But Jose only batted .307 when he did that. He also only scored 120 runs. I mean sure, he only drove in 40 more runs than Trout did this season, but that's nowhere near as impressive because he didn't bat over .320 or score 125 runs (lets not get into the discussion of his higher walk rate leveling out the respective OBPs though).

Same with Barry Bonds in 1996. He only batted .308 and scored 122 runs though again he drove in 45 more runs and got on base at a staggering .461 clip because anytime he wasn't driving in a run, he was probably getting walked. Oh, and he finished fifth in the MVP voting that season.

SURELY SUCH A TRAVESTY NEVER AGAIN OCCURED!!! Well, then there was that time that A-Rod hit 42 and stole 46 but only batted .310 and scored 123 runs (while again driving in 40 more runs than Trout). His reward? A ninth place finish in the MVP voting.

Oh and then there is Vladdy's 39/40 season w/ a .336 BA (4th) or Beltran's 38/42 season where he scored 120+ and only got CS 3 times in 45 attempts (incredible, really, and NR) and countless other seasons where guys just missed the quaint little endpoints that the Angels fans and the breathless Trout supporters have drawn for him.

But again, What Trout has accomplished this season is clearly unprecedented because we set the endpoint for BA at .320, a totally not arbitrary number, as opposed to the arbitrary nature of the triple crown stats.

I'm not angry - I'm just getting a kick at how incredibly awful you are at defending the positions that other people have been kind enough to put together for you.

Don't ever change, Angels fans. Please don't ever change.

And for the record, Brainiac, if you ever need it, I could put together a thesis on slapping Carlota around. I pretty much have to do it any time she thinks she can talk baseball with the grown ups.

Whatever makes you feel more manly darlin'...God knows you need all the help you can get.:thumb:

Just offering to help out a fellow Truther, that's all.

Everyone knows that us nuts that don't think Trout just had an all-timer of a season are just closet Tigers honks.

If you're lucky, maybe fangraphs or Jeff Passan will go ahead and feed you something else to help you out with your next round of sterling baseball analysis.

"But, but, but...Peter Gammons said!!!!!"

Good ol' Angels fans. It's like the safety school for baseball fans in LA that can't pull off Dodger fandom. Don't worry, Arte will break out his checkbook and make everything better...

Again, you don't seem to understand that the "M" in MVP stands for MOST valuable player. They can't BOTH be the MOST valuable player. Only one of them can.

And it isn't Mike (.284 down the stretch) Trout.

searched for Jeff Francour on google and this thread didn't come up

I think your argument is a bit juiced.

ITT, the LA Angles benefit from significant media bias, but the Boston Red Sox do not.

Trout's 2012: .422 wOBA, 175 wRC+,
Ellsbury's 2011: .402 wOBA, 150 wRC+

Bit of a difference there offensively, it seems. A major one.

Trout's 2012 season was actually better (in terms of both offensive rate stats and overall value) than anything Ken Griffey Jr. ever did in a single season over his entire career.

But sure, let's just keep pretending it wasn't anything special and downplaying it because TRIPLE CROWN!

But what about the first Triple Crown in 45 years?

Great accomplishment. But the award recognizes the most valuable player, not the most valuable hitter, and Trout's vastly superior baserunning and defense trumps Cabrera's moderate offensive advantage. Moreover, the Triple Crown only looks at three measures of offense, one of them highly team-dependent (runs batted in). It tells us nothing about Cabrera's walks, singles, doubles, triples, steals, times grounding into double plays, or any number of other stats. Yelling "Triple Crown!" and dropping a metaphorical mic is not a cogent argument.

But what about Cabrera going off in September, while Trout cooled down?

One win counts for one win in April, May, June, July, August, or September. But if you want to try to ascribe higher leverage to September at-bats the way you would ninth-inning at-bats in tie games, sure, go ahead.

But what about Cabrera leading his team to the playoffs, while Trout led his team to the golf course?

Leaving aside the Angels' superior record in a much tougher division, the teammates your general manager picks for you should have no bearing on a player's value. Trout did more this year to help his team win than did Cabrera (or anyone else, including Robinson Cano, who's had a hell of a year and could be argued to have produced about as much value as Cabrera, maybe even a little more) and Adrian Beltre (another candidate with value comparable to Cabrera's who's not coming up in the main Trout vs. Cabrera debate). He is therefore the league's most valuable player.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...b-awards-field

And yet not as good as Matt Kemp's 2011 season - the same Matt Kemp that didn't win the MVP last year.

But that's right, he only scored 115 runs and stole 40 bases when he was hitting 1/3 more HRs and driving in 50% more runs.

It was a great season - but a season very similar to it happens every other year or so.

And?

Kemp was better than Braun last year. All that Kemp not winning shows is that voting for an individual award based on a team effort is stupid.

My point is that the season is nowhere near unprecedented. It was bested last season by Kemp.

And I also made a mistake in taking the rest of that claim by KC Connection at face value - the idea that Trout's season was never bested by Junior.

Look at Griffey's 1997 season:

125 R, 56HR, 147 RBI, 15 steals and an OPS of 1.028 - That season crushes the season that Trout put up this year. Trout only has an appreciable edge in steals.

Yet WAR has Trout as having a better season this year than Griffey did in 1997. Why? Because WAR is not dispositive of anything and can be wrong just as easily as RBI can. WAR should be looked at as just another tool, not the tool that answers all questions.

Leave it to the super stats crowd to actually try to claim that Trouts season was better than Griffeys 96, 97, 98 or even 93. Griffey did get the MVP in 97, but not the other 3 years.

Gotcha.

As I mentioned earlier, I trust offensive WAR by itself (Total WAR, with defensive value thrown in, gets silly). Trout does lead in that category. I'm fine with either guy but would vote for Trout, personally. Not a slam dunk either way.

Here's a counter-question, though: How unprecedented is Cabrera's line?