Senior Circuit Circus

We were all duped. That may sound dramatic, but we were fooled. In fact, we were fooled twice. And i think you know the saying. "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." Well, Ryan Braun fooled us once. He dazzled the Majors last season on rout to the National League's Most Valuable Player. He made conventional voters excited with a slash line of 332/.397/.597. He produced runs, hitting 33 home runs and knocking in 111 runs. He scored 109 runs, batting in the 3rd spot in the batting order, and even stole 33 bases. For those more inclined towards advanced metrics, Braun compiled a 7.7 fWAR, 178 wRC+, and wRAA of 58.6. Both Matt Kemp and Ryan Braun deserved the award, and even if you disagree with the selection (like I do), both players deserved the award, so neither choice was wrong. The deception came just after the season ended, when Major League Baseball suspended Braun for 50 games for a positive test showing that Braun took a banned substance. Immediately fans became puritanical, taking out their dusty copies of The Crucible, and calling for Braun's MVP award to be revoked, the MLB equivalent of death by stoning. Some called for an asterisk to reside next to his name in the record books to denote Braun's guilt, which is the MLB equivalent of wearing a big red A on your jersey, or am I mixing up my puritans?

Either way, Braun fought the case and through a technicality, MLB reversed their decision to suspend Braun. Most assumed, no matter what the conclusion, that Braun took PED's and it helped him win the MVP. So, the sneaky Braun got away, and fooled us for the second time. Now he's back, trying to fool us again. This season Braun has been better than ever before. Take a look:

Slash line	0.315/.390/.599
HR	40
RBI	107
Runs	98
Hits	175
SB	29
UZR/150	4.6
FRAA	3.6
DRS	10
fWAR	7.8
rWAR	6.8
WARP	5.9

So, Braun seems like a lock again for MVP. The Brewers lost cleanup hitter Prince Fielder to free agency, and while Aramis Ramirez, Fielder's replacement, has had a great season, he doesn't impose the same fear factor as Fielder did. Even more so, Braun has improved defensively, playing one of the better left fields in the National League. He's done all this, for a Brewers team that will not win as many games as they did last season. The team traded ace pitcher Zack Greinke at the trade deadline and has had some of the worst bullpen issues in the Majors, just ask the Phillies if you don't believe me.

So, making good use of the old adage to which I previously referred, I plan to make the case for someone other than the esteemed Mr. Braun to win the National League's 2012 MVP award.

The last catcher to win the National League Most Valuable Player Award was Johnny Bench in 1972. Catchers have historically not been the best players on their respective squads. They don't put up the flashiest numbers, spending more time working with pitchers and calling the game. Mike Piazza, arguably the best offensive catcher of all-time, never won an MVP. On the other hand, the American League has seen a catcher or two win the MVP with Joe Mauer winning the award in 2010, and Ivan Rodriguez accomplishing the feat in 1999, but it has been 40 years since an NL catcher won the award.  This streak could, and I argue, should be broken this season. Two candidates have broken away from the pack to distinguish themselves as catchers who also serve as very valuable players.

Yadier Molina has put together a great career thus far. As the younger brother of both Bengie and Jose Molina, who both play(ed) catcher in the Majors, Yadier has proven to be the best of the bunch. Fellow backstop (nickname for a catcher) Buster Posey is having an outstanding season. Posey, who plays for the NL West champion San Francisco Giants, has put together one of the best offensive seasons for a National League catcher since Mike Piazza. Oh, and he's doing all of this at the ripe young age of 25.

Offensively, both these catchers have excelled, but the edge has to go to Posey. While Molina, once thought to be just a defensive player with some offensive liabilities, has hit extremely well, Posey bests him in most categories. Let's take a look:

Molina

Games	129
Hitting	2012	NL Rank
wRC+	144	7th
wOBA	0.379	8th
Avg	0.321	4th
OBP	0.379	10th
SLG%	0.506	17th
ISO	0.186	27th
K%	9.9%	7th
BB%	7.8%	43rd
Contact %	85.7%	15th
Hits	152	21st
HR	20	Tied for 14th
RBI	64	36th
Runs	60	55th
BABIP	0.327	25th
Tav	0.317	20th
LD%	25.2%	5th
Clutch	1.16	6th
OppOPS	0.717	143rd

