Posted by bad_luck on 10/3/2012 11:02:00 AM (view original):
I still don't see how this is relevant to the MVP. The Angels won 89 games and the Tigers won 87. That one team made the playoffs and the other didn't is a fluke in the division alignment, not the result of one player being more valuable than the other.
Even if we suspend reality for a minute and say OK, that isn't a retarded way to break a tie, we'd have to be at a tie in the first place. The only way you could argue that Trout and Cabrera are tied for the MVP race is to COMPLETELY ignore base running and defense.
That's still the old school vs. new school way of thinking.
Old school: batting average and RBI's are excellent metrics to use to judge performance.
New school: WAR (specifically, oWAR and dWAR) rocks!
And I just noticed this: at baseball-reference.com, they use a WAR of 8+ as a rule of thumb for "MVP quality" season.
Cabrera's WAR is 6.9
Trout's WAR is 10.7