A Tale of Two Players

One is a ten-year veteran who is vying for baseball's first Triple Crown since 1967 while simultaneously leading his team to a playoff berth.  The other is a rookie phenom whose unique combination of speed, power and defense make him arguably the most unique player in the Major Leagues.  In addition to fighting for their playoff lives during this last week of Major League Baseball's regular season, these two players will be using the season's final three contests to bolster their candidacies for the American League Most Valuable Player award.  Virtually everyone has a strong opinion on which of these two stars deserves the most coveted recognition a position player can receive, and which way you lean in the debate says as much about you as it does the players themselves.

The first player is, of course, Detroit slugger Miguel Cabrera.  While his Tigers have underachieved for much of the year - many had them as the American League favorites during Spring Training - Cabrera has lead the team on a late charge and on the brink of the AL Central title.  Cabrera is an old-school kind of player, compiling mind-blowing statistics over the course of the season while only rarely doing something that makes you say "wow."  He's rarely featured on Web Gems (he's an average fielder at best), and hits the same homeruns and line drives as everyone else in the big leagues does.  The difference between Cabrera and everyone else?  He hits those homeruns and liners so consistently that he's almost impossible to keep down for more than an at-bat or two.  His run at the first Triple Crown in 45 years has captivated baseball fans who remember and revere the likes of Carl Yastrzemski, Ted Williams and Jimmie Foxx - he is, in short, the poster child for old school greatness.

The second, Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout, is a hero for the modern baseball fan.  Advanced statistics like Wins Above Replacement, or WAR, would lead you to believe that Trout has had a vastly superior year to Cabrera (10.4 to 6.6), largely because the former is such a dominant center fielder and the league's biggest stolen base threat.  In addition to sabermetrics, Trout's traditional numbers are stellar - he doesn't have Cabrera's power (though he's still hit 30 homers), but he has a similarly high average to go with 125 runs and 47 steals, both tops in the American League.  Fans of Trout point out that he's unlike anyone else in baseball today, and the advanced stats suggest that he adds more value to his Angels than Cabrera does to his Tigers.  Then again, Cabrera's Tigers are headed to the ALDC, while Trout's Angels are likely going home for all but the first three days of October.

Who will be smiling when the AL MVP is announced next month?

If the debate revolving around the AL MVP race can help define you as a baseball fan, what does it say about me if I can't make up my mind?  I've always considered myself to straddle the line between modern and classic.  On one hand, I'm the guy who spent last summer working in Major League Baseball's Labor Relations department and once had (semi-serious) dreams of riding the Moneyball wave straight into a General Manager position.  On the other, I'm consistently arguing against some of baseball's (now not so) recent changes, including the Wild Cards, Interleague Play and the Designated Hitter.  Every day that I think about this MVP race, I flip-flop on my opinion.  Last week I was strongly pro-Cabrera as I contemplated the significance of the first Triple Crown of my lifetime.  Today I'm wondering what the Triple Crown matters if it all adds up to fewer wins than what Trout's doing.  No matter what happens over the next three days, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to make up my mind.  How would you vote?