Baseball in the United States has always been a game full of tradition. It has existed far longer than any of the other major sports in this country, and reading its history is in many ways like reading the history of the United States over the past 150 years. We saw the game become segregated as racial issues arose throughout the country, and the existence of the Negro Leagues along with Major League Baseball mirrored how the United States was racially divided for so many years. After racial segregation ended throughout the country, it eventually ended in baseball (although most would say that it took a lot longer than it should have) with the signing of Jackie Robinson by the Brooklyn Dodgers.
When our country was embroiled in war or tragedy, it was reflected in the game of baseball. Some of the game's greatest players, such as Willie Mays and Ted Williams, were drafted and served time in the military while they were in the primes of their careers. We saw the first ever Major League Baseball games played in the month of November in 2001 due to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, which brought about a temporary postponement of the baseball season. We even saw one of the greatest pitchers in the history of the game, Sandy Koufax, decline to pitch in a World Series game in honor of Yom Kippur, a Jewish day of observation that was more important to him than baseball.
The diversity and multifariousness that makes the United States the country that it is can often times be observed within the game of baseball. That is what makes the debate about who should win the American League Most Valuable Player award so intriguing. On one hand, you have Mike Trout, the unbelievable rookie who burst on to the scene with the Anaheim Angels and produced arguably the best rookie season in the history of American sports. Since his arrival in Anaheim at the end of April, he has done nothing but surpass any and all expectations. The arrival of Albert Pujols in Anaheim was the only storyline anyone wanted to discuss when talking about the Angels into the first month of the season. Not only did Trout put that story on the back burner, he performed so well that it was almost as if Pujols didn't even exist anymore.
There is absolutely no doubt that the numbers that Trout has produced are historic. Trout leads all of baseball with 129 runs and 48 stolen bases, and is second in the AL to Miguel Cabrera with a .325 batting average (fifth in all of baseball when the NL leaders are added to the equation). Doing this as a rookie is even more impressive. Add to that his defensive prowess and the fact that he will probably win a Gold Glove, and his credentials are extremely impressive.
If you take a look at Cabrera's numbers for the year, any baseball fan, past or present, cannot deny the greatness of his season. With only two games left to play, Cabrera leads the American League in batting average at .329 (Trout is second at .325). He leads the American League (and all of baseball) with 44 home runs. Josh Hamilton is one behind him for the AL lead with 43, and Trout has 30. Cabrera leads all of baseball with 137 RBI. Trout has 83. Unless Hamilton is able to pass Cabrera in the home runs category in the final two days of the regular season, Cabrera will become the first Triple Crown winner since 1967. Undeniable, unbelievable, and until about a week ago, most thought unattainable.
The number one argument that supporters of the "Trout for AL MVP" campaign use is that his WAR is higher than Cabrera's. What exactly is WAR? Well, besides a newly developed, made for sabermetrics stat like WHIP or VORP, it is defined as an estimate of wins a player is worth to their team compared to a bench or minor league player.
Are you kidding me?!? The first flaw in this "statistic" that should immediately render it useless is the word "estimate." Any time any major award is based upon estimation is a time that we as voters have lost our minds. Denzel Washington does not win an Academy Award because we estimate that if he were replaced by a C-list actor, the movie would be a lot worse. John Steinbeck doesn't win a Nobel Prize in literature because some guy on a couch could not have possibly written a better novel than Steinbeck did. So why is Trout's value compared to a minor leaguer or bench warmer so important? To use this statistic as the leading argument in making a case for Trout as the MVP is, as Stephen A. Smith or Skip Bayless would say, not only asiNINE, it is asiTEN and ELEVEN!
The categories that Miguel Cabrera leads the American League in are 100% measurable. Batting average, home runs, and runs batted in all can be decisively measured. They are not estimations of how Cabrera might perform as opposed to a player nowhere near his skill level. When it comes to the MVP award, we are measuring the best players against one another, not each player individually against some guy that 95% of baseball fans has never heard of because he will never earn a starting spot in an every day lineup.
What Cabrera has a chance to do is historic. The Triple Crown has long been considered one of the most prestigious achievements in all of American sports. Not only do you have to be able to hit for average, you need to be able to hit for power and drive in runs as well. The last Triple Crown winner was Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. The list of Triple Crown winners is a list of some of the greatest players to ever play the sport. Frank Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Rogers Hornsby, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig. When you talk about the all-time greats, you talk about those guys. These men were and still are "old school baseball." When they stepped to the plate, they had the potential to do anything at any time, and Cabrera has been the same way this season. Whether it was a base hit with two men out and the bases empty, or a three-run homer to take the lead late in the game, these guys had the potential to do either. Winning the Triple Crown is synonymous with greatness.
In a game that is full of historians who claim that the players of today cannot measure up to the players of decades ago, it is time to recognize that what Miguel Cabrera could possibly do is something that could put him in the company of some of the greatest to ever play the game. I am not a believer in the fact that baseball will never be as good or as pure as it once was. There is a difference between clinging on to history and downplaying anything that might happen in the present and recognizing history while also taking the present into account.
This is the MVP award we are talking about. It is a comparison of the best players in the league, not a debate about how much better Mike Trout is than Peter Bourjous as opposed to how much better Miguel Cabrera is in comparison to Ramon Santiago. If Cabrera wins the Triple Crown, he puts himself into an elite class with some of the best players to ever play the game. If Mike Trout leads the league in WAR, he puts himself into a class that involves any player who has ever been better than a bench warmer. So please, I beg the voters to take into account the historic significance of what Cabrera is doing, and put aside how Trout looks in the estimation of some guy that had nothing better to do than make up some new statistic that needs an essay to define.
Daily Diamondbacks Update: So playoff contention is officially over, and the only real question remaining is whether the team will finish over .500 (82-80), at .500 (81-81), or below .500 (80-82). I will do a full recap of the 2012 season once it finishes, but for now, I have to say that it was indeed a disappointing year for the Diamondbacks, but there are also a lot of reasons to be optimistic heading into 2013.
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