Posey

Games	139
Hitting	2012	NL Rank
wRC+	160	3rd
wOBA	0.404	3rd
Avg	0.335	3rd
OBP	0.409	1st
SLG%	0.545	4th
ISO	0.21	19th
K%	1.6%	42nd
BB%	11.4%	7th
Contact %	85.2%	17th
Hits	167	11th
HR	23	Tied for 10th
RBI	96	6th
Runs	74	Tied for 31st
BABIP	0.365	5th
Tav	0.349	1st
LD%	24.5%	6th
Clutch	-0.6	37th
OppOPS	0.717	28th

So, as you can see, while both players are having fantastic offensive seasons, Posey definitely has an edge. Where I think Molina makes a statement is in his K%. Batters want this number to be as low as possible, and Molina had shown can keep it his strikeouts down. Molina has consistently kept his K% down throughout his career. The other stat leaning towards Molina is his Clutch. This is a statistic calculated by www.fangraphs.com that determines how a player performs in high leverage situations. For those of you who care, the formula is:Clutch = (WPA / pLI) – WPA/LI 
Molina does extremely well in high leverage situations as 1.16 is considered great while Posey's -0.6 is designated between poor and below average. How a player performs in clutch situations is important, and more so valuable. The last three NL MVP's have posted a Clutch of 0.26, 0.20, and 0.60 respectively. Nonetheless, Buster Posey shows more power than Molina, hits for a better average, walks more, hits just as many line drives, and has done it all against better opposing pitching (OppOPS). Offensively, he gets the nod.

Offense is important, so much so, that it makes up most of what goes into the statistic Wins Above Replacement. Without runs, no one would ever win a baseball game, so by proving to be the better offensive catcher, Buster Posey has taken a solid lead in the MVP race. In the last few years, defense has become quite important as well. Now that we have metrics that can evaluate a players defense far better than fielding percentage, it is important to utilize them when discussing the Most Valuable Player Award. The catcher position is usually known as a premium defensive position due to the enormous responsibility placed upon the catcher during the course of a game. They must manage the pitching staff, oftentimes call the game, make sure no pitch gets by them for a passed ball or wild pitch, and crouch the entire time. Remember, catchers, unlike other position players, don't need great range when playing the field, so no one calculates UZR (ultimate zone rating) for them. On the other hand, DRS (defensive runs saved) and FRAA (fielding runs above average) are good ways of quantifying a catcher's defensive abilities. In addition, www.baseball-reference.com records a catcher's caught stealing percentage. Molina comes in 4th in the NL in that category while Posey does not.

Molina

Defensive	2012	NL Catcher Rank
DRS	17	1st
FRAA	2.1	3rd

Posey

Defensive	2012	NL Catcher Rank
DRS	-2	Tied Last
FRAA	-2.1	Last

So, defensively Yadier Molina makes Buster Posey look like a designated hitter. In fact, Posey is a defensive liability, and that includes throwing base runners out as well as fielding bunts and blocking pitches. Molina has always been known as a terrific defender, but with Posey ranking among NL catchers in the dumps, Molina gets a major advantage here. Catcher is one of the most demanding defensive positions on the field and Molina does it better than almost everyone. 

Most catchers are large, and if not large, they are ubiquitously slow. Base running is not a facet of the game most catchers have in their arsenal. This is true of both Molina and Posey, but base running is still an important part of the game. All other MVP candidates should be judged based upon the same categories, and base running is one of them. 

Molina                                                  Posey

	2012	NL Catcher Rank		2012	NL Catcher Rank
SB	12	1st	SB	1	Tied 4th
BsR	-5.8	Last	BsR	-4.1	2nd to Last

Surprisingly, Yadier Molina has 12 stolen bases, but when considering all base running, he ranks lower than Posey. Neither player, even in comparison to other catchers, run the bases well, but since Molina has 12 times the number of stolen bases than Posey, I have to give a slight edge to Molina. 

Finally, let's look at these two players through the lens of the many metrics that determine overall value.  Fangraphs, Baseballprospectus, and Baseball-reference all calculate WAR slightly differently. The calculations are different enough for each of their top 5 lists in WAR to be somewhat different. 

Molina                                                  Posey

Value	2012	NL Rank	Value	2012	NL Rank
fWAR	5.6	6th	fWAR	5.6	3rd
rWAR	6.7	Tied 2nd	rWAR	6.3	Tied 3rd
WARP	5.6	6th	WARP	5.6	1st
Value in $$	$28 Million		Value in $$	$31.5 Million

By all accounts, Buster Posey seems to have the advantage in overall value. Fangraphs and Baseballprospectus consider him better than Molina, and Fangraphs consideres Posey to be worth $3.5 million more than Molina. Interestingly, Buster Posey is making $615,000 this season, which is due mostly to the fact that he is still under his rookie contract. Molina recently signed a contract extension with the Cardinals, but it hasn't kicked in yet, so his 2012 salary is $7 million. Now, according to rWAR, Yadier Molina has been worth more wins than Buster Posey. 

