Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 46: The Meta-AL MVP Debate/Mike Trout’s In-Game Adjustments

Episode Date: September 20, 2012

Ben and Sam talk about how we talk about the AL MVP debate, then discuss Mike Trout’s ability to adjust from at-bat to at-bat.

Good morning and welcome to episode 46 of Effectively Wild, the Baseball Perspectives Daily Podcast in New York, New York. I am Ben Lindberg and in Long Beach, California, where the crickets are quiet, it is Sam Miller. So, Miguel Cabrera-Hommerd again. Wait, you're just jumping right into it? No, no. Cabrera-Hommerd again.

The Orioles and Mariners are locked in another extra inning game. I see. So everything that is one day old is new again. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step on your introduction. That is quite all right. And Ryan Howard hit a clutch home run, inspired by your article, no doubt. Yeah, except my article was limited to BABIP, so I can't really take any credit for home runs that he hits in clutch situations.

So what's your topic? Mike Trout. Okay, well, then mine is sort of similar, or at least it involves Mike Trout, and it also involves Miguel Cabrera again, and it is the AL MVP debate. Oh, good. So I don't know where it makes sense to start. Is yours directly related to the MVP?

No, mine when I returned to Twitter, the internet was already a Twitter, I guess you could say, about the AL MVP debate, which is suddenly a debate after looking for a lot of the season like it wouldn't be one. Of course, Cabrera is making a strong push for the Triple Crown Award, as we talked about yesterday. And Mike Trout has cooled off a little bit in September. And so that has kind of created an opening for people to have a debate where once there wasn't one. Today, by the way, today, which you would refer to as yesterday in your typical habit of lying about what day we're recording this, I talked about the MVP race with Pat O'Brien on the radio,

which was quite a trip because it's Pat O'Brien. So you've already done a dry run for this episode. So, I mean, there was kind of an immediate backlash to even the idea that Trout would have some competition for this award, and then there was sort of a backlash to the backlash of people saying that, well, even if we, even if certain people might think it's obvious, you still have to justify your choice. And it's not enough to just quote some win value statistic and leave it there.

And so there's been a bunch of discussion and a lot of name calling and insults thrown around. And I wonder whether you think, as the resident authority on Mike Trout, whether there should be a debate, whether anyone who tries to have a debate is just looking for page views or diluted or any of the other accusations thrown around. And just whether you think Cabrera is really any kind of competition for Trout. Well, he's not any kind of competition for Trout. And I think to make the case for Cabrera, basically, if you look at Miguel Cabrera's statistics, he looks like an MVP. And so you look at that and it's easy to conclude that this is a race because guys who have Miguel Cabrera's numbers are always MVP candidates. And especially when you bring in the idea of a triple crown, which for a hundred years, a triple crown meant that you dominated across the board.

And I don't know if anybody's ever won the triple crown and not won the MVP, but I imagine it would have been nigh unthinkable before relatively recent history. But the fact is that Miguel Cabrera cannot hold up to any sort of scrutiny whatsoever when you compare him to Mike Trout. And the obvious way of looking at it is that Mike Trout is a more, arguably has been just as good as an offensive player this year as a hitter. has been just as good as an offensive player this year as a hitter and um once you sort of accept that general premise which is pretty easy to show um you're left with the fact that he is unanimously a superior defender and unanimously a superior base runner and those things matter as well and there's not even a um one is in the playoffs kind of debate to be had because they're both in nearly the same playoff situation this year.

So I don't think that there's really much that you can point to for Miguel Cabrera unless you really just want to stick with RBIs, which is not something that we accept. So why do you think that we're talking about this? Obviously, you and I are talking about this because other people are talking about this. Why do you think the other people are talking about it? Is it just an overvaluation of certain Miguel Cabrera statistics or an undervaluation of Trout's? Or is it really mostly just an attempt to stir things up or have some sort of column quota filled with the MVP debate, which is often a source of columns at the end of the season? Well, I don't – I think stir things up is – sounds a little bit worse than what I think it is.

I mean I think that other people are talking about it for the same reason that we're talking about it. And they're perhaps not quite so meta about it as we are. But the fact is that it's a – it is the time of year where you're – the MVP conversation is ongoing. And if you're a columnist and you want to write about the MVP conversation, then you write about the MVP conversation and it builds up and pretty soon we're all having a conversation. I don't think there's anything particularly troll-y about it or page view whore-y about it.

