2015 AL MVP

These dudes basically had the same year with Donaldson being slightly stronger on defense and Trout slightly stronger on offense. I fail to see how any WAR tenths of a point would shift anything dramatically in one or the others favor.

So I'm voting for Donaldson solely based on fact that I like him because he was an A and Blue Jays did a little better and he's never won before. Those are lame tiebreakers, but there's not much else separating these dudes AFAICT.

Donaldson, based on the fact I have a major, major hometown bias.

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Trout has the better SLG, even tho Donaldson lead in total bases and extra base hits... i guess triples is the difference maker here, since Donaldson had more singles & doubles and they tied in HRs. and that would appear to be the only place Trouts' speed gave him an advantage here, since Donaldson was the more efficient baserunner (NSB and BsR both come out in Donaldson's favour).

and normally, we all rightly ignore RBIs and runs when talking about hitters – but here I don't think we can nec ignore that Donaldson lead the league in both. 33 more RBIs than Trout and 18 more runs.

even tho Trout has the better OBP and WAR, i still like Donaldson better as a MVP.

tho i guess Donaldson got to play half his games in a better hitters park...

your entire post is an example of why counting stats are stupid. donaldson has more TBs, runs, RBI because he has 35 more PA AND the rest of his lineup can actually get on base and drive people in. trout had a strong last week or so and imo is the deserving MVP

i won't bitch too loud if Donaldson wins; prefer Trout

same

xpost

WAR already accounts for park effects.

Donaldson had 30 more plate appearances than Trout, which can account for his slight lead in XBH and TB.

If you care about WPA, then Donaldson has a big lead there (> 1 win). IOW, if you care about "narrative" (i.e. who came through with big hits, even if there is situational luck involved with getting those RBI opportunities) then Donaldson is the clear winner. Otherwise, it's basically a coin flip.

ya, i get how & why counting stats are dumb. and if your definition of MVP is just who the best hitter is, then it makes total sense to disregard those numbers for the most part. but for me there has to be some allotment made for the overall impact someone has on their team, which does require taking those dumb-dumb stats into consideration.

well, no it doesn't

donaldson was slightly the better overall player fro my vantage point but it's truly a rorschach test this year

Donaldson had an ordinary September: a couple of big dramatic hits, great in the field, but .279/.379/.486. I think that does matter, and Trout had a very good September: .315/.430/.648--both teams were in the middle of close races. Trout passed Donaldson in WAR on both Baseball Reference and Fangraphs. Through the summer, especially August, Donaldson felt like the easy choice. Bias aside, I know Trout has the edge now.

But I am biased, and I see Donaldson day to day, so I'll pick him, just like I'd expect an Angels fan to pick Trout. Trout will be like Willie Mays from here on out: he'll win MVPs in the years he dominates, and if there's a credible case to be made for someone else, he'll probably finish second.

For what it's worth, Donaldson's RBIs are not team-dependent. They're out of the #2 spot (primarily), and he's never had a great lead-off man in front of him. He had a few months of Reyes, a few weeks of a slumping Tulowitzki, and while Revere's been a big plus, his OBP with Toronto was still an unspectacular .354. Donaldson knocked in a lot of runs because he's been great in those situations.

Runners on: .332/.405/.593
RISP: .353/.440/.618
High-leverage: .351/.426/.713

He did seem to leave a lot of runners on base the last couple of weeks.

Donaldson had an ordinary September: a couple of big dramatic hits, great in the field, but .279/.379/.486.

That's a really good line! It's not an otherworldly finish but certainly not a weak performance by any means

Donaldson had an ordinary September: a couple of big dramatic hits, great in the field, but .279/.379/.486. I think that does matter, and Trout had a very good September: .315/.430/.648--both teams were in the middle of close races.

trout put up a .689 OPS in august when the angels lost 16 games and cratered in the standings to the point that they could not pull all the way out of it come september...

the second spot is actually the best spot to compile RBI, iirc

anyway, donaldson's RBI absolutely were team (and park...) aided:

trout's numbers w/RISP: .352/.508/.693.
donaldson's: .353/.440/.618

how do you figure one guy finished with 33 more RBI?

trout was just better this year guys. clearly the better hitter, so if you want to say donaldson's defense is so good that it leapfrogs the gap between the two on offense, go ahead. but that's your only out

also, clem, WPA is a counting stat. donaldson had 50 more PAs w/RISP. of course he's ahead

fangraphs also gives donaldson the baserunning lead, though only slightly

I wasn't comparing Donaldson's performance with runners on base to Trout's--didn't even look up Trout's numbers--just making the point that his high RBI total was a valid reflection of how he hit when RBI opportunities presented themselves (unlike--always my default example--some of Joe Carter's 100-RBI years). Someone might look at his numbers and say "Sure he had a lot of RBI with that team," but I don't think that'd be fair. (His high run total does have a lot to do with Bautista/Encarnacion.)