One aspect of a catcher's responsibilities that I haven't referred to yet is their ability to handle a pitching staff. Catchers must learn about each pitcher, how to handle them from the physical side, how many pitches they throw, and the mental side, keeping them calm and focused. The catcher is the manager's aid on the field, which is probably why so many catchers become managers. Yadier Molina has caught 7 different starting pitchers and 19 different relievers. The Cardinals starters combined for 15.8 fWAR, and while Molina has less to do with that than the pitchers do, as a receiver, Molina impacts pitchers' performances to some degree. One Cardinals starter, Adam Wainwright, throws a curveball with lots of downward movement, making it a difficult pitch to handle for a catcher (-9.6 y-movement). Molina handles 3 starters whose fastballs reach or exceed 93 mph and 6 or more relievers whose fastballs exceed 95 mph. By all standards, Molina does a great job handling the Cardinals staff and bullpen. Also, Molina has played 128 games at catcher this season, catching 80% of the 

In comparison, Buster Posey has caught 6 different starting pitchers. Those starters throw only 5 different types of pitches between them, and none of them throw their fastballs faster than 92 mph. The total fWAR of the Giants starting staff is 12.0. On the other hand, Posey caught Matt Cain's perfect game, which by all standards is a great achievement. Posey has dealt with 17 different relief pitchers throwing 7 different types of pitches, with none of those 17 pitchers acheiving a velocity higher than 95 mph. Giants pitchers have thrown 51 wild pitches this season, many during Posey's time behind the plate in comparison to St. Louis pitchers who have thrown only 42. This shows us that Posey has to deal with pitchers who can be more wild than does Molina. On the other hand Molina may keep his pictures calm enough, and catch pitches in the dirt better than Posey, thus leading to fewer potential wild pitches. 

Overall, both these players have been great this year. Posey is one of the best hitters in the entire game. Posey is most comfortable when standing in the batter's box, not the catcher's box, and due to the greater importance placed on offense, Posey has the advantage in both fWAR and WARP. In contrast, Yadier Molina's defense is unparalleled in today's game. He forces base runners to change their travel plans, getting them to remain at 1st base instead of attempting to swipe second. Also, Posey has only started 109 games at catcher, which is good enough for 72% of the Giants games this season. Posey has been the rock for the Giants, especially since they lost Melky Cabrera due to a positive test for PED's. 

Ryan Braun will probably win the National League MVP award this season, but if I had a vote, I'd give it to either Posey or Molina. If you are someone who thinks that an MVP winner's team should make the playoffs in order to consider said player for the award, than you will be happy to know that the Cardinals have a 74.4% chance of making the playoffs, the Giants have already made the playoffs, and Braun's Brewers have only a 24.6% chance of making the playoffs. Catchers are often overlooked, but one thing is certain, some if not much of what catcher's do cannot be quantified by statistics. Outfielders are important, but catchers are far more valuable to a team. So, Baseball Writers Association of America voters, take a chance and vote for Posey or Molina, one of them deserves to win. 

Triple Threat or the Flying Fish

Defining Value:
Let's get something straight. Especially in recent years there has been a lot of debate in the Baseball community over the Most Valuable Player Award. I have previously written about the Cy Young Award, given to the best pitcher, which is assumed to mean the pitcher with the best statistics, no matter which stats one utilizes.  The two sides of the argument surrounding the MVP award are as follows.  One side claims that the MVP award should go to the player who has been the most valuable to his team.  The other side claims that the award should go to the best overall player because by being the best it follows that the player would be the most valuable.

Fortunately, most of the people who argue about this do not have a vote. The Baseball Writers Association of America votes on the winner of each leagues Most Valuable Player. Here are some recent winners of the award:

	NL	AL
2008	Albert Pujols	Dustin Pedroia
2009	Albert Pujols	Joe Mauer
2010	Joey Votto	Josh Hamilton
2011	Ryan Braun	Justin Verlander

Miguel Cabrera

Let's turn to 2012. While the National League is interesting, it deserves its own article, thus, moving on to the American League.  In the AL, the race for the MVP has come down to 2 players in particular, Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers and Mike Trout of the Angels. In all honesty, no one should forget about Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano, but for the purposes of this article he is forgotten, POOF!  For all intents and purposes, until recently the race for the AL MVP was similar to the tortoise and the hare. One player was ahead of everyone, with another player or two far behind, but not completely forgotten. Mike Trout is the hare, and Cabrera the tortoise. In fact, as you will find out later, comparing the Angels outfielder to a hare is not unreasonable.  