I just think it kind of naturally happens. You really just can't ever have a non-controversial award. There's always going to be people who go, well, what about this guy, what about this guy, and the conversation happens. Also, I don't know how much people have actually looked at it. Like I said, Miguel Cabrera's numbers scream MVP until you put a little scrutiny into it. And it could just be that a lot of people haven't put a whole lot of scrutiny into it.

Yeah, and Larry Granillo wrote a blog post at BP which should be up today. And it is not a lie to say today because it is after midnight in my time zone. is not a lie to say today because it is after midnight in my time zone. And he wrote about how maybe there was an element of old school versus new school to this debate or that Cabrera's candidacy might have been stronger in the past. Obviously, there have been some questionable MVP choices in BBWA history. A lot of them were based on counting stats and RBI. Obviously Cabrera is much more than an empty RBI column or a full RBI column.

But do you think Trout is more appreciated now or the full extent of his achievement this season is more appreciated now that maybe we have a better handle on defense and base running and non-RBI statistics? Or is he just so good that really in any era people would understand that he is having a historically great season? It's a good question. I do think that the advanced statistics have penetrated the minds of just about everybody who writes about baseball to some degree or another. And so I don't want to say that his warp or whatever isn't a factor at all. But normally the guys who are undervalued by when above replacement models,

um, uh, sorry, who are undervalued until when above replacement models come into a play, it is usually that their defense is overlooked or their base running is overlooked. And Mike Trout, uh,

actually seems to, um, to get attention for his defense and his base running in old. And Mike Trout actually seems to get attention for his defense and his base running in old school ways as well. I don't think that his stolen bases would have been ignored 20 years ago, even if that's not the best way to measure base running. And I don't think that his home run saving catches would have been ignored 20 years ago, even if that's not the best way to measure defenses. So I think that it's probably the case that 20 years ago, people would be just absolutely losing their minds over Mike Trout, just like we are today. So what aspect of Mike Trout did you want to bring up?

Well, as you know, as not everybody knows, but as you know, I wrote a piece about Mike Trout for ESPN, the magazine that is coming out this week that may be in your mailbox. It is in many people's mailboxes right now, or hopefully you've checked your mail. It is in my inbox. It is. What's that? It is in my inbox. You have it? You have a copy? Well, no. You sent it to me.

But it will be in my inbox in digital form, which is how I get ESPN the magazine. Okay, you are confusing this conversation. Anyway, blah, blah, blah. I just wanted to point to my favorite – I don't know. Probably my favorite Mike Trout factoid that I came across as I was reporting this and that I think tells us a lot about Mike Trout. It tells us a lot maybe about aging curves or maybe it tells us nothing. It might just be one of those small sample things.

But everybody talks about the importance of adjusting for young players and the idea that young players will have to adjust because the league will adjust to them and they will have to adjust to the league and the league will adjust again and all of that. And that it is a game of adjustments. And Mike Trout in his first at-bat against a starting pitcher in a baseball game is hitting. 293 and he has four home runs

in his second at bat against those pitchers he uh he's hitting 368 and he has hit seven home runs and in his third at bat he is hitting 402 and he has nine home runs and that's a you know that's a obviously that's a massive difference between 293 and four home runs and 402 and nine home runs. And that's a, you know, obviously that's a massive difference between 293 and four home runs and 402 and nine home runs in about the same number of plate appearances. And it's not even like one of those BABIP things. The difference really is obvious across his entire stat line. In his first at-bat against starting pitchersers in a game he has 32 strikeouts and five walks in his third at bat against pitchers he has 14 strikeouts and 13 walks and uh so i concluded

from this for the purposes of the narrative and probably in real life as well um that this suggests that this is a guy who adjusts that that he's seeing these guys for the first time, and they basically have one shot to get him. And he's good in that first at-bat, in that one shot that they have. He's still pretty good, but he really becomes elite the second time and otherworldly the third time. And I think that if this is significant, then it suggests something pretty impressive about his ability to adjust. And the reason that I mentioned the aging curve

is that it is a mystery to me why some players do so well when they're young and other players don't. And I've never really understood, and I haven't ever really gotten a great answer about what the mechanism is that actually causes that. Is it about their fast twitch muscles? Is it about their size? Is it about their mental abilities? Is it about the ability to adjust? And Torrey Hunter told me that, I mean, obviously Mike Trout has very superior tools.

