Cabrera Vs. Trout

[DOUGHBOYS]

Last night at the ball park, the Miguel Cabrera- Mike Trout MVP argument.
Numbers are thrown back and forth, value to their teams was bantered about, the value of a middle of the lineup guy vs. a leadoff hitter, anything that could back up the contention that one pick was better than the other.

Cabrera- .330/109/44/139/4
Trout- .326/129/30/83/49

First, for those guys that say, 'We think fantasy should be similar to real baseball'...it is not.
It is a poor argument when prefacing a challenge to the 900 ip rule or whatever we're prefacing it with.
Fantasy baseball has 14 hitters and two catchers, how can that be even remotely similar to real baseball?
So, let's take the fantasy element out of the argument and award Mike Trout the fantasy MVP crown.
There is no doubt.
He is a five category contributor and came from a draft pick where we find the Mark Buehrle's of the fantasy world.

Real baseball is tougher. We don't care that Trout came from nowhere to achieve his numbers.
We do care about the effect on his team. His team did not make the playoffs. When we think about that, it is incredulous.
After all, if you'd have gone to any baseball fan during the off season and said, 'The LA Angels are going to add Albert Pujols, CJ Wilson and have a season out of nowhere with an .326/129/30/83/49 line, you would probably say 'Game Over!' we have our World Series Champs.
But, they didn't even make the playoffs.

For Cabrera, a Triple Crown is in every baseball fan's mind.
Quite an achievement to be sure. But an achievement dependent a little on other players shortcomings. Josh Hamilton slumped badly during September or maybe given a couple of more days at home, Curtis Granderson could have passed Cabrera in home runs.
Cabrera's triple crown is loaded with skill, but he also needed the season to end at the right time, which involves a little luck.
We're also not sure if Cabrera is even the MVP of his own club in terms of value to the Tigers. Take away Justin Verlander and the Tigers are not a playoff team.
But, an MVP is more about numbers than value to a team, especially when comparing teammates.
Besides, voters will think that Verlander had his year, last year. It is somebody else turn.

In the end, I can't get away from the fact that the Angels did not make the playoffs with that Trout season.
And it's too bad, because it is not Trout's fault.
Imagine them without the Trout season.
Folks may be talking about the Angels epic collapse with Pujols as much as the Red Sox.
Anyway, I have to give the award to Cabrera, while Trout gets fantasy MVP.
And not surprisingly, it was Trout and Cabrera going 1-2 in the first draft of the season.

[Joe Sambito]

Jim Leyland was on PTI last week and they were asking him about the MVP and specifically Cabrera and I really like something he said. He started talking about RBI. He said so many people poo-poo the RBI stat, but listen to a losing manager's press conference. "We had runners on-base just couldn't get the big hit, just couldn't drive the runs in."

Real baseball...Miggy Cabrera should be the MVP.