprehensively remarkable season that comes along once every long while."

•Marc Topkin, Tampa Bay Times (Cabrera): "Absolutely nothing should be taken away from what Trout did, he was sensational. I just think the context of what Cabrera did was greater – his overall numbers (including games played), his performance in September, his team making the playoffs, his handling of the shift to third base. When I looked at ALL of that, to me he was the MVP."

John Lowe, Detroit Free Press (Cabrera): “Among the reasons I voted for Cabrera: His Triple Crown bid. If he’d narrowly lost the Triple Crown, I still would have voted for him. He was ahead in all three right at the end — the first to do that since Yaz. And he got to the Triple Crown with such a huge September. He played a huge role in the Tigers’ making the playoffs. In the crunch time of September, when Tigers and Angels tried to rally to make the playoffs, Cabrera’s hitting soared. That’s when he made his Triple Crown bid. He played noticeably more games than Trout. “Games played” is part of the criteria. His move to third made possible the acquisition of Fielder, and Cabrera played a respectable third.”

Roger Mooney, Tampa Tribune (Trout). (I suggest you just click the link and read the whole thing.) November 16, 2012 Page 6 of 38

Sheldon Ocker, Akron Beacon Journal (Cabrera): “The Triple Crown element was important to me and I gave an edge to Cabrera because the Tigers made the playoffs and he had a lot to do with that, including down the stretch.”

La Velle Neal, Minneapolis Star Tribune (Cabrera): “I wrote a column in late September supporting Trout. But Miggy kept hitting and helped his team reach the postseason. So I changed my mind. I struggled with the decision between two elite players. Trout’s WAR number is outrageous, but are we supposed to just cut and paste the top ten WAR rankings every year? I don’t think so.”

How the Angels may have saved a lot of money today

November 15th, 2012, 6:33 pm · · posted by JEFF FLETCHER, OCREGISTER.COM

I tweeted earlier that Angels fans ought to find the silver lining in Mike Trout finishing second for MVP: his eventual multiyear deal will cost a lot less.

After getting a few responses, I figured I’d need more than 140 characters to explain what I mean.

Salary arbitration is a crazy thing, as you can read in this really good story. Basically, when players and teams come up with the comps for salaries, they are limited to comparing themselves to other players with similar service time.

Unless…

There’s a “special accomplishments” clause in there, and guys who win MVPs and Cy Youngs get to throw the service time rules out the window. (See Lincecum, Tim.) So when Mike Trout is first eligible for arbitration, for the 2015 season, if he’s got an MVP on his resume he won’t be limited to comparing himself to other first-time arbitration- eligible players. He can use anyone who has won an MVP. That’s the difference between maybe $4 million and maybe $12 million, and we’re just talking about that first season. The salaries go up from there. Instead of his arbitration year salaries going $4M-$6M- $8M, they’ll go $10M-$13M-$16M.

Now, you say Mike Trout is never going to see the inside of an arbitration hearing, and you’re right. But when he and the Angels negotiate, they still use the probable arbitration figure as a basis. His agent isn’t going to settle for $5 million instead of $12 million just because he’s making the deal long before he’s arbitration eligible. Not if he knows he’s got the MVP in his pocket.

(UPDATE: Here’s a concrete example of what I’m talking about. , who like Trout had a historic rookie year and won the ROY, signed a multiyear deal as a one-plus player and his salary for the first year he would have been arbitration-eligible was $4 million, and this year, which was the second, he got $6 million. He won’t crack $10 November 16, 2012 Page 7 of 38

million until 2014, when he’ll have more than six years service time. won the MVP in his second season, before the Phillies could sign him to a multiyear deal, and he got $10M for that first year of arbitration eligiblity.)

So the Angels probably saved a lot of money today.

Of course, Trout could still win the MVP next year, so they might want to sign him before then.

FROM ESPN.COM

Cabrera wins on narrative, not numbers

By David Schoenfield

The American League MVP debate was billed along the lines of new-school stathead nerds versus old-school traditionalists. Did you like Mike Trout's WAR or Miguel Cabrera's Triple Crown? Shake hands and let the brawling ensue.

I believed that was a little bit of a simplistic mindset. The MVP voting isn't so much about statistics and numbers as it is about storyline. After all, who votes on the award? Baseball writers. What do writers like? A good story. That's what made this debate one of the most heated in years: You had two compelling narratives, both historic in nature.

Trout's rookie season wasn't dominant just by rookie standards, but by any standard. His all-around brilliance at the plate, in the field and on the bases led to 10.7 Wins Above Replacement, the 13th-highest by any AL position player since 1900 and the third- highest in either league in the past 20 years (behind only two seasons).

Cabrera, of course, became the first Triple Crown winner since 1967, hitting .330 with 44 home runs and 139 RBIs. Even if you haven't looked at RBIs since wrote his first "Baseball Abstract," it was an impressive achievement and easy story to pin a headline -- and MVP vote -- on.

In the end, it had to be that narrative that pushed Cabrera to a convincing win, as he received 22 of the 28 first-place votes.

After all, it couldn't be about numbers -- and by numbers, I mean those that help you win more baseball games than your opponents -- because if you dig into those numbers, it's not close. Trout wins in a landslide. Well, assuming the only numbers you pay attention to are those produced at the plate and not in the field or on the bases. (And even then, it's pretty close just on offense, especially when you adjust for things like park effects and Cabrera's 28 plays.)

Maybe it was about winning. After all, since the wild-card era began in 1995, only six of 38 MVP winners have come from non-playoff teams. Cabrera's Tigers made the playoffs November 16, 2012 Page 8 of 38

and Trout's Angels didn't. On the MLB Network's broadcast, writer Tom Verducci said that Trout was the better player but Cabrera should win the MVP award, because it shows "how much winning still means." I mean, sure, the Angels actually won more games in a tougher division, but since they didn't make the playoffs, I guess that makes the Tigers the better team and Cabrera's season more valuable. Or something like that.

There's an obvious split in logic here. As Dave Cameron pointed out on FanGraphs, if making the playoffs is the trump card, the MVP debate shouldn't start with a list of the best players from all the teams, but a list of the best players on the playoff teams. The way the MVP vote is currently conducted, it does seem as if bonus points are awarded for making the playoffs, even in a somewhat dubious situation like this year's Tigers finishing with the seventh-best record in the AL and winning a weak division.

It certainly wasn't about all-around play, considering that in past votes, a player's all- around ability and positional value pushed him over the top in the voting: over in 2008, over in 2001, over Mike Piazza in 1997, over in 1995, Cal Ripken over in 1991 and so on down to MVP winners like or or Ernie Banks. To be fair, there have been a fair share of one-dimensional sluggers to win MVP awards: Ryan Howard, Juan Gonzalez, , Kevin Mitchell, and so forth. The writers aren't really consistent on this judgment.

No, in the end, it's about the narrative. The writers viewed Cabrera's accomplishment in better light than Trout's all-around brilliance. said Cabrera had the "year of his life," which isn't really true. By WAR, Cabrera was just as valuable in 2011 -- 7.3 wins above replacement versus 6.9 this season. He had a higher OPS in both 2010 and 2011. If anything, Cabrera's 2012 is a symbol of his remarkable consistency, durability and greatness: He's basically been doing this since 2005.

But the story says Cabrera hit one more home than Curtis Granderson and Josh Hamilton and won the batting title over Trout by .004 points. (If Trout gets three more hits, he wins the batting title). Two home runs. Three singles. The difference between MVP winner and an MVP runner-up.

Miguel Cabrera named AL MVP

ESPN.com news services

Miguel Cabrera has a Most Valuable Player award to go with his Triple Crown. The Detroit Tigers slugger won the American League's MVP on Thursday, beating rookie phenom Mike Trout by a much wider margin than most anticipated.

Cabrera, the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years, won the AL MVP by receiving 22-of- 28 first-place votes and 362 points from the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He easily beat Trout, who had six firsts and 281 points. November 16, 2012 Page 9 of 38

Texas Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre finished third with 210 points, followed by Robinson Cano (149). Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton finished fifth.

Cabrera became the second straight Detroit player voted MVP, after in 2011, and was the first Venezuelan to earn the honor. Countryman took home MVP honors last month.

Cabrera hit .330 with 44 homers and 139 RBIs to become the first Triple Crown winner since Boston's in 1967. Cabrera also led the league with a .606 slugging percentage for the AL champion Tigers.

Some of the more sabermetric-focused fans supported Trout, who hit .326 with 30 homers and 83 RBIs. He also led the majors with 129 runs and 49 steals and topped all players in WAR -- Wins Above Replacement. Trout won AL Rookie of the Year earlier in the week.

