MONEYBALL AND THE MOST VALUABLE PLAYER AWARD. In the comments, Nick, Dick Weisfelder and Elmer are continuing the debate over whehter Miguel Cabrera or Mike Trout was more valuable this year. The Most Valuable Player award is one of the many baseball awards for which there are inconsistent criteria. (This has the virtue that it facilitates pleasant debates). Should the player who had the best year win or should some kind of attempt be made to assess value to a team? Andre Dawson of the Cubs won the MVP award in the National League in 1987 even though his Cubs team finished last, leading to the argument the the Cubs could have finished last without Dawson. Similarly, A-Rod won the American League MVP award in 2003 even though his Ranger team finished last in its division. Yet voters also give weight to a team’s success and argue about which player helped his team more.
There is also a division of opinion over which statistics to use to evaluate how good a player’s year was.The statistics used for the triple crown that Miguel Cabrera won are traditional ones—batting average, home runs and runs batted in. MONEYBALL analysis considers these statistics to have less importance than on base percentage and slugging percentage—conveniently summarized by adding the percentages together to result in OPS. Nick in his comments arguing for Mike Trout over Miguel Cabrera relied on a more advanced version of OPS (OPS plus), which takes into account a player’s home park.
The MVP controversy highlights the division between traditional baseball thinking and Moneyball thinking.