OC Register: Why I voted Angels’ Mike Trout second to Mookie Betts for AL MVP

[AngelsLakersFan]

6 minutes ago, Sean-Regan said:

He's had 4 chances to do so - 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2018 - and did so twice ('14/16).

2013 and 2018 were close value-wise. I think Trout deserved the vote in both, but they are legitimate disagreements. Interestingly, he also voted Brantley 2nd over Martinez (who finished 2nd) in 2014 and Donaldson over Betts in 2016. 

You want to know who has a hate-on for Trout? Morosi. Dude has voted against him all 3 times he had a vote (2013, 2016, 2018). While you can argue (as above) that 2013/2018 were coin flip votes, he voted Trout 5th this season and absurdly voted Betts over him in 2016. Best I can say? He's a Detroit guy and is still bitter that people think Trout was better than Cabrera. That or he's just a dunderhead. (Or both).

I could've sworn he passed him over in 2012 as well.

[Pancake Bear]

34 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

I could've sworn he passed him over in 2012 as well.

You're probably either thinking of Whicker (who voted Cabrera in 2012) or Fletcher's 2013 vote. LA chapter was Whicker and Haakenson in 2012.

https://bbwaa.com/12-al-mvp-ballots/

[failos]

Traitor

[Angelsjunky]

The award isn’t for the best player, but who had the best year - and that was Betts. We can speculate all we want about lineup and team factors, but the numbers tell us that Betts was as good or slightly better.

And then the subjective factors - interpretation of what “MVP” means, value of contention, perception, etc - make it pretty obvious why Betts won. Sometimes the bias taints the results, but not in this case. 

[Blarg]

On 11/15/2018 at 4:04 PM, AngelsWin.com said:

Offensively, Trout had edged Betts in OPS, 1.088 to 1.078. 

@Jeff Fletcher I thought you would have dug deeper for OPS+ to level the playing field to take in park factor.

Betts OPS+ was 186 which was an astonishing 50 points higher than his career best. 

Trout on the other hand almost broke the 200 wall with a 199 OPS+ which was only 12 points higher than last season. 

So in real world numbers there is a wider gap between the two with Betts more likely to return to his career norm around 130 while Trout hovers in the high 170 territory as his career norm.

I'm not denying Betts won the award, I think the MVP has to be more than crunched numbers and Betts seemed to fill in all of the check boxes. But some of those numbers were not as equal as others. 

[Troll Daddy]

Player size factor

Betts 5’9” 180 lbs

Trout 6’2” 235 lbs 

 

[Jeff Fletcher]

2 hours ago, Blarg said:

@Jeff Fletcher I thought you would have dug deeper for OPS+ to level the playing field to take in park factor.

Betts OPS+ was 186 which was an astonishing 50 points higher than his career best. 

Trout on the other hand almost broke the 200 wall with a 199 OPS+ which was only 12 points higher than last season. 

So in real world numbers there is a wider gap between the two with Betts more likely to return to his career norm around 130 while Trout hovers in the high 170 territory as his career norm.

I'm not denying Betts won the award, I think the MVP has to be more than crunched numbers and Betts seemed to fill in all of the check boxes. But some of those numbers were not as equal as others. 

The problem with OPS+ is that if you start adding in Park factors you’re getting into the whole “what would have happened...” realm. That’s fine if you’re trying to project or determine who is better, but if you’re looking at who performed better, it’s best to just use what actually happened. 

Your comment about what they did previous to 2018 or what you think they’ll do in 2019 is totally irrelevant to picking the 2018 MVP.

[Docwaukee]

20 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

The problem with OPS+ is that if you start adding in Park factors you’re getting into the whole “what would have happened...” realm. That’s fine if you’re trying to project or determine who is better, but if you’re looking at who performed better, it’s best to just use what actually happened. 

Your comment about what they did previous to 2018 or what you think they’ll do in 2019 is totally irrelevant to picking the 2018 MVP.

I don't agree with this logic.  If someone is saying 'what if Trout played for Boston', or 'what if betts played for the halos', but that's not what park adjustments do.  It just neutralizes the environment a player plays in.  It actually is what did happen which was Trout's environment being tougher to hit in than Betts.  

Also, WPA is an opportunity dependent stat and better teams give more opportunities for their players to accumulate WPA.  Trout actually bested Betts in RE24 and -WPA.  

Still agree that Betts deserved it though. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

49 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

The problem with OPS+ is that if you start adding in Park factors you’re getting into the whole “what would have happened...” realm. That’s fine if you’re trying to project or determine who is better, but if you’re looking at who performed better, it’s best to just use what actually happened. 

Your comment about what they did previous to 2018 or what you think they’ll do in 2019 is totally irrelevant to picking the 2018 MVP.

I agree with this line of thinking except that if you are going to use this kind of logic it also follows that you still need to account for park factors when considering actual 'on the field' value. A homerun hit into the marine layer at Angel Stadium is not just more difficult than one hit over the monster at Fenway it is also more valuable because it's harder for the opponent to get that run back in Anaheim than it is in Fenway. 

Interesting side note; fWar used to ignore park factors and only used an adjustment for runs per game (which reflects that offense in low scoring environments is more valuable) but they have since added in park factors for specific events (such as homeruns) which compromises the statistic for the purposes you might want to use it for.

[tdawg87]

Betts is a fantastic hitter, but his .640 SLG is so out of whack it seems so unlikely he'll come close to repeating it. His career high before was .530. He's 5 foot 9 and he just put up one of the 125 greatest slugging seasons of all time.

Not to mention his BABIP was 41 points higher than his career high, and 53 points higher than his career average.

It's entirely possible that this was his breakout year, and this 5'9 180 pound beast is now going to perrenially slug .600+. My guess? He just had his career year.

[tdawg87]

God damn I'm salty 

[Blarg]

1 hour ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

Your comment about what they did previous to 2018 or what you think they’ll do in 2019 is totally irrelevant to picking the 2018 MVP.

Absolutely. That is why Trout has only won the award twice and other than Cabrera there hasn't been any repeat winners in Trout's career.

Each individual year any given player can rise to an MVP performance. Few can play at that level in consecutive years like Trout has. It doesn't mean he gets the award by simply being the best player of his generation.

He has to best every player that could be having their career year, like Betts had this one. It doesn't invalidate what Betts did. I just don't think he will reach this level again but I could be wrong, he's young and extremely talented.

[Jeff Fletcher]

2 hours ago, Blarg said:

Absolutely. That is why Trout has only won the award twice and other than Cabrera there hasn't been any repeat winners in Trout's career.

Each individual year any given player can rise to an MVP performance. Few can play at that level in consecutive years like Trout has. It doesn't mean he gets the award by simply being the best player of his generation.

He has to best every player that could be having their career year, like Betts had this one. It doesn't invalidate what Betts did. I just don't think he will reach this level again but I could be wrong, he's young and extremely talented.

That’s exactly what I mean by Trout being the best player but Betts having the best year. 

[Troll Daddy]

3 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

Betts is a fantastic hitter, but his .640 SLG is so out of whack it seems so unlikely he'll come close to repeating it. His career high before was .530. He's 5 foot 9 and he just put up one of the 125 greatest slugging seasons of all time.

Not to mention his BABIP was 41 points higher than his career high, and 53 points higher than his career average.

It's entirely possible that this was his breakout year, and this 5'9 180 pound beast is now going to perrenially slug .600+. My guess? He just had his career year.

It’s the bat