AL MVP Voting

Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers walked away with the AL MVP on Thursday, outdistancing Angels star rookie Mike Trout. The following is voting for the award, with first-, second- and third-place votes and total points on a 14-9-8-7-6- 5-4-3-2-1 basis:

Player, Team 1st Total Pts Miguel Cabrera, Det 22 362 Mike Trout, LAA 6 281 Adrian Beltre, Tex -- 210 Robinson Cano, NYY -- 149 Josh Hamilton, Tex -- 127 Adam Jones, O's -- 124 , NYY -- 73 Justin Verlander, Det -- 58 , Det -- 56 Yoenis Cespedes, A's -- 41 -- Top 10 only

"I was a little concerned. I thought the new thing about computer stuff, I thought Trout's going to win because they put his numbers over me," Cabrera said. "I was like relax. ... If he wins, it's going to be fair because he had a great season."

His victory is a win for traditional statistics.

"At the end of the game, it's going to be the same baseball played back in the day," Cabrera said. November 16, 2012 Page 10 of 38

Among Trout's superlative numbers was a WAR of 10.7, highest by a position player since Barry Bonds' 11.6 in 2002. Cabrera's WAR was 6.9, fourth in the AL behind Trout, Cano and Verlander.

WAR summarizes a player's all-around contributions to his team in one statistic -- not just batting but also baserunning and defense -- and it weighs contributions in terms of their impact on creating (or preventing on defense) runs.

San Francisco Giants catcher , who was named NL MVP on Thursday, followed the AL debate and Googled to find out the winner.

"I think it intrigued everybody," he said. "As a fan of the game, it was a fun race to watch."

With three fewer hits or two less homers, Cabrera would have fallen short of the Triple Crown. The past four Triple Crown winners have been voted MVP, including in 1956 and in 1966.

"I think winning the Triple Crown had a lot to do with me winning this honor," he said. Before the season, Cabrera switched from first base to third to make way for Prince Fielder, who signed with Detroit as a free agent.

"I focused too much in about defense, defense, defense," Cabrera said. "I forgot a little bit about hitting, about getting in the cage like I normally do."

FROM ANGELS.COM

Trout finishes second in AL MVP tally

By Alden Gonzalez / MLB.com

ANAHEIM -- Mike Trout turned heads, set records, catapulted a team and put together one of the best campaigns in baseball history during his age-20 season in 2012.

But he couldn't top a Triple Crown.

On Thursday, Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera, on the heels of the first Triple Crown in 45 years, was named the American League's Most Valuable Player by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, beating out finalists Josh Hamilton and Adrian Beltre of the Rangers, Robinson Cano of the Yankees and Trout.

It wasn't particularly surprising that Cabrera won; it was surprising that it wasn't all that close.

Cabrera notched 22 of the 28 first-place votes, beating Trout, 362-281, in total points. Beltre (210), Cano (149) and Hamilton (127) followed, respectively. November 16, 2012 Page 11 of 38

finished 17th, marking the first time in his 12-year career that he finished outside the top 10, and Jered Weaver got one ninth-place vote one day after finishing third in the AL race. Points were awarded on a 14-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.

"I'm very grateful because they voted for me," Cabrera said of the BBWAA in a conference call. "I thought it was going to be very close, because Trout did a very good job this season. You had two unbelievable seasons."

The 21-year-old Trout, who four days ago was the unanimous choice for the AL Rookie of the Year, would have been the youngest MVP in baseball history had he won. And since being called up to the Majors in late April, the center fielder made quite the intriguing case.

Trout was the first player to combine at least 45 steals with 125 runs, 30 homers and a .320 batting average in one season. He played game-changing defense, dominated in the all-encompassing sabermetric stat Wins Above Replacement, added a whole new dimension to the lineup from the leadoff spot and was no doubt the better all-around player.

But Cabrera led the AL in batting average (.330), homers (44) and RBIs (139) to notch the first Triple Crown since Boston's Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. He posted a 1.081 OPS in the regular season's final two months, just as the Tigers were making a push for an eventual AL Central crown and World Series trip. And he didn't particularly hurt them defensively after the Prince Fielder signing moved him back to the hot corner.

That ultimately gave Cabrera the edge over Trout, handing the 29-year-old slugger his first MVP after finishing in the top five in voting each of the previous three years.

"I think if I don't win the Triple Crown, if we don't get into the playoffs, I think there's no question Trout would be the MVP," Cabrera said. "I think winning the Triple Crown helped me a lot to win this. I think [getting to the playoffs] helped me a lot."

Asked recently what awes him the most about Cabrera, Trout said, "His swing."

"Especially watching from center field playing defense," he added. "When he's up at the plate, he's fouling off ' pitches. But once you leave that one over the plate, he's not going to miss it. He squares up almost everything, and once he does, he hits them a long way. It was pretty cool to be in center field and watch him hit."

Hamilton (.285 average, 43 homers, 128 RBIs), Beltre (.321/36/102, Platinum Glove) and Cano (.313/33/94, Gold Glove) each had fantastic seasons.

But the MVP was basically a two-man race between Cabrera and Trout, sparking a heated debate over the old- and new-school approaches to determining value in this game. November 16, 2012 Page 12 of 38

Everyone -- bloggers, reporters, columnists, broadcasters, analysts, fans, executives, players, even famous political prognosticator Nate Silver -- had a voice, and many took a hard stance.

The announcement might have officially settled the argument, but many believe this is a debate that will never go away.

"This is more [nerve-wracking] than actually going out there and playing," Trout said via satellite on MLB Network, minutes before the announcement was made. "Every once in a while, I'll check my phone and all these things pop up on Twitter; all these debates. Some people have Cabrera, some people have me. It's pretty cool to just have your name mentioned in this MVP race at the end of the year. It makes you feel good inside."

Trout finished second in the AL in batting average (.326), first in steals (49) and runs (129), third in on-base percentage (.399) and third in slugging (.564). He robbed four homers (only three others have done that since 2004) and saved 23 runs (fifth in the Majors). He made the All-Star team, graced the covers of ESPN The Magazine and Sports Illustrated, and led the Angels to the third-best record in the AL after his callup.

Only , and Mickey Mantle have notched a Wins Above Replacement higher than Trout's 10.7 at age 25 or younger. Only , and have hit at least .320 with 30 homers in their age-20 season. And only , way back in 1907, stole more than 40 bases at a younger age.

Former All-Star pitcher is the youngest MVP in history, winning it at age 22 with the A's in 1971. And of the Red Sox (1975) and Ichiro Suzuki of the Mariners (2001) were the only players to win the Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season.

Despite Trout's valiant efforts, it'll stay that way.

Player, Team 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th Points Miguel Cabrera, Tigers 22 6 362

Mike Trout, Angels 6 21 1 281

Adrian Beltre, Rangers 1 16 9 1 1 210

Robinson Cano, Yankees 6 10 1 1 3 2 1 149

Josh Hamilton, Rangers 3 6 5 8 2 3 1 127

Adam Jones, Orioles 1 2 8 5 4 3 2 124

Derek Jeter, Yankees 2 1 4 1 3 2 1 1 73

Justin Verlander, Tigers 2 3 3 2 1 1 58

Prince Fielder, Tigers 1 5 1 2 5 5 56

Yoenis Cespedes, Athletics 1 2 2 3 2 4 41

November 16, 2012 Page 13 of 38

Player, Team 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th Points Edwin Encarnacion, Blue 2 5 6 33 Jays , Rays 1 3 1 26

Fernando Rodney, Rays 1 5 2 1 24

Jim Johnson, Orioles 1 1 1 1 22

Alex Rios, White Sox 1 5 1 17

Josh Reddick, Athletics 2 1 2 14

Albert Pujols, Angels 1 1 1 8

Ben Zobrist, Rays 1 1 1 7

Joe Mauer, Twins 1 3 6

Rafael Soriano, Yankees 1 1 5

Matt Wieters, Orioles 1 4

Felix Hernandez, Mariners 1 2

Jered Weaver, Angels 1 2

Raul Ibanez, Yankees 1 1

Hunter deal right move for Tigers ... and Angels

Los Angeles frees up outfield; Detroit fills right-field need with veteran presence

By Anthony Castrovince / MLB.com

The Angels made the right decision in letting leave, and the Tigers made the right decision in welcoming Hunter aboard.

Such are the complications of clarity and context. One man's trash is ... well, you know the rest (although I certainly don't advocate calling Hunter trash).

Indeed, Angels fans directing their ire toward Jerry Dipoto and the rest of the Angels' braintrust for bidding goodbye to Hunter are well-entitled to their aggravation. Hunter, after all, has every intangible and many of the tangibles that you want on your roster, in your clubhouse, in your community.

And speaking strictly on behalf of sportswriters everywhere, I wish every clubhouse could have a Torii Hunter, whose insightfulness, honesty, approachability and affability make for an all-too-rare combination. November 16, 2012 Page 14 of 38

But when you get down to the nitty gritty of roster construction and payroll planning, Hunter was more luxury item than necessity for the Halos. In terms of athleticism and offensive upside, they are better off with an outfield concoction of Mike Trout in left, Peter Bourjos in center and in right. Having Bourjos buried on a depth chart is a waste of raw talent. And if he lives up to his potential, the Angels have the ability to slide Trout's bat into the role of run-production and his legs into a left-field spot that should be less taxing.