He is a, uh, he has an incredible, uh, body for a baseball player. He runs very fast and he is very strong. And that's a big part of the Mike Trout story. But Torrey Hunter says, you know, he, he, Mike Trout is not the, the toolsiest guy he's ever seen. He's not, uh, he's not even, if I'm recalling this correctly, I'm paraphrasing, but he said he's not even all that extraordinary. He is like a lot of guys. He is a superior athlete.

He's a great athlete, but there are a lot of great athletes in baseball. And what he sees in Trout is an ability to see pitches in ways that other guys can't see pitches and to learn about pitchers in ways that other guys his age don't learn about pitchers. And if that's true, then it suggests, I don't know that there's, well, I don't know what it suggests, but it sort of answers the question that I've been trying to get the Angels and people around the Angels and opponents of the Angels and scouts to tell me all summer, which is why is Mike Trout able to do this? Well, it's sort of a scary statistic for pitchers that he adjusts that quickly if that adjustment carries over from game to game as well as at bat to at bat within games um i don't know whether you've looked at that at all but i mean obviously he's faced a higher percentage of pitchers he's never seen before this season than he will in any subsequent season um and so if he

does have these preternatural adjustment abilities, that should be frightening to the rest of the American League. Yeah, I did look at second-time facing guys, and it's just that he hasn't faced many guys second times or third times yet. He's still seeing most of the league for the first time even now. So we're starting to see a little bit more of it now, but next year will obviously be a lot different for him. He'll have seen most guys. And everybody on the Angels sort of talked about that, how challenging it is to be facing a league for the first time and that the advantage is really on the pitcher's side,

even if you're an unknown, even if you're a rookie. And Trout, after every at-bat, he goes back and talks to his hitting coach, and it almost seems like overkill. I would ask his hitting coach, well, what did you tell him? And his hitting coach is like, yeah, I don't really know. Just stay strong up there you know yeah because it's not that much but um trout told me that um that the uh i was asking him about his swing i think at one point and he said that um the swing stuff you know when when we focus on oh this guy lowered

his hands or this guy's uh you know doing something differently with his mechanics is way less important than the conversations that these players are having in the dugout between at bats. And, you know, he consults with Torrey. Torrey often bats after him and so is on deck and he'll consult with Torrey in between pitches, which just, again, goes to the importance of the idea of adjustment. And that's a hard thing probably for us to see because we don't – it's hard to see that stuff on tape and it's hard to really know the process, the thinking process of hitting having never done it before.

But it seems to be a significant part of Trout's success. I feel like Torrey Hunter, aside from Mike Trout himself, has been the biggest beneficiary of Mike Trout mania because he is the go-to guy who's known as a thoughtful person and a good quote in the Angels Clubhouse, and there are only so many times you can ask Mike Trout about Mike Trout, and only so many times you can ask the otherout about Mike Trout, and only so many times you can ask the other angels about Mike Trout, but Torrey Hunter is seemingly always available to talk about Mike Trout.

And he had a good reputation as a clubhouse guy before. I feel like after this season he can hang on as a good clubhouse presence until he's 60 or so, if he'd like to. If he'd like to. he wants to be a GM, but it'll be interesting to see actually whether this affects his free agency at all, because he will be a free agent after this year. And it is my opinion, it's my personal opinion that he has probably priced himself out of the Angels plans. I thought that they would, I thought that the likelihood of his return was inversely proportional to his OPS this year. So it's just sort of a gut feeling I thought that the likelihood of his return was inversely proportional to his OPS this year. So it's just sort of a gut feeling I have that he'll get a better deal somewhere that needs him, but maybe not.

And maybe the Angels, I mean the Angels obviously do value his role in that clubhouse a great deal, and they might value it even more with Trout, but maybe not. I mean, he's obviously aged very well on the field, but I feel like he's just kind of adding millions in mentoring money at this point. But yes. So we covered Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera and the AL MVP, and that's good because no one else was discussing those things. Can we talk about Burt Blylevin's Hall of Fame candidacy next? Just for old time's sake. Yeah, so we'll be back with one more show this week,

episode 47 on Friday.