Donaldson's September was ordinary compared to the July/August he'd just had. But good point about Trout's August; Donaldson was at his best during the month that the Jays got back into the race (with obviously other factors at play).

fangraphs also gives donaldson the baserunning lead, though only slightly

― J0rdan S., Monday, October 5, 2015 6:17 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same deal as before. this was actually a pretty awful base running year for trout by his standards (he made I think 7 outs in the bases and had his first poor base stealing season of his career), but that said he actually took the extra base in a higher percentage of his opportunities than donaldson, but since Donaldson had so many more chances to do so (by virtue of having other hitters in the lineup), his baserunning runs above average is higher.

i forget who pointed this out, maybe the CBS guy who does the awards race coverage

Trout's situational stats really are great. I was curious who'd been hitting ahead of him (I don't follow the Angels at all during the season), and it's almost exclusively one or some combination of Calhoun/Aybar/Giavotella. No wonder his RBI total is deflated:

Calhoun -- .308 OBP
Aybar -- .301 OBP
Giavotella -- .318 OBP

Pretty much the same OBPs as the guys we stick at the very bottom of the order--Pillar/Goins/Pennington.

the second spot is actually the best spot to compile RBI, iirc

Intuitively, that doesn't makes sense to me--I would have thought the obvious, that #3/4 are the best RBI spots. Maybe the extra AB over the course of a season from the second spot negate the positional advantage of #3/4?

I don't know--the first three things I found back up the traditional view of 3/4 as the RBI spots.

http://www.smartfantasybaseball.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/RBI_PER_PLATE_APPEARANCE.png

http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/battingorder.jpg

http://razzball.com/lineup-position-impact-on-runs-rbi/

hmm maybe i'm confusing that with something i read a couple of years ago that says your best hitter should be #2

anyway it's immaterial to the trout vs donaldson debate

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man, Trout vs. Cabrera I really set the stage for every trout MVP argument ever huh? not that this is a case where everyone is saying "[contender] was clearly better than trout offensively...", everyone can tell he was better this year (unless they give that much of a fuck about RBIs)

but as long as trout is playing in LA, people are going to underestimate just how much of an accomplishment it is to hit there. going by fWAR, he's 10 offensive runs away from being the top angel since they opened the park in 1966. not that there's ever been much competition, cause barely anyone spends the majority of their careers there (darin fucking erstad is #4 in PAs), which also probably obscures how much of a hitters park it is, because there's never been a decent measuring stick for that place.

er, how much of a pitchers' park it is*

anyway like always i'm tired of trying to figure this out by comparing one guy's WAR to another guy's WAR, so i eagerly await the analyses of cameron and blengino and james and other semi-smart people

voted machado cause fuck yall

keri:

This one comes down to Trout and Josh Donaldson. Trout was a better hitter this year. He hit for a higher average (.299 to .297), got on base more often (.402 to .371), and hit for more power (.590 slugging percentage, vs. .568). By park-adjusted offensive metrics, Trout was the best hitter in the American League, while Donaldson ranked fourth. Meanwhile, Donaldson was the better fielder, per Baseball Info Solutions’s Defensive Runs Saved: He graded as 11 runs better than the average third baseman, compared to Trout’s five runs above the average center fielder. Both players played premium positions, though, and that relatively small defensive gap isn’t enough to override Trout’s offensive advantage. By both versions of Wins Above Replacement, Trout has the edge.

Donaldson is probably going to win the award anyway, though. He’s going to win because his team made the playoffs and Trout’s did not. And he’s going to win because his context-dependent numbers are so impressive.

I’m mostly unsympathetic to the “look at all those RBIs” argument, because it’s not Trout’s fault that he played in a relatively thin offense, while Donaldson played for a team that at times resembled a modern-day version of the ‘27 Yankees. However, Donaldson did make the most of the chances he got, leading the American League in Win Probability Added (WPA), which measures not only production but also leverage. Last week, my colleague Ben Lindbergh made the case for Anthony Rizzo’s NL MVP candidacy using “Championship Probability Added,” a version of WPA that takes into account how actions affect a team’s playoff odds, and Donaldson leads the AL in cWPA, too.

Even with that ingredient thrown into the mix, I’d still pick Trout, who ranked third in cWPA behind Donaldson and … Mitch Moreland. When clutch situations arose, Trout was an absolute monster. All of the arguments for Donaldson seem to require the splitting of hairs, while Trout simply is the better player and was the better player this season. It might be boring, but last year’s MVP deserves to win it again