And from an outfield payroll standpoint, the ongoing issue that is the Vernon Wells contract -- an inheritance Dipoto certainly would have declined, had he the opportunity when he took over -- doesn't afford a GM a tremendous amount of wiggle room.

So letting Hunter walk ultimately made the most sense for the Angels. The only issue is the specific way they let that process play out.

Offering Hunter a reported one-year, $5 million extension in mid-September -- in the heat of the playoff chase -- was an odd and ultimately "disrespectful" (as Hunter himself said) course of action. What was the point?

And furthermore, what was the point of not offering Hunter a qualifying one-year offer of $13.3 million that would have ensured the Angels of Draft-pick compensation when Hunter eventually signed elsewhere? Even if Hunter would have surprised us and accepted such an offer, at worst you're left with a quality player on an affordable (and likely swappable) one-year deal.

If you're an Angels fan, then, question the process, sure. But don't fret over the ultimate result -- especially considering that result did not land Hunter in Arlington. At this point, the 37-year-old Hunter simply has more value in an organization with less certainty and more flexibility in the outfield.

That team turned out to be the Tigers.

And for them, this is an applaudable pickup.

Beyond those aforementioned intangibles, Hunter, even at this purportedly ripe old age, fills two glaring holes on both the offensive and defensive side of the equation. Tigers right fielders had the lowest OPS (.641) among Major League clubs in 2012, and those same right fielders contributed the fewest total zone fielding runs above average, according to BaseballProjection.com, and the second-fewest defensive runs saved, according to Baseball Info Solutions.

Hunter, meanwhile, had an .817 OPS last season. And defensively, he was responsible for 15 defensive runs saved above average, ranking third among right fielders.

Tigers fans must understand, of course, that a certain segment of that production is unrepeatable. Late-30s ballplayers are, by nature, treading dangerously close to the cliff, and Hunter had an abnormally high .389 batting average on balls in play last season. November 16, 2012 Page 15 of 38

But in case you haven't looked at the middle of their order lately, the Tigers didn't need a superstar. They needed a player who can bring a couple wins above the replacement level, a little speed, a lot of professionalism, a postseason-ready heartbeat, a guy who can warm the seat, so to speak, until Avisail Garcia and/or Nick Castellanos are truly ready for prime time.

A guy who, much like owner Mike Ilitch, wants a in the worst way.

Oh, sure, at $26 million over two years, the Tigers overpaid, as is quite often the case in free agency. But some of that overpay is attributable to wanting to patch these holes quickly, rather than enduring the many fluctuations of the market. Dave Dombrowski is a big believer in the value of the bird in hand, and you can't fault him for that. Besides, it's not as if the Tigers are prone to pinching pennies, and a two-year contract is entirely manageable.

So while Hunter is not a slam-dunk signing, he's more of a tolerable risk to the Tigers than he was to the Angels. No matter the particulars of the process that got us to this point, the end result feels right for both clubs.

Salmon: Maturation key to Trout's future success

By Alden Gonzalez / MLB.com

ANAHEIM -- One of the more popular memes spread via Twitter on Tuesday, when Mike Trout officially joined in a rather exclusive group, featured the slick Dos Equis pitchman with the words: The Angels don't always sign players with fishy names, but when they do, they win Rookie of the Year Awards!

Trout and Salmon are the only Angels players to be named the American League's Rookie of the Year, and both did so unanimously.

"And I think that says a lot," Salmon said in a phone interview. "You have to experience the West Coast to understand some of the biases on the other side of the country. It can be tough. But Mike, I think he just went so far beyond what your average rookie would do. The guy had just a phenomenal, amazing year. I just can't ever see another rookie having that year again."

As Trout captivated the nation with his energy, talent and youth, Salmon had a front-row seat, as an analyst for the Angels' local affiliate, FOX Sports West.

Salmon, who spent his entire 14-year career with the Angels and was part of their championship team, won Rookie of the Year honors in 1993 after batting .283 with 31 homers, 95 RBIs and a .918 OPS. The former never made an All-Star team, but he maintained similar numbers throughout his career, averaging an .898 OPS with 26 homers and 86 RBIs over the next 10 seasons. November 16, 2012 Page 16 of 38

The question with Trout is: How in the world does he sustain the kind of production he had in 2012?

"It will be more difficult in some things, but here's the thing: He didn't sneak up on anybody in the second half," Salmon, now 44, said. "He was on everybody's radar, every pitching staff's radar, and he proved he can make adjustments. So, going into the season, just have that same mindset.

"I think the biggest thing for him is just going to be blocking out all the distractions. He's going to have a lot more microphones in his face, and he's just going to have to find a way to embrace that a little bit."

Trout's numbers were off the charts.

He finished second in the AL in batting average (.326), first in steals (49) and runs (129), third in on-base percentage (.399) and third in slugging (.564). He robbed four homers (only three others have done that since 2004) and saved 23 runs altogether (fifth in the Majors). He made the All-Star team. He became the first player ever to combine at least 45 steals with 125 runs and 30 homers in one season, not to mention a .320-plus batting average.

And he could become the youngest Most Valuable Player in baseball history -- if he can beat out Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera.

Salmon, like many, was taken aback mostly by the home runs, considering Trout only totaled 23 in 286 career Minor League games. The center fielder credited a more-upright batting stance, which allowed him to get more plate coverage, and noted that he's still growing into his body.

Salmon has several other theories, too.

"There's a maturation process," he said. "I think the one thing with Mike is just being in an environment with the advanced scouting. Yeah, you're facing tough pitching, but they're giving you more strikes, too. They're around the zone more, the atmosphere is different, he's starting to get books on guys, he has a feel of how guys are going to work him, he's hitting with guys around him in the lineup like Albert Pujols, so maybe he's getting a lot of good pitches.

"Even though your Minor League numbers might not have been very big, you can develop into that. And like everything else, he's developed so much faster than your average Joe Ballplayer."

November 16, 2012 Page 17 of 38

FROM FOX SPORTS WEST

AL MVP debate got unnecessarily rude

By Jon Paul Morosi

At last, a voice of reason.

After winning one of the most hotly debated baseball awards in history, Miguel Cabrera was asked where he stood on the new school/old school statistical donnybrook.

“Both ways can work,” he said.

Wwwwhhhaaattt?

But I thought, as our dogmatic commentaries kicked into overdrive, that the baseball world was simply not big enough for the both of us, that the loser of this transformative election would be spiked into a different sports universe to follow Jeffrey Loria’s new Quidditch franchise (which, I understand, just traded its highest-paid keepers for a couple of secondhand brooms).

Thursday’s announcement on MLB Network had the feel of another night earlier this month, when many Americans sat before television sets waiting for another set of election returns equally certain that their view was correct and the other completely illogical.

In sports, I would like to think we are better than that.

Cabrera, the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years, is a great baseball player. Mike Trout, undisputed heavyweight champion of most sabermetric categories, is a great baseball player. Shockingly, those statements are not mutually exclusive.

The American League Most Valuable Player discussion was memorable, entertaining and all-consuming. Cabrera said Trout’s historic candidacy — and the debate it inspired — was good for baseball. He’s right, although we would have been better off if the surrounding snark had been dialed back from incendiary to just plain titillating. (Some may say we’re merely more aware of the invective that’s always existed, because it’s catalogued on Twitter rather than muttered to the nearest cocker spaniel. Sadly, I suspect not.)

I love a good sports argument. If you’re still reading this column, I assume the same goes for you. But I do not believe patrons of 1950s New York watering holes finished their nightly Willie, Mickey or the Duke polemics by setting down their pints, picking up their smartphones and tweeting, “guy next to me says Duke is better in cf than Mays. Ever hear of uzr? #moron #smh”

Let me tell you what the 2012 AL MVP vote was not: November 16, 2012 Page 18 of 38

• It was not a decisive battle between the New School and Old School. Both survived and are undoubtedly holding classes today.

• It was not a question of whether Cabrera or Trout is the better player. The award goes to the most valuable player, not necessarily the best.

• It was not a referendum on the usefulness of sabermetrics in evaluating players. We’re way past that.

Here is what we learned from the 2012 award season, writ large:

• Sabermetricians are not yet kingmakers in the Baseball Writers’ Association of America award balloting. Trout (MVP) and Justin Verlander (Cy Young) were the clear favorites of the statistical community in contentious AL votes. Neither won.

• The BBWAA membership (rightly, in my view) recognizes MVP candidates who make the greatest impact on a team’s effort to reach the postseason — which remains the foremost goal of all clubs over 162 games. The ballot distributed to MVP voters says we must consider the “actual value of a player to his team.” Is there any higher form of value to a team than becoming the biggest factor in that team earning a playoff berth? In a sense, Cabrera’s contribution to the Tigers’ division title might have been more important than the Triple Crown itself.