On August 31st, Miguel Cabrera had an OPS (on base% + Slugging %) of .984. As of September 19th, he has an OPS of 1.008. In order to raise his OPS those 24 points, he needed to have a better month in September than he had had in any month in 2012 that preceding it. So far this month, Cabrera's OPS is 1.223. By all standards, Cabrera is having an outstanding month, without which he would probably not be a member of the conversation concerning the AL MVP. In fact, due to Cabrera's 2 home runs last night against the Oakland A's, he finds himself only 2 home runs away from the American League lead. This piece of information is important because he already leads the league in batting average and runs-batted-in. If one player leads their respective league in those three categories, they are said to have won the Triple Crown, an achievement last accomplished by Carl "Yaz" Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox in 1967. Was Cabrera to win the Triple Crown, it would be difficult for some not to consider him the de-facto MVP.   

Mike Trout

I consider a team's success to be of some importance when determining an MVP recipient. For a player's stats to contain the utmost value, his team must reap the benefits. The Tigers find themselves 3 games back of the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central, not an insurmountable disparity. In fact, one major reason for the Tigers' small distance from 1st place is the play of their third baseman, Miguel Cabrera. In fact, Cabrera's fWAR (batting, not pitching) makes up about 31% of the entire Tigers' fWAR. Nonetheless, the Angels have won more games than the Tigers have this season, even though they find themselves 6.5 games out of first in the AL West. According to www.coolstandings.com, the Angels still have a better chance at 28.6% of making the playoffs than the Tigers, at 20.8%, do.  

The Comparison:

When comparing two players, we must compare them on a number of levels. Baseball is not merely an offensive game, it involves base-running, defense, intuition, etc... Fortunately, modern analytic tools allow fans, pundits, players, managers, and yes, even writers to evaluate a player in all of these categories. 

Let's first look at both players' hitting statistics.

	Trout	Cabrera
Games Played	125	146
Hitting
wOBA	0.420	0.420
OPS	0.954	1.008
BABIP	0.380	0.335
Hits	166	189
wRC+	174	169
Runs	118	110
BB%	9.9%	9.4%
K%	21%	13.8%
BB+HBP	65	77
Strike Outs	121	88

The first thing that might pop out to you is that Trout has played in 21 fewer games than Cabrera. This gap is due the fact that the Angels did not bring Trout up from the minors until April 28th, almost a full month after the season began. Nonetheless, Trout's statistics compare favorably to Cabrera's. Both players excel in getting on base, as is seen by their identical weighted on-base averages (for a full explanation of wOBA see this link: wOBA explained). Trout draws walks at a higher rate than Cabrera, and hits for a higher average on balls he puts in play, despite having a higher strikeout percentage. Each player has compiled a number of hits, but when you look at hits per game, Trout has a distinct advantage at 1.3 hits/game compared to Cabrera's 0.8 hits/game. Trout also creates more runs overall than does Cabrera, and since no team can win without scoring runs, that statistic, wRC+, is not to be taken lightly (for an explanation of wRC+ see this link: wRC+ explained. Cabrera's lone shining star is that he strikes out far less than does Trout. This is an admirable quality, and one that often comes with years of experience, something Cabrera has in spades over the 20-year-old Trout. (Just to note, in Cabrera's first two MLB seasons at the ages of 20 and 21, his K% were 21.3% and 24.6% respectively.) While not striking out is a good thing, it can mean that the player grounds into more double plays. Cabrera has bounced into 28 double plays this year, or once every 5 games, while Trout has grounded into only only 7 double plays, or 17 games. 

Next let's look at power hitting statistics. Producing a run combines getting on base with the ability to knock in a run as well. That's why OPS is such a nice statistic. Here are some power statistics to look at: 

	Trout	Cabrera
Games Played	125	146
Power
Home Runs	27	40
RBIs	77	129
ISO	0.231	0.279
SLG	0.558	0.612
HR/FB	21.4%	23.3%

As you can see, Cabrera leads in most of the power hitting statistics. He has more home runs, runs-batted-in, a higher isolated power (slugging % - batting average), a higher slugging percentage, and hits more home runs for every fly ball he hits. Interestingly, according to ESPN's home run tracker, Miguel Cabrera leads the major leagues in lucky home runs. A lucky home run is described as a homer that would not have cleared the fence in the park it was hit on a calm 70-degree day. Trout has had 0 lucky home runs. Nonetheless, we can easily see that Cabrera is the better power hitter, albeit, not by that much. On the other hand, Mike Trout bats lead-off and Cabrera bats 3rd. Trout's job as the 1-hitter is to get on base so that the power hitters in the 3-hole, cleanup spot, and 5-hole can knock him in, thus scoring a run. So, Cabrera's job is to be a power hitter while Trout's is not. Trout still compares closely to Cabrera in every power hitting category other than home runs and RBIs, showing just how valuable he truly is. 

