Mike Trout Was Not Robbed

It seems today that baseball has been divided. On one side you have the fans, that love how traditional or stuck in the past baseball is; and on the other side you have the younger generation that worship sabermetrics.

Baseball evolves slowly with time. Football uses instant replay in every game, and baseball only uses it for home run calls. You can say baseball moves at snail pace when it comes to newer technology. Yet this new form of statistics has made younger generation brain washed. What I am referring to is WAR, or Wins Above Replacement.

The American League Most Valuable Player Award was handed out yesterday. Since August it was a two man race for that award, between 20-year-old Phenom Mike Trout, and the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years in Miguel Cabrera. Even though Cabrera led baseball with a .330 batting average, crushed 44 home runs; and drove in 139 runs, he finished fourth in the American League in WAR.

WAR is this new statistics that has baseball experts drooling over. Baseball has begun a culture shift, no longer is a Triple Crown season amazing, but instead having the leagues best WAR is even better, if you think WAR is the best statistic in baseball then I will ask you to please put down the kool-aid.

Yes, I know Trout had the 10.7 WAR, which is the best in Major League Baseball since 2002 when Barry Bonds posted a WAR of 11.6; and Cabrera WAR for 2012 was a meager 6.9. Even if Trout gave the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim almost four more wins more then what Cabrera gave the Detroit Tigers, shouldn't diminish the fact that Cabrera led the entire baseball world(American League and National League combined) in home runs, and runs batted in, and was only six points behind the eventual National League Most Valuable Player Buster Posey of the San Fransisco Giants in batting average.

Sabermetrics might become what all baseball experts go by in the future, but even if WAR overcomes home runs has the best spectacle in baseball, no one will ever be able to take away what Cabrera did in the summer of 2012. Since 1900 only 12 players including Cabrera have won the Triple Crown, and those 11 player before Cabrera have all been inducted into Cooperstown.

It does not matter what kind of fan you are. If you are a traditional fan or a new sabermetrics fan, everyone should be unanimously applauding that Cabrera won the MVP award yesterday, because from Spring Training, until the San Fransisco Giants were done spraying champagne in their locker room, he was, and still is the best player in baseball, and the baseball writers got this one correct, by only giving Trout six-first-place-votes, and the rest going to Cabrera.

So stop with this whole Trout got robbed talk, because Trout was not robbed, he had a hell of a year, but unfortunately his great year came in the same season that Cabrera joined Ted Williams, Mickey Mantel, Ty Cobb, and Carl Yastrzemski as baseball immortals.