MVPs: TROUT, BRYANT
 

Bryant and Trout are both VERY fine players.

I felt Betts was the more deserving MVP candidate than Trout. Boston doesn't win the division without the season Betts had. Trout, well the Angles still lose 88 games with or without him.

Trout may the best in the game, but wasn't the most valuable, Betts was. Two different things.

I think they got it right this year. Both deserving.

The Angels wouldn't have lost 88 games without Trout, they would have lost 98. Good job voters. They got this one right.

Yes, they got it right this time. IMHO, Trout is more valuable to the Angels, than Betts is to the Red Sox.

Mike trout is so valuable in his career he has led the angels to how many post season victories? Oh yeah, zero. MVP was Cory kluber. Where would the Indians have been without him? 88 or 98 losses who cares?

Put me in the Betts camp. Without him I don't think they even make the post season. And the Angels end up 21 games behind the Rangers. In my opinion, hard to go with a guy almost finishing in the cellar as a team unless his stats were way above and beyond others in the running, which was not the case. Quite a bit said about the Cy Young voting too.

No offense, but that's a ridiculous argument. Baseball is not basketball. LeBron can carry a team on his back. Not the case in baseball. The Hall of Fame is full of amazing players who were saddled with terrible teams their whole career.

I would argue that it's far far harder to achieve the numbers Trout has on a string of bad teams. If he was on a stacked team like the Cubs or Red Sox he'd see a lot better pitches and who knows what insane numbers he'd rack up.

Trout will end his career I think as one of the absolute best baseball players of all time. I'm not an Angels or even an AL fan, but facts are facts.

THIS, but....

I think the issue and discussion comes from the award name itself. Should it go to the Most VALUABLE Player or the BEST player of the year?

That is the tough part. It obviously goes to the most Valuable, but both writers and fans define the word Valuable in very different ways.

If it's truly the "most valuable" and not the best, let's give the award to the guy from Triple A who had 15 at bats in September but one of them was the walk off three run homerun that sent us to the playoffs. If he didn't hit that homerum we didn't make the playofffs. So I guess he's the "most valuable".

best player (10wins) is also the most valuable. best bill ($100) is more valuable than a $50 bill. the $100 has more value, whether you're a techie millennial or a high school student pulling down min wage at mcdonald's. it's a pretty simple concept.

Betts I think was hampered by Ortiz's season. During the season a bunch of people were calling for Ortiz to be the MVP, though Betts was clearly the best player on the team. Trout, though, has no competition on the Angels and is clearly not only their best player, but the best player in the league. His advanced stats tells you everything you need to know:

#1 in WAR
#1 in Offensive WAR
#1 in OBP
#1 in OPS +
#1 in Runs Created (on a terrible team)
#1 in Power Speed

In many of these categories he is ahead of only Betts. So he clearly had the better season.

I confess that an entire generation of advanced baseball analytics has totally passed me by. If it wasn't on the back of a 1978 Topps, I have little idea what it means. Very little. But I have to assume all these advanced and super advanced analytics explains some of the craziness that is now happening -- like Verlander not getting on peoples ballots and the guy who wins the AL Cy Young then shows up nowhere on the MVP ballot while Verlander does. I think some of this stuff is getting people so far up their own [FILL IN THE BLANK] that they are really missing the forest for the trees. Or they are trying to prove how brilliant they are by latching on to stuff no one else is thinking about.

Signed, Old School Baseball Fan.

I read somewhere that some of the stats he's putting up this early in his career are putting him in company that only Babe Ruth is in.

I think Mike Trout's age 28 to 31 seasons will be legendary.

The only ridiculous argument is that a player on a losing team is somehow more valuable to that team than a player with similar statistics on a winning team. The gold standard for this is Steve Carlton in 1972. So valuable, if it weren't for him they would have sucked worse. Also a player cannot put a team on his back for a whole season, but certainly can for one month, I've seen David Ortiz do it.

The directions for voting for the award mention "actual contribution to the team", and explicitly say that the winner need not come from a playoff team. Trout simply contributed more wins to his team than Betts did to his.

As for Verlander and advanced stats. No, that's not it. Verlander does very well by the advanced stats. He actually led the league in baseball-reference's version of WAR (albeit by a meaninglessly small margin over Kluber). I don't know why Verlander was left off two ballots, he really shouldn't have been.

I was going to make the point you just did. Where does it say you have to be the most valuable player to a winning team. If the Angels didn't have Trout they may not have had any shot a fielding a competitive team.