• Context matters. I can tell you that with complete certainty, because the context surrounding David Price’s season — winning the AL ERA title while pitching in the rugged East Division — was the reason I put him ahead of Verlander on my Cy Young Award ballot. (If had flipped the two, Verlander would have won.) Context was a similar consideration in the MVP balloting. Cabrera saw fewer hittable pitches than Trout and had the better performance in pressurized September games; both factors were mentioned in post-race analysis.

• Teams use sabermetrics to evaluate players for the purpose of acquiring them; that is not the same thing as deciding which player, in a given season, made the greatest contribution to his team. The ballot raises questions that no statistic, however avant- garde, can fully answer. Trout is probably the game’s best all-around player, with his 30- homer, 49-steal season to go along with superb defense. Cabrera was the foremost run producer (139 RBI), led the majors in OPS (.999) and learned a new defensive position (third base) in order to improve his team.

Which contribution was more valuable? That’s inherently subjective. And, for the record, I like it that way. (If I had an MVP ballot, I would have voted for Cabrera.)

Fortunately, the BBWAA does not engage in groupthink. If we did, we would write identical stories and fill out matching ballots. The reporters who make up the electorate should talk with managers, coaches and players about the award candidates, and they should consult statistics new and old. The process is familiar to us: gather all of the available information, analyze it, and reach a conclusion. That is how we work every day. And that is how we approach these awards. November 16, 2012 Page 19 of 38

We are, at our best, the ultimate swing voters. On the question of whether my future selections will be swayed by numbers or narratives, my riposte is a bald-faced equivocation: It depends. In some years, I will probably agree with the sabermetric orthodoxy. In other cases, I won’t.

My best hope is that I will have the chance to cast a ballot like the AL MVP voters did this year, with two deserving candidates and no wrong answers.

“A lot of players told me I’m going to be the MVP,” Cabrera said. “I said, ‘I bet you’re saying the same thing to Trout.’ I always tell them to give credit to Trout. He’s the first rookie to do what he did. He’s great for baseball.”

He is. So, too, is Cabrera — the first MVP from baseball-obsessed . All of this is a boon for the sport, really, to the extent that baseball columns are on front pages in November and the half-life of this radioactive debate seems to be about 3,231 years.

But I’ll admit to a little fatigue, too. It’s time for a social media ceasefire, so we can better direct our efforts to divining where Josh Hamilton will play in 2013 (not to mention our reporting on Loria’s efforts to secure public funding for that Quidditch stadium).

Au revoir, Old School stalwarts. So long, New School provocateurs. Until we meet again — next year.

FROM SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

Cabrera wins AL MVP but debate rages on -- and that's good

By Cliff Corcoran

What was ironic about the debate over whether the Angels' Mike Trout or the Tigers' Miguel Cabrera should win the American League Most Valuable Player award, which raged like wildfire for the last two months, is that for most of that time, it was moot. The Baseball Writers Association of America collected the votes on Oct. 4, the day after the regular season ended.

So, does the fact that we now know that Cabrera not only won the award but did so in a landslide really change anything?

Unlike in the recent presidential campaign, in which the two candidates and their supporters argued over who should be president for the next four years, a conversation rendered moot once one of the two candidates was elected, the debate over the AL MVP was over who was the most valuable player in the American League this past season. It's not about the future, it's about the past and the different ways that observers interpreted something that had already happened. That Cabrera won, picking up 22 of a possible 28 November 16, 2012 Page 20 of 38

first-place votes to Trout's six, won't change the interpretations of their respective supporters of each players' value.

In fact, those 28 writers are a minuscule sample of even the BBWAA, which has more than 700 members, never mind the larger baseball media which includes broadcasters and the vast majority of on-line writers such as myself. That leaves plenty of room for those who disagree with that opinion to continue to do so.

Grousing over past BBWAA awards votes gone wrong is a time-honored tradition, and one I'm certainly not above. Last year, when the Brewers' Ryan Braun beat out the Dodgers' for the MVP award, a decision that appeared to be based primarily on the performance of their respective teams, not their performances as individuals, I got up on my soap box. I won't do that again this year. I've said my piece about Mike Trout, and you've likely read similar things from countless other writers or heard them from plenty of television pundits and analysts. Trout might have deserved the MVP this year, but he'll have plenty of other opportunities to win it and not doing so doesn't diminish the season he just had.

Nor does my opinion that Trout should have won diminish the season that Cabrera just had, as so many have accused it of doing. Cabrera was the first hitter in 45 years to win the Triple Crown by leading his league in batting average, home runs and RBIs. That may not be the final word on player evaluation that it was once believed to be, but it's nonetheless a tremendous achievement. That and this MVP award are just the latest evidence of how great a hitter Cabrera has been consistently over the course of his career, and particularly in the last three years.

Two years ago, Cabrera led the league in on-base percentage (.420) and the majors in OPS+ (178) and RBIs (126). I thought he should have won the MVP award that year, going against what wins above replacement told me, because he was more consistent than eventual winner Josh Hamilton, who had three hot months, two relatively ordinary ones and one which he spent sidelined by broken ribs. Cabrera finished second that year, and has now finished in the top five in his league's MVP vote in each of the last four years and six times in his nine full major league seasons.

As I wrote earlier this year, 2012 wasn't Cabrera's best season, or even his second-best. How many players had a year in which they won the MVP and Triple Crown in what was no better than their third-best season? The answer is: None that aren't in the Hall of Fame, in part because every Triple Crown winner since the 1890s has been enshrined in Cooperstown, or was until Cabrera added his name to the list.

Trout may have had a better season, but now that the award has been handed out, the debate is a disservice to Cabrera, as well as to Buster Posey, who, oh by the way, won the National League MVP award with 27 of a possible 32 first-place votes.

The intense focus on the AL MVP award is also, to some degree, a disservice to the BBWAA voters, who should have given the AL Cy Young award to Justin Verlander as well, but got the six other awards "right," at least in my opinion. They also impressed by November 16, 2012 Page 21 of 38

not holding Ryan Braun's overturned positive drug test against him, ranking him no worse than fourth place on all 32 NL MVP ballots.

In writing my Awards Watch column, I often paint the BBWAA electorate with a wide brush. There's good reason for that. There are recognizable voting trends among the writers that have allowed me to correctly predict where 50 of the 54 top-three vote-getters in each of the three major player awards would finish over the last three seasons (having the finalists this year certainly helped, but I've still gone 18-for-18 in predicting the winners of those awards). Still, when there are positive changes to those trends, they should be acknowledged. The 2009 and 2010 Cy Young votes fall in that category, and the lack of bias against Braun this year does as well.

The Trout vs. Cabrera argument may be a bore at this point, but it won't go away, nor would it have had Trout won. The fact of the matter is that this sort of debate is one of the things that makes baseball so much fun to follow. If every award had a clear and correct winner, how many fans would spend their time pouring over every extra base Mike Trout took, researching Miguel Cabrera's double-play rate, the strength of the lineups David Price and Justin Verlander faced, or the relative value of Buster Posey's defense and Ryan Braun's hitting?

Being a baseball fan is a year-round occupation in large part because of this sort of debate and the resulting research and analysis. It keeps the game alive in the cold winter months. Every fan debating Trout vs. Cabrera or Posey vs. Braun, Andrew McCutchen and is reliving those players' seasons over and over again. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Cabrera's win over Trout for AL MVP proves team results matter

By Tom Verducci

The AL MVP vote turned out to be landslide for Miguel Cabrera over Mike Trout. Despite all the debate, it was the confirmation that the individual contributions we make, be it in sports or society, gather enhanced value when they are part of an overall successful effort.

For instance, and both hit home runs on the last day of the 2011 season. Each counted exactly the same in their total. But the value of the home runs because of the context -- Longoria putting his Rays into the postseason, Jones hitting one in a meaningless game for New York -- were entirely different.

The discussion about the Triple Crown oddity and the sabermetrician's equivalent of it, WAR, because it is another overrated bauble, distracted from the obviousness of what happened.

On Aug. 23, Trout was the presumptive MVP who led Cabrera by 19 points in batting average and 35 points in OPS. Both played on teams on the outside of a playoff spot: the November 16, 2012 Page 22 of 38

Angels were 2 ½ games out of the wild card and the Tigers were 1 ½ games out of the AL Central lead.

Here's what happened after that:

Trout:.269/.369/.455 (.824 OPS), 6 HRs, 11 RBIs

Cabrera: .343/.394/.686 (1.080 OPS), 13 HRs, 34 RBIs

The Angels missed the playoffs while the Tigers won the AL Central.

