Cabrera vs. Trout

So, everyone's weighed in on this already.  Like Brian Kenny.  And Joe Posnanski.  And a bunch of others.  What do I have to say?  Well, the "statheads" are right, of course.  Trout's been better than Cabrera this year, and by quite a bit.  That's true whether or not Cabrera wins the Triple Crown.

But I'm not actually here to debate the two (in spite of the title), because to my mind, it's pretty cut-and-dried who's been better.  I'm here to celebrate Miggy Cabrera.

As some of you who read older posts may have noticed, I love the Triple Crown.  I understand that it's pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but it's so flippin' fun, I just can't help but love it.  But, as everyone knows, there's a HUGE amount of luck in the Triple Crown.  Like take Yaz's Triple Crown:  44/121/.316.  Good numbers, all.  But at no point in the 1990s would he have led the league in ANY of those categories.  At all.  So while it's true that he won the Triple Crown, that season wouldn't have in a lot of other years.

Now, I know I'm cherry picking here, and projecting, and not adjusting for era.  But Miggy's final numbers this year may be:  45/140/.330!  That's incredible.  Do you know how many times that's been done in MLB history?  17 times.  That's it.  By 7 different players.  Here's the list:

Babe Ruth, 1921:  59/171/.378 (no MVP awarded)
Babe Ruth, 1926:  47/146/.372 (ineligible for MVP)
Lou Gehrig, 1927: 47/175/.373 (Won MVP)
Babe Ruth, 1927:  60/164/.356 (ineligible for MVP)
Babe Ruth, 1929: 46/154/.345 (no MVP awarded)
Babe Ruth, 1930:  49/153/.359 (no MVP awarded)
Hack Wilson, 1930: 56/191/.356 (no MVP awarded)
Babe Ruth, 1931:  46/163/.373 (Did Not Win MVP)
Lou Gehrig, 1931: 46/184/.341 (Did Not Win MVP)
Jimmie Foxx, 1932:  58/169/.364 (Won MVP)
Jimmie Foxx, 1933: 48/163/.356 (Won MVP)
Lou Gehrig, 1934:  49/165/.363 (Did Not Win MVP, Won Triple Crown)
Lou Gehrig, 1936: 49/152/.354 (Won MVP)
Joe DiMaggio, 1937:  46/167/.346 (Did Not Win MVP)
Jimmie Foxx, 1938: 50/175/.349 (Won MVP)
Hank Greenberg, 1938:  58/146/.340 (Did Not Win MVP)
Todd Helton, 2001:  49/146/.336 (Did Not Win MVP)
Miguel Cabrera, 2012?

So, you can see, players have not won the MVP with this kind of season before.  In fact, in some ways, Gehrig's 1934 is most similar:  team missed the playoffs (as the Tigers may), but Gehrig reached these milestones AND won the Triple Crown... but he lost the MVP.  As you can see, there have been 17 of these seasons.  But in six of them, there was no MVP awarded, or the player who accomplished the feat was ineligible.  That leaves 11 seasons.  Of those 11, two occurred in the same season as another.  That leaves nine seasons in which a player COULD have won the MVP, finishing with a .45/140/.330 line. Someone won with that line 5 times - just over half (and keep in mind that we're not including near-misses, like Albert Belle in 1998, or Ted Kluszewski in 1954, which would lower the percentage even more).  So, while Cabrera is putting up a fantastic season, it still wouldn't be unprecedented for him to not win the award; and that's true even if he did win the Triple Crown.

One final note:  all of these seasons occurred in the 1920s and 1930s, the best eras in history for baseball offense, and before integration, good minor league systems, and proper scouting; well, besides the Helton season, which occurred in perhaps the most run-rich environment (outside of the Baker Bowl in the early '30s) in baseball history.  So if Cabrera does it this year, we may actually say that it's a totally unique season in baseball history.  And he deserves to be celebrated for that.  He just doesn't deserve the MVP.