Quote:
Originally Posted by CMIZ5290
If alot of players have had better years than cabrera, i can't seem to recall them. 330 batting avg, 44 hrs., and 139 rbi's, hard to imagine a better year than that....
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It actually happens quite often, just scroll through the league leaders over the years. It happened seemingly throughout the career of Babe Ruth. His career average and average annual HR and RBI numbers exceeds that of Cabrera's 2012 year, and he never won it. The fact that Bonds didn't win the Triple Crown during the early 2000's, the greatest and most complete offensive seasons ever, shows just how highly contextual that achievement is.
I think an interesting and revealing thought experiment would be to think about whether Cabrera should be MVP if Hamilton or Granderson had gotten 45 HR's. Neither of those sluggers had the year Trout or Cabrera did, so it wouldn't rob votes away from Cabrera or Trout, and it would have the added virtue of removing the Triple Crown from Cabrera's year while not diminishing his #s.
Trout's AVG/OBP/SLG, an offensive line that better reflects value than AVG/HR/RBI, is so very, very close to Cabrera's, that his overwhelming defensive superiority and ABSOLUTELY ridiculous baserunning superiority makes him the MVP, in my judgment.
It's a true shame Cabrera didn't play in the National League: he could legitimately and rightfully win an MVP while not relying on (or achieving) such a highly contextual feat, and he could keep that dirty cheat Braun from winning an MVP.