That's not close. Trout had no April to speak of -- spending all but three games of it in the minors -- and now he also had far less value from the pennant race than Cabrera to put on his side of the scale. It really wasn't much more complicated than that. Twenty of the past 21 AL MVP winners played for a team that qualified for the postseason -- an enhanced value that is easier to obtain than ever before, with a record five of the 14 AL teams (15 next year) moving on. Just as there are high leverage situations within ballgames, there are high leverage games in a season.

Trout's supporters argued that winning didn't matter, though they contradicted themselves with the argument that Trout's team won more games than Cabrera's team. That's like a basketball team complaining they lost a game in which they made more field goals than the other team. You know the rules going in: the first three postseason spots are determined by divisions, not a simple tally of wins.

The pejorative nonsense about "new school" and "old school" was sad. Everybody uses advanced statistics, though how they weigh them varies. In fact, if Albert Reach can get on a Hall of Fame ballot next month essentially for publishing a baseball magazine for seven years in the 19th century (it helped sell his ), someday Sean Forman, the brains behind baseballreference.com, should be on one. Who else has put more information just clicks away for fans and media? Delving not so deep into Forman's mine, for instance, can reveal this:

Batting Average Situation All of MLB Trout Cabrera Late & Close .238 .277 .377 RISP .255 .324 .356 2 Outs RISP .234 .286 .420

Even if you don't believe in "clutch" as a skill, Cabrera delivered in high leverage situations at an extraordinary level. Again, the numbers are readily available. Assigning value is interpretive, which should make for respectful debate that makes the award so fun.

Both Cabrera and Trout deserved to win. Cabrera has replaced Albert Pujols as the definitive best hitter in the game. His ability to hit for average and power is unmatched. He is one of only two players in the past 78 years to lead the league with 40 homers, a .330 average and a .600 slugging percentage. The other was Mickey Mantle in his iconic November 16, 2012 Page 23 of 38

1956 season, when Mantle also won both the Triple Crown and the AL MVP. Trout effects games in more ways than anybody in baseball and given the choice of any player should everyone be cast into a draft, I would pick Trout. He is a joy to watch and already, at 21, one of the best baserunners I ever have witnessed. Congratulations to both.

2. Youth is served (again) in MVP voting

Consider the torch officially passed. The next generation is the now generation. Of the 180 votes for the top three spots on the 60 MVP ballots, 161 of them, or 89 percent, went to players in their age 29 season or younger: Mike Trout, 20, Buster Posey, 25, Andrew McCutchen, 25, Craig Kimbrel, 25, David Price, 27, Ryan Braun, 28, Miguel Cabrera, 29, Robinson Cano, 29, Yadier Molina, 29, and Jim Johnson, 29. Nobody in his 30s got a first-place vote.

The only baseball elders to even sneak into a top three on a ballot were Adrian Beltre, 33, with 17 votes, and Derek Jeter, 38, with 2.

Keep this in mind when you want your club to extend a star player or sign a free agent that takes him well into his 30s. Combined votes for 30-and-older players like Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, , Ryan Howard, , , , , , Paul Konerko, and Ichiro Suzuki: 9 out of a possible 600.

We have returned to the late 20s as the sweet spot of a player's career. In the decade since drug testing was introduced in 2003, only three out of 20 MVPs were in their 30s when they won: Barry Bonds twice and Alex Rodriguez, both PED users. The NL has produced eight straight MVPs from age 25 through 29 since Bonds won MVPs at age 36, 37, 38 and 39 from 2001-04.

One fun debate is who will become the first player of this generation to win a second MVP. Cabrera, after five top five finishes, has won his first. Buster Posey has won his first. At the age of 25, Posey already has two world championships, a Rookie of the Year award, a batting title and an MVP. That's almost a modern day DiMaggio (four championships, two batting titles and one MVP by age 25-- the rookie award wasn't created yet).

You also have Braun, Joey Votto, 29, and Dustin Pedroia, 29, looking for a second MVP. But here's one guess: Trout will win his first and second before those other guys win their second. He's that good.

3. No reason to veto Blue Jays-Marlins trade

I don't recall so much angst and anger about breaking up a last-place team. The Red Sox, who finished in the AL East basement, were hailed as geniuses for getting the Dodgers to bail them out. The Marlins, because of the reputation of their ownership, are vilified for getting the Blue Jays to rescue them. The risk in the Miami-Toronto deal is heavily on the Blue Jays' side. Take, as many Marlins fans would love to do, owner Jeffrey Loria out of November 16, 2012 Page 24 of 38

the equation for a moment. The team lost 93 games last year and this is what they gave up:

Josh Johnson, an injury-prone pitcher with one 200-inning season who posted a 3.81 ERA last year and who was going to be gone at the end of next season as a free agent.

Mark Buehrle, a pitcher who at 34 next year will begin collecting $48 million over the next three years.

Jose Reyes, an injury-prone who turns 30 next year and while managing to stay healthy last season saw his batting average drop 50 points from 2011. He is due money he would never see if he were a free agent today: $96 million over five years.

John Buck, a 32-year-old catcher who hit .192, dropping his career average to .235.

Emilio Bonifacio, a speed guy with a lifetime .329 OBP.

Let's be real: If the Marlins kept this team together they were looking at another losing season with a $100 million payroll. If A's general manager Billy Beane, the guy who traded Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez and last offseason, made this deal it would be hailed as a pro-active baseball move to shorten the rebuilding curve. But because it's the Marlins, a team nobody trusts, we get overheated, knee-jerk reactions that the commissioner ought to stop Loria. These are not the 1997 Marlins, folks -- a bigger travesty as teardowns go.

The mistake came long ago when the people and politicians of South Florida bought what Loria was selling when it came to a new ballpark supported by almost $400 million in public funds. (In their defense, he wasn't exactly up front about the team's finances, now was he?)

A year ago everybody in baseball was calling it a potential white elephant: the only way baseball would work in that place was to leverage the excitement of the building and a fattened payroll into a winning team that would help turn Miami into a baseball town. Even before Marlins Park opened, the odds of success looked lousy. The place was plagued by decidedly low levels of interest, with sponsorships (no stadium naming rights), ticket sales and residual business developments falling flat. Loria expected attendance of 2.6 million for his plan to work. By June, the manager was one of the most despised people in Miami and the team couldn't hit a lick. The business plan was dead by July. Loria drew 2.2 million to his glorified art gallery.

With the novelty factor gone and the 93 losses hanging over the franchise, attendance and revenues were going to crater even further this year. Baseball in South Florida is in trouble again after a bout of optimism that lasted an eyeblink. The way back is to cut losses and rebuild with young players.

Loria doesn't get any slack, not with the way he helped sink baseball in Montreal, not with the way he has run through managers and not with the way he has macro-managed November 16, 2012 Page 25 of 38

baseball matters, such as shoving down the throats of his baseball operations people.

But mismanagement shouldn't beget more mismanagement. Now, Loria will have to spend some money on some players or else he will have the union pounding on his door again, only this time with something stiffer than just a warning to quit stuffing revenue- sharing checks in his pocket. But on a pure baseball level? Not even commissioner can stop the need to rebuild a bad team.

FROM YAHOO SPORTS

Culture war over Miguel Cabrera's MVP award win over Mike Trout showed beauty of baseball

By Tim Brown

Well, that was interesting.

After months of debate, name-calling, hissy fits and whatever else went lobbed between the statistical elite and eyeball testers, we have an AL MVP. His name is Miguel Cabrera. We have a runner-up. His name is Mike Trout. The vote wasn't close.

(And still the best part of Thursday was baseball owners mingling with Furries in a Chicago hotel lobby, where, separated from the herd, poor John Henry was mauled by a pack of man-sized guinea pigs.)

Fortunately, the aftermath saw us return to civil discourse.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light, Cabrera voters," tweeted one baseball writer.

"In basements across America, Mike Trout groupies are crying in their mother's meat loaf," tweeted a national columnist.

I mean, other than that.

Yes, this one got personal. Lines were drawn in lime, some with the aid of protractors. Nate Silver went Trout. said of Cabrera, "I just felt like if this guy doesn't get the MVP then there should be no such thing as an MVP." Several voters threatened to move to Canada. The ones who didn't already live there. (They both voted for Cabrera, by the way.)

The great stare down of 2012 – Triple Crown vs. Triple Threat – produced a humble, gracious and reach-across-the-aisle winner in Cabrera. He received 22 first-place votes, Trout the other six. Had I a vote, I would have gone Trout. Without boring you with a November 16, 2012 Page 26 of 38

worn-thin examination, I concluded Cabrera was the greater hitter, Trout the greater player, and still my mind would change between bites of meat loaf.

Asked Thursday evening about this whole man vs. computer deal, Cabrera, who signed off on every answer with a sweet, "Thank you, sir," suggested détente.

"They can use both," he said. "I think in 2012 we've got to take advantage of that. … In the end, the game is the same."

They throw it, he hits it. They hit it, he catches it. Mostly. He prepares, he wins the game – or loses it – and then he prepares again tomorrow.