Next, let's look at speed:

	Trout	Cabrera
Games Played	125	146
Speed
SB	46	4
BsR	6.1	-2.9

 This is not a fair comparison. Miguel Cabrera is 29 years old, 6 foot 4 inches tall and weighs in at a liberal 240 lbs. Trout is 20 years old, 6 foot, and 200 lbs. Also, Cabrera has never been fast, thus no manager in his right mind would ever ask him to steal a base. On the other hand, even slow players can be smart base runners. BsR is a statistic factored into fangraphs.com's version of WAR that attempts to calculate the contribution of a players' base running abilities. As you can see, Trout leads the way in both stolen bases, no surprise there, and more importantly, in base running. A player who gets on base, but gets thrown out due to poor base running earns his team more outs and thus costs his team runs. Advantage here clearly goes to Trout.

So far all of the metrics used to determine Trout and Cabrera's value has been from an offensive perspective. Although defense is not as important for a player, other than pitchers, than is offense, it still counts. Here are some defensive numbers: 

	Trout	Cabrera
Games Played	125	146
Fielding
UZR/150	14.9	-12
DRS	25	-5
FRAA	-3	4.5

 UZR or ultimate zone rating is the defensive metric used by www.fangraphs.com when determining a player's defensive rating. The stat centers on a players range, but incorporates other factors as well. I use UZR/150 because it allows us to compare two players who have played a different amount of games, like Trout and Cabrera. The statistic takes into account difference in position difficulty. According to his play this season, Cabrera would cost his team 12 runs at third base while Trout would save his team almost 15 runs playing a mix of the three outfield positions. This illustrates another point. Trout can play all three outfield positions as well as the DH spot, but Cabrera has played almost the entire season at third base. Miguel can play at 1st; a less defensively valued position, but has only filled in there twice in 2012. The ability to play multiple positions and do so incredibly well, gives Trout a serious edge defensively. If you want to know more about each statistic listed above, click on it to be directed to an explanation.

The AL MVP Award

Finally, while we have looked at numerous individual statistics covering a variety of categories, most analysts look at already created value measuring statistics that encompass all facets of the game. "Wins above replacement" is the commonly used metric for measuring a player's overall value. Each major website calculates it a little differently, usually depending on the fielding metric that site likes to use. 

	Trout	Cabrera
Games Played	125	146
Value
fWAR	9.4	6.6
rWAR	10.3	6.3
WARP	8.0	5.6
Salary	$480,000	$21,000,000
Value Salary	$42.1 Mil	$29.8 Mil

 No matter how you look at the numbers, every form of WAR shows that Trout is the more valuable player to his team. In fact, Fangraphs even computes a players WAR into the amount of money they would be worth. Trout's season is worth $12.3 million more than Cabrera's. I only showed how much money they are making this year to underscore the fact that both players are easily out performing their 2012 salaries.  

So, in the end, the comparison leads me to conclude that Mike Trout is not only the better overall player, but the more valuable player. His team has won more games this season, and he has been a bigger part of that. His fWAR/win is .11 while Cabrera's is .08. Trout adds more every game than Cabrera, and has statistically helped his team win more games than Cabrera. Oh, Cabrera may be on the precipice of history, but just because no player has won the Triple Crown in 44 years, does not automatically make him the most valuable player. In fact, if I were to do a comparison between Cabrera and Robinson Cano (remember him, we made him disappear earlier in the article,) the two players would not be very far apart. As far as the Triple Crown goes, Ted Williams won the Triple Crown twice, in 1942 and 1947. Neither year did he win the MVP. Even more so, in 1934 Lou Gehrig won the AL Triple Crown and came in 5th in the MVP voting. Even in the 30's and 40's voters had more on their minds when determining the MVP than home runs, batting average, and runs-batted-in. No matter what happens this season, Mike Trout deserves to become only the third player all time to win both the rookie-of-the-year award and he MVP in the same season (Ichiro Suzuki and Fred Lynn being the others).