Guess times have changed. If you want to see a travesty of justice, check out the 1934 mvp voting. They gave it to Cochrane because his Tigers finished first, Yanks 3rd.Total screw job!

Cochrane war (4.0) runs (74) hits (140) hr(2) rbi (75) avg (320)


Gehrig war (10.4) runs (128) hits (210) hr (49) rbi (166) avg (363)

and Lou ended up 5th in voting? wtf

Totally agree. This is what makes him more valuable IMHO.

Trout MVP ? Maybe.
Here's some other stats : 16th in American league for hits, 26th in HR's, 14th in RBI's and 5th in Ave. His team lost more than they won. Also struck out 137 times. I know he's a great player, but stats can be used many different ways.

From Twitter:

He's led the AL in WAR each of the last 5 seasons. The last guy to do that? Babe Ruth.

"stats can be used many different ways"

That doesn't mean that they're all equally good. RBIs are heavily team-dependent, and so not much use for individual awards. The currency of baseball is the out - you only get 27 of them, and you need to spend them wisely. Although there are a few occasions when making an out is a good idea (sometimes you need a sac bunt), for the most part a batter's most important job is to avoid making an out. Batting average is a nice stat because getting hits is one way to avoid making outs. But it's not the only one, and the statistic that really does measure a player's ability to avoid making outs (on-base percentage) is one that Trout led the league in.

Nothing you posted would suggest he isn't the MVP. These stats suggest he certainly is:

#1 in WAR
#1 in Offensive WAR
#1 in OBP
#1 in OPS +
#1 in Runs Created (on a terrible team)
#1 in Power Speed

You help your team by creating Total Bases, with my formula Betts had 594 and Trout 624 Enchanced Total Bases. Bryant had 577.
Formula is : Total Bases + Walks + Intentional Walks + Hit by Pitch + Sacrifice Bunts + Runs + RBI's + Stolen Bases - Caught Stealing - Ground Into Double Plays - ( HR x 2 ). You need to subtract HR times 2 because it is already included in total bases (4), runs scored (1) and RBI's (1).

Note: Babe Ruth's 1921 Season his Enchanced Total Bases were 841 !!!( I don't have the Double Play data from 1921, so it would be a little lower.) But I think this is probably the best season anyone ever had !

Using this Enchanced Total Bases Formula the following are the Top Ten of All-Time : ( not a bad list)
1) Ty Cobb
2) Barry Bonds
3) Hank Aaron
4) Babe Ruth
5) Rickey Henderson
6) Stan Musial
7) Pete Rose
8) Tris Speaker
9) Willie Mays
10) Honus Wagner

Hey, whatever makes Kate happy!


bb

When will the voters wise up and elect a manager of a dog crap team manager of the year because of his managerial WAR? After all they wouldn't have won 71 games with any other manager:p

No issues at all with the picks. I guess Ortiz would have been a nice sentimental choice and I could have lived with that.

It"s not perfect?
 

The on-base percentage stat is not correct either?It doesn"t give you a point for walks,hit by pitch & reaching on a bad fielding play?For ase why J.Verlander was lefted off on the Cy Young award, maybe it"s the same reason J.Morris,Trammell,Whitaker & L.Parrish are not in the Hall Of Fame?G.Cater & Lance were the best catchers in their leagues in the 1980"s & both hit 324 HRS in there careers? And Jack Morris, I just don"t get? Most wins in the 1980"s,has a NH ,MVP in the world series,won at least 4 of them & could have been the Cy Young winner in the strike season of 1981 & has more wins, then Bob Gibson, who lost his last world series game,also add 2,000+ k"s in the career of J.Morris & yes,B.Gibson is a HOFer?So guys it"s not perfect, but what in life is?Robert D,Hysell. My A.L. MVP is Mike Trout .

pitcher wins is not a very good stat for determining pitcher production on it's own as it is too contingent on the team's offensive quality. Morris is a borderline guy, but probably falls short of being a HOF player.


as far as your OBP argument, it's hard to figure out what you are on about, can you be a little more clear with what you are referencing?

With all due respect, any top ten all-time offense list without Ted Williams is worth bugger all, imho.

Bill: Good Point ! Ted is 3rd best All-TIme based on Total Enchanced Bases/ Plate Appearances Here's the top 10 list :

1) Babe Ruth
2) Lou Gehrig
3) Ted Williams
4) Jimmy Foxx
5) Ty Cobb
6) Barry Bonds
7) Tris Speaker
8) Manny Ramirez
9) Mel Ott
10) AROD