"The new computer stuff," as he called it, does not change the game as he knows it, beyond, perhaps, the preparation phase of his day. And then, still, there's putting the bat barrel on the baseball, which he did better than anyone in the game in 2012. That is Cabrera's gift, and if that made him the MVP for a year, then he was glad to have it – for Detroit, for his native Venezuela, and presumably for the three darling children who clung to him during the MLB Network feed.

Indeed, he said, "I thought Trout was going to win."

Most expected the vote to be close, reflecting the players and the time we're in. Perhaps the Trout contingent was louder. ESPN polled 28 of its writers and Trout won, 21-7, nearly the reverse of the Baseball Writers' Association of America vote. went on television and took up the Trout cause. Lots of ex-ballplayers jumped up and down and screamed, "Triple Crown! Triple Crown! Triple Crown!"

Some of the arguments were less nuanced.

Where that left us, basically, is pretty near to where we were before. The big, pretty numbers in the newspaper every morning won out. The guy at the top of those categories at the end won out. And Miguel Cabrera will look swell holding up that plaque in New York next month.

The conversations leading to the vote, then in the aftermath of the vote, will have benefits. Once, not so long ago, those sorts of discussions led to Felix Hernandez winning a Cy Young Award. We all got a little smarter. Or at least more flexible. Maybe.

Even Cabrera didn't seem to mind having his game and historic season kicked around for a few months, and that's occasionally where it went. If he was smart, he paid little attention.

"It's exciting to see players like Trout do his kinds of things on the field," Cabrera said. "That's very good stuff."

Besides, he said, the narrative reminded the public, "How good baseball is. How beautiful it is." November 16, 2012 Page 27 of 38

Amid that, we picked sides, we labeled each other, we were enlightened or traditional or seam-headed or Neanderthal. ("Seamhead," incidentally, used to be a complimentary description of a writer who couldn't wait to get to the ballpark and cover ball. Now it's a pinhead with a calculator and his back to the game.)

The fact is, we'll probably never get it exactly right, but some of us can pretend to. The rest, well, they're invited to rage, rage against the dying of the light.

FROM USA TODAY

Triple Crown winner Cabrera edges Trout for AL MVP

By Paul White

Miguel Cabrera's American League MVP award only fuels a raging debate over the meaning of baseball's most prestigious individual award.

That result would have been the same had runner-up Mike Trout won what turned out to be a resounding victory for the Detroit Tigers' third baseman and Triple Crown winner.

"Wow, wow," Cabrera said after receiving 22 of the 28 first-place votes for 262 points in balloting announced Thursday by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. "I'm very surprised. I thought it was going to be close. Trout was unbelievable this year."

It might have been a close call in the minds of individual voters, but only six (281 points) went with Trout, who won the AL Rookie of the Year Award on Monday.

The race has been billed – albeit probably an oversimplification of the factors weighed by voters – as a battle between "old-school" statistics and new-age metrics designed to create a more complete measure of a player's ability.

Cabrera said he didn't get into the middle of the debate but understands its significance.

"It's exciting to see a player like Trout do the kind of stuff he does on the field," Cabrera said. "People talk about that. That's good for baseball. People can understand how beautiful baseball is."

The results settled – if only for the moment – the controversy that has been ongoing since Cabrera and outfielder Trout distanced themselves from the field pretty much from midseason.

Cabrera led the AL in batting average (.330), home runs (44) and RBI (139), baseball's first Triple Crown since 1967. He also led the league in total bases, slugging percentage and on-base plus slugging. November 16, 2012 Page 28 of 38

The disagreements will continue and this result even could have been different depending on the leanings of the voting panel, which changes annually. Each league city gets two votes, which are rotated among members of the local Baseball Writers' chapters.

Cabrera's Triple Crown has been at the center of the debate. Was its historic nature in itself enough to determine the MVP race?

Part of the dilemma is the definition of Most Valuable Player, an interpretation that differs among voters.

If the award was clearly for best player, Trout's argument was that much stronger, especially with all the defensive and baserunning metrics available that show his clear advantage over Cabrera in those areas.

But the "valuable" factor often sways these discussions, allowing for extra credit to players who helped their teams reach the postseason, or for contemplating how significant the player was to what the team achieved.

Cabrera's Tigers made the playoffs – got to the World Series as it turned out, through the voting is completed before the postseason – while Trout's Angels did not. Yet, the Angels had one more victory that Detroit.

"I think winning the Triple Crown allowed me to win," Cabrera said. "And thank god we won the race and got the playoffs. I think that helped me a lot."

The 29-year-old seven-time All-Star's victory – and the first MVP award for a Venezuelan player and the second in a row for the Tigers after Justin Verlander in 2011-- comes during a week reminiscent of the one nearly five years ago that brought him to Detroit.

Cabrera was traded by the then-Florida Marlins to Detroit with pitcher for six prospects – much as the Marlins unloaded significant talent and payroll this week in a 12-player deal with Toronto.

Cabrera has since won one each of the batting, homer and RBI titles in separate seasons before putting all of them together this year. He was second to Texas' Josh Hamilton in the 2010 AL MVP voting.

"Venezuela, this award is for all of you," Cabrera said in Spanish during an interview on MLB Network. "We've been waiting for this for a long time."

Speaking from his home in Miami, Cabrera said later in a conference call with reporters, "Venezuela is going crazy right now. I got like 100 calls from back home."

***

November 16, 2012 Page 29 of 38

How USA TODAY Sports reporters score it:

Paul White: Cabrera. The Triple Crown has nothing to do with this – it's that Cabrera contributed a larger percentage of what his team accomplished no matter how you measure it, even WAR. Jorge L. Ortiz: Cabrera. Call me old-fashioned but, if you win the Triple Crown and lead your team to the playoffs, you're probably going to get my MVP vote. Bob Nightengale: Cabrera . The man had a historic season, becoming the first player since 1967 to win a Triple Crown, and his team eventually won the pennant. Trout had a fabulous rookie season, but the Angels finished in third place, where they would have finished third with or without him. Steve Gardner: Trout. He was valuable in every facet of the game, not because someone else didn't hit two more home runs or because another team didn't win four more games.

Trout deserved better in MVP voting

By Steve Gardner, USA TODAY

The statistical revolution that's permeating the baseball world hasn't won widespread acceptance just yet.

Sure, Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez won the American League Cy Young Awards in 2009 and 2010 with less-than-stellar win totals. But the 2012 AL MVP race was the first major litmus test for the kind of in-depth analysis that's already taking place in virtually every major league front office.

That's why it's so puzzling to see the Miguel Cabrera vs. Mike Trout debate fall largely along the lines of "baseball people" vs. "statheads" – but with the roles seemingly reversed.

The traditionalists cling to their cherished stats (particularly batting average and RBI), while the sabermetricians prefer to consider a player's overall contributions (including baserunning and defense).

It's up to the 28 individual voters to determine their own definition of value, but where this year's writers got it wrong is that value in one particular area shouldn't trump value in many different areas.

Miguel Cabrera led the AL in batting average, home runs and RBI this season, becoming the first player to win the Triple Crown since 1967. He also played for a Detroit Tigers team that won the Central Division title.

But are those the things that really matter the most when it comes to determining the most valuable player? What if Josh Hamilton or Curtis Granderson had hit two more home November 16, 2012 Page 30 of 38

runs and prevented Cabrera from winning the Triple Crown? What if the win four more games and Cabrera's Tigers don't make the playoffs?

Without Cabrera's performance changing even one bit, the two major points in his MVP case come tumbling down if another player or another team had been able to perform just a little bit better.

Now Cabrera is clearly a deserving candidate for MVP – and it's a shame he'd never won before, despite finishing in the top five in five of the past seven seasons – but take away all of the outside factors and it's clear Mike Trout simply had the better overall season.

It's important to note that Cabrera and Trout are two different types of players, so it makes one-to-one comparisons more difficult. But let's try.

Batting average is great but on-base percentage is better. While Cabrera did lead the AL with a .330 average, Trout finished ahead of Cabrera in on-base percentage (.399 to .393).

By winning the Triple Crown, Cabrera did something that hadn't been done in 45 years … but by scoring 129 runs and stealing 49 bases (both tops in the majors) in addition to hitting 30 homers, Trout did something this season that had never been done in baseball history. By anyone.

Offensively, the two were clearly the two best at what they do this season. But we haven't even considered what the players have done on defense.

Trout's speed allows him to cover a tremendous amount of ground in the outfield. He made several memorable catches and according to Fangraphs.com, Trout's defensive skills saved the Angels 21 runs over the course of the season. Many experts even felt he deserved a Gold Glove in center field.

While Cabrera deserves credit for moving from first base to third base and enable the Tigers to sign Prince Fielder, he was a liability there defensively. He cost the Tigers an estimated four runs more than an average third baseman, according to Fangraphs and the defensive metric Ultimate Zone Rating had Cabrera ranked as the worst full-time third baseman in the majors.

If we try to put everything together, the traditionalists start unloading their heavy artillery. (Yes, now it's time to bring up WAR.)

Baseball experts have spent decades trying to find a way to quantify all of a player's contributions and boil it down into one number. The best measurement we have right now is what's known as Wins Above Replacement (WAR).

There are different ways to calculate it, mostly because of the difficulty of evaluating defense. But in every instance, Trout's all-around game puts him ahead of Cabrera. Baseball-Reference.com has Trout atop the AL at 10.7 and Cabrera fourth at 6.9. Fangraphs.com has Trout first at 10.0 and Cabrera third at 7.1. November 16, 2012 Page 31 of 38

Finally, the argument that Cabrera carried his team to the playoffs is the weakest of them all. Again, he had a great season and he hit .333 in September with 11 homers and 30 RBI as the Tigers won the division title.

But the Tigers finished with an 88-74 record and .543 winning percentage and were aided in their playoff push by the White Sox's late-season collapse. Meanwhile, the Angels (89- 73, .549) actually won more games than the Tigers, but finished third in the powerful AL West.

Trout's season is even more impressive because it came against tougher competition. In fact, the Angels were 6-14 the day before Trout was promoted from the minors, but went 83-59 (.585) the rest of the way with him.

The fact that the Angels may have just missed the playoffs because they didn't have Trout for that first month may even be the best argument for why should have been the AL's most valuable player.

FROM THE VINELAND DAILY JOURNAL

Trout learning to deal with new-found stardom

By Josh Friedman

Mike Trout’s star lit up the baseball universe this summer, and it certainly didn’t dim when the season ended.

“When he was coming home from the season, his mom and I went to pick him up and there were (fans in Philadelphia International Airport) with pictures and bats and (other memorabilia to sign),” his dad Jeff said. “He just wanted to get away from that. He’s a 21-year-old kid who had a microphone in his mouth 24/7 out there, and he needs some time to decompress, and when he got here (it got bad). Every media outlet this side of the Mississippi was contacting us … within hours of him getting home.

“I think it’ll die down, but maybe not.”

Mike’s meteoric rise to prominence made him a darling of not only baseball, but the sports world too. The 2012 American League Rookie of the Year and MVP runner-up has become one of the hottest commodities in both memorabilia and media.

He ranked fifth in Major League jersey sales behind Yankees shortstop and his childhood idol Derek Jeter, free agent outfielder and former MVP Josh Hamilton, Yankees outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and Nationals phenom according to a report on Oct. 1. November 16, 2012 Page 32 of 38

Trout was honored to see so much support, especially outside of Anaheim.

“It’s pretty neat to have fans in all the states,” Trout said. “People recognizing you for the catches you make and the way you play the game, it feels good inside. Looking up in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, seeing my jersey in the stands, it means a lot to me.”

His popularity soared as he began to join baseball’s exclusive lists. He became the first rookie ever to join the 30-homer, 40-steal club, which features Hall of Famer , Barry Bonds, former Philadelphia Phillie and current Phillie Jimmy Rollins among others.

He was also the first player to ever have at least 30 steals, 45 stolen bases and 125 runs scored in a season, and his 10.7 wins above replacement this season, calculated by the website Baseball-Reference, was tied for 20th in history with Mays (1964) and Hall of Famer Ted Williams (1946).

Those numbers, along with his smile and hometown-hero appearance, helped him become the cover boy of both Sports Illustrated, under the headline “The Supernatural,” and ESPN The Magazine, with the title “Magic Mike.”

“When you’re doing stuff that such a small, elite group of people have done in the past, that attracts a lot of attention,” Trout’s agent Craig Landis said.

Trout has also learned the hard way about over-zealous autograph seekers, who look to reel him in at any place and any time.

“I think he got pinned against a bus by people in New York one time,” Jeff recalled. “They were really crowding him, and actually got in the hotel, which is usually off limits, and got him in the lobby. … In New York, we’d go into the stadium and get him out, and if they recognized him they’d chase the car for as long as they could and bang on the car.”

The pride of Millville, Trout felt honored when he arrived back to town, riding past billboards reading, “Welcome to Millville, NJ; Home of Angels Mike Trout #27.”

“It means a lot to me as a person to influence so many people,” Mike said of the billboards. “I’m just trying to lead little kids in the right direction. That’s what big for me.”

Of course, there are autograph seekers in Millville too.

“I definitely get recognized more than I used to,” he said. “I think they started carrying balls in their cars because I’ll go out to a restaurant and they’ll come up to me with a ball and stuff. I think they’re just preparing themselves if they do see me. It’s pretty cool to get recognized out, there are some times that it gets a little alarming because you just want to sit there and eat with your family, you don’t see them most of the year, (but) to be recognized like that is just an incredible feeling as a person.” November 16, 2012 Page 33 of 38

Being a national sports celebrity also means dealing with a ton on fan mail too. Trout’s mom Deb said he has a half a dozen cartons of fan mail at his parents’ house, where he still lives, that he hasn’t had time to get to.

“When you’re on the cover of ESPN Magazine, the cover of Sports Illustrated, you’re up for MVP, (Rookie of the Year), overnight you are a nationally known face,” Jeff said. “It became a different world out there.”

And if his exploits on the diamond didn’t get him recognized enough, he’s gaining more notoriety as a pitch man, recently signing on to endorse BODYARMOR SuperDrink and J&J Snack Foods.

“I walked into a store and a big poster was up of me and had all my BODYARMOR drinks and the guy working at the front desk looks at me, looks at the poster, looks at me and he’s like, ‘Is that you?’ And I said, ‘That’s me.’ And it was a funny situation,” Trout recalled.

While the attention can be overwhelming at times, there are moments that make the whole Trout family smile. Mike’s mother, Deb, fondly remembers one when she saw a young fan in an Angels hat.

“He’s probably about 13 years old and he got this big smile on his face (when he saw me),” said Deb, inferring the boy had recognized her from a photo with Mike. “He put two and two together, and he looked at his mom and she said, ‘Yes, that’s her (Mike’s mom).’”

While stardom can get monotonous at times, Trout wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s pretty crazy to think about it,” he said, “but as a kid growing up, this is what I wanted to be, and I still have a long way to go. The ultimate personal goal would be to win a World Series and enjoy my time while I’m there.”

Trout takes 2nd in MVP race

By Josh Friedman

Mike Trout didn’t win the American League’s Most Valuable Player award on Thursday, but the Millville native’s historic 2012 season was still recognized with a runner-up finish.

The Los Angeles Angels’ 21-year-old outfielder garnered six first-place votes and finished with 281 points, farther back than many anticipated of Detroit Tigers third baseman and AL Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera, who garnered 22 first-place votes and 362 points. November 16, 2012 Page 34 of 38

While many Trout fans around the area who were rooting for the hometown hero to capture the AL’s top award were disappointed at the final tally, they understood that a second-place finish to Cabrera was nothing to frown about.

“Either one of those players that gets selected tonight is well deserving,” Millville Mayor Tim Shannon said Thursday afternoon.

“I don’t think they can go wrong. ... Both did incredible things, but (Trout) absolutely has my vote,” said Millville assistant baseball before the announcement. Williams coached Trout during his playing days as a Thunderbolt.

Trout’s friend and former Millville baseball teammate Dan McMahon said, “Defense and speed, (Trout) definitely has that advantage. His speed and defense is the difference in my opinion.”

Cabrera, a first-time MVP, led the league with a .330 average, 44 homers and 139 RBIs, becoming the first player to win the Triple Crown since Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski in 1967.

Trout, who earned an unanimous AL Rookie of the Year selection on Monday, finished second behind Cabrera in average, hitting .326, but he led the Major Leagues in runs scored (129) and stolen bases (49) while also hitting 30 homers and driving in 83 runs.

Pundits around seemed largely split on who should win the award.

Cabrera supporters pointed to his offensive numbers, including the Triple Crown, and the fact he led the Tigers (88-74) to the playoffs and eventually the AL pennant.

Though Trout had slightly less-impressive statistics with the bat, his backers believed his superior work both on defense and the base paths, as well as the fact that the Angels (89- 73) had a better record than the Tigers, more than made up for it.

“My MVP is Mike Trout,” Shannon said. “When you talk about Most Valuable Player, in my mind, you got to look at the whole package. And I understand the (history) and significance of the Triple Crown, that’s a great feat that’s 45 years in the making. ... But when you talk about MVP, and what somebody means to their team, Trout is right there. I look at the whole package, offense, defense, base running, stealing home runs, he brings it all.”

Trout also had the endorsement of those in the sabermetrics community. Sabermetrics are an advanced analysis of . In one of the most-talked about numbers in the debate — wins above replacement — Trout led the Majors with a 10.7, according to the website Baseball-Reference. That number was tied for 20th in history with Hall of Famers Ted Williams (1946) and Willie Mays (1964). November 16, 2012 Page 35 of 38

ESPN analyst Keith Law, an avid supporter of sabermetrics, told The Daily Journal in late October, “Nobody came close to producing (Trout’s) value in the American League or National League.”

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Does the RBI Mean Anything?

By Carl Bialik

Miguel Cabrera is the AL MVP, despite the myriad cases made for his chief rival for the award, Mike Trout, by baseball fans whose preferred stats go beyond the triple-crown ones in which Cabrera led the league (batting average, home runs, runs batted in). But Cabrera’s win nonetheless contains elements of hope for those who prefer their Most Valuable Players chosen by more comprehensive metrics, such as wins above replacement. Here’s what it suggests: It may take a Triple Crown and a playoff appearance for an MVP candidate to beat out a rival who is otherwise more qualified for the award.

Of all the Triple Crown categories, Cabrera’s biggest lead came in RBI – he had 139 to Trout’s 83. That edge of 56 was hard to surmount. Of the 161 position players who have won an MVP since the award debuted 101 years ago, just 34 won while another top-10 finisher in the voting had a lead over the winner of 30 RBI or more. Of those 34, all but two either played on a playoff team, played one of the marquee defensive positions (second base, shortstop or catcher), or both. The two exceptions, Albert Pujols in 2008 and Jake Daubert in 1913, had big edges in batting average. Daubert, the 1913 NL batting champ, was nonetheless an odd choice in the third year of the award, and Pujols’s closest rival, Ryan Howard, hit more than 100 points lower than he did. And just 12 of the 161 position players got the award despite trailing another top-10 MVP candidate by 56 RBI or more.

Meanwhile, 65 of the 161 position players to win the MVP award led the league, or at least all the top-10 vote getters in their leagues, in RBI. And in 54 of the 102 years in which the award has been handed out, at least one of the winners was the RBI champ among viable MVP candidates — including 32 of 42 years between 1948 and 1989.

But lately, RBI haven’t been king in MVP voting. Since 1999, 25 position players have won the MVP award. Just four of them have led the top-10 vote-getters in their league in RBI — two fewer than the number who trailed at least one other top candidate by 30 RBI or more. Cabrera managed to buck the trend, but even with his Triple Crown and playoff appearance compared to the Angels’ third-place finish among four teams in their division, it was a fairly close vote. If just nine of the 21 voters who had Cabrera first and Trout second on their ballots had reversed their votes, Trout would be MVP, and the RBI would have lost much of its remaining luster. November 16, 2012 Page 36 of 38

Why shouldn’t RBI count much toward the MVP vote? Because they’re so dependent on context and opportunities — in short, factors players don’t control. Cabrera batted with 444 teammates on base this season, compared to 306 for Trout. Cabrera did drive in 22%, to 18% for Trout, but Cabrera also ground into double plays 19% of the time that he came to bat with a double-play opportunity, to 8% for Trout. So while Cabrera drove in more runners, he also left fewer of the ones he didn’t drive in for teammates to have the chance to bat home.

The other major awards weren’t quite as contentious. Every winner was either the league leader among eligible candidates in WAR according to Baseball Reference, or within one win above replacement of the leader. There was one seeming oddity, though: The fifth- place finisher in each league’s Cy Young Award voting was a , though closers pitch about a quarter the number of innings of starters and therefore rarely are as important to their teams as the best starters are. But these votes are understandable for two reasons. First, the Cy Young Award isn’t supposed to go necessarily to the most valuable pitchers in each league — just to the best ones. And second, these two relievers, Tampa Bay’s Fernando Rodney and Atlanta’s Craig Kimbrel, really did have seasons for the ages.

Rodney yielded just five earned runs in 74.2 innings. That was good for the lowest ERA since 1901 for a pitcher with at least 55 innings, as well as the best ERA relative to league average, known as ERA+. Kimbrel wasn’t far behind, with the eighth lowest ERA among pitchers with at least 55 innings and sixth best ERA+. Remarkably, though, Kimbrel may have been even better than those stats suggest. His fielding-independent pitching — which focuses on stats he has the most control over, such as , walks and home runs — was 0.78, meaning his ERA would have been even lower with a bit more luck or better spacing of baserunners. (Rodney’s was 2.13, which is good but hardly historically great.) Kimbrel’s FIP was the lowest single-season figure for a reliever as far back as FanGraphs has kept the stat. So Rodney and Kimbrel may have gotten some of their votes for their gaudy saves totals — 90 combined — but other stats suggest they deserved those votes for outstanding performance.

Unlike with Cabrera and Trout, new and old numbers agreed for them.

FROM THE BOSTON GLOBE

The Holy War of the BBWAA

By Eric Wilbur

I wonder if the Mayans had Miguel Cabrera winning the 2012 American League Most Valuable Player.

I’m all for the new wave of statistics in baseball, but if this year’s MVP Holy War is any indication of where the game is headed count me out. Cabrera was worthy, and I’m glad November 16, 2012 Page 37 of 38

he won. Mike Trout was worthy, and I would have had no issue if the BBWAA satisfied the craving needs of the statistical-minded and handed him the award.

That stance apparently makes me obtuse.

It’s encouraging that the ancient BBWAA conducted the debate between Trout and Cabrera, actually giving some mind to numbers the organization once considered those sprouting from some preschool baseball know-nothings. But the whole process showed, yet once again, what is wrong with the hierarchies of the press box. The BBWAA reeks of arrogance and entitlement, dismissing any argument as uneducated, uninformed, or archeological.

We received it from both sides Thursday night when the vote came down. Cabrera, the first Triple Crown winner since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, blew Trout away in the voting, getting 22 of 28 first-place votes, and 22 of 26 if you consider that both Boston chapter members – Comcast’s Sean McAdam and the Providence Journal’s Tim Britton - gave their votes to Trout. Then came the backlash, most notably from ESPN sabermetrician Keith Law, who went on a statistical crusade last night rivaling only the Siege of Antioch.

Law also went on WEEI’s show Thursday night and truly showed how superior he is to anybody else with a differing opinion. The whole segment was like an overbearing mother disciplining an older child for stealing his younger brother’s Buzz Lightyear, the new toy on the block that some refused to give his due.

There’s a lot of truth to what Law says in that interview. The BBWAA is an antiquated old-boys club that looks at any and all new writers or medium with a suspecting and dismissive eye. In order to join The Lodge (copyright, Fred Toucher), you have to buy into the ways of the cult, and any new ways of thinking will be a detriment to admission. But Law goes off the rails with his assessment that a vote for Cabrera is equivalent to voting Hee-Haw to the TV Hall of Fame. Take the Triple Crown, or “the narrative” as Law arrogantly classifies it, out of the equation, in the final month of the season, Cabrera hit 11 home runs with a 1.071 OPS. Trout hit five home runs with a .900 OPS. Those are two great months. The Tigers made the playoffs. The Angels didn’t. That has to count for something. Sorry, it just does.

I understand the argument about the difference in competition over that stretch, but these guys didn’t make the schedule. Tom Brady has won the MVP playing the Bills, Dolphins, and Jets. Nobody ever holds that against him.

Law’s condescending nature is one primary reason why so many baseball fans are reluctant to embrace the new numbers that permeate baseball. If you don’t believe in WAR and VORP in that world, you’re dispatched to the far regions of the sport’s new generation of fans. So, let me ask; how is that any different from what Law claims of the BBWAA? Isn’t that a society that shuns members and principles if they don’t fall in tow with the company line? November 16, 2012 Page 38 of 38

At the other end of the spectrum, we had old friend Evan Grant, the Dallas writer who left Dustin Pedroia completely off the ballot when the Red Sox second baseman won the award in 2008. Grant, of course, represents the old guard of the BBWAA, an embarrassing segment that stalwartly refuses to budge from the stance of age-old theories.

Oh.

The BBWAA has plenty of fine, outstanding members, but that statement pretty much sums up how the group as a whole sees itself; the end-all, be-all when it comes to deciding right and wrong. Except for, you know, Bill Conlin.

The stats-minded have a proper battleground for their mission, and an unmovable force that they have remarkably managed to permeate over the years. But their argument that geezer voters simply voted Cabrera because of a narrative is so independent of enjoyment and reality that it makes them come off as sore losers. If Trout had won, the championing would have been just as nauseating. When did it come to this?

And you know what, so what if there is something mystical about the Triple Crown? Is it wrong to want to want to talk about that someday with my kids when we’re sitting at Fenway, or should I lay out a mathematical equation for them?

Stats enhance the game, but they shouldn’t be the primary reason why we’re baseball fans. In this case, nobody was right or wrong with his or her vote, despite what each political party has to say about the matter. The BBWAA has been a blundering organization for decades, but I fear the new wave that fought so heartily against the organization is creeping up on the aristocratic meter.