So now that it clearly established that each team already honors their own MVP, please give the "AL MVP" to the MVP of the American League, not the MVP of the Detroit Tigers. Mike Trout please stand up.

You can't be the first guy to win the Triple Crown in 40 years and not win the League MVP. The writers got it right.

What is the correlation between Triple Crown (an arbitrary trio of stats - eg, why RBI's instead of Runs?) and MVP. The writers are dumbarses.

Also, what does a 40 year gap have to with anything? I believe the Triple Crown was won back to back years at that time, so does that make Yaz's achievement less significant than Frank Robinson's or Miguel's achievement?

Triple Crown is a capricious, arbitrary award, nothing more. He led the league in some statistical categories, Mike Trout also led the league in some statistical categories. Maybe we should make a new Triple Crown, WAR, UZR and Stolen Bases. Or should we make it +wRC, HR and OBP? Should we make it OBP, Slugging and WAR?

Point being, if you want to award someone the MVP based on him leading the AL in three categories, then you've made an even more compelling argument for Mike Trout since his entire statistical body of work is more impressive than Cabrera's.

Mike Trout was ONE steal shy of being in the 30-50 club, a feat that has been accomplished less than the Triple Crown, less than a perfect game, less than a 4 HR game. Would you still award Cabrera the MVP if he was 1 RBI from the TC?

Mike Trout should win the MVP, his season was more "historic" than Cabrera's

Everybody has their own definition of MVP and I think that makes the debate great. If it was just an argument of WAR or some other metric then we could have computers decide instead of the writers. Plus, Juan Gone would have to give his back...

I’m not arguing the validity of the Triple Crown stats, but I am saying that the feat is something that the majority of the baseball fandom still looks at as meaningful and historic.

Like Brian alluded to, there isn’t really a criterion to judge the MVP. It’s arbitrary. Trout had a great season and some saber guys will point to his WAR to justify that. I look at a player on a team of “All-stars” that underachieved and couldn’t even make the playoffs and I can see why the writers didn’t cast a 1st place ballot for him. Cabrera had one of the best offensive seasons in recent history (judging by those arbitrary stats) and played a very passable 3B in his first year there.

This debate can go on. Trout will get his in due time.

@ Brian, - True, but Ranger A-Rod would also have Miguel Tejada's award. Wouldn't you (and even more so, Mike Trout) rather have the correct winner than a "great debate"? How many people still prefer to "feel out" directions to a place rather than have GPS precise instructions w/ traffic info?

@ Henchman - the reason why the Angels "underachieved" may have will been the fact that Trout was not on the team in April. They in fact had one of the best records in baseball afterwards.

The MVPs haven't been announced yet.

The Triple Crown is a big deal, because it doesn't happen often, but it's hardly indicative of an MVP. It's an accomplishment, kinda like a perfect game. Does throwing a perfect game make you an MVP? Of course not.

Trout was more valuable to the Angels than Cabrera was to the Tigers, or any other player was to his team. You can use WAR, a smattering of stats, the eye test, or whatever you want. The guy is going to give other teams fits for years. Cabrera hits well. Better than anyone else, probably. But Trout is an excellent hitter, plus an elite fielder and baserunner. I honestly think the Angels finish under .500 without him this year, what with all the pitching difficulties they had.

The triple crown is based on hitting stats only. The MVP should go to the best overall player.

Even as a measure of hitting, the triple crown stats are antiquated. wOBA and wRC+ (park-adjusted wOBA) are the gold standard.

Here's how Trout and Cabrera stack up using the best stats available to measure all aspects of performance:

Trout
wRC+ 166
UZR/150 -- 11
BSR (baserunning) 12
WAR 10

Cabrera
wRC+ 166
UZR/150 -- -10
BSR -2.8
WAR 7.1

So Trout and Cabrera had roughly equal seasons offensively. And Trout was head and shoulders above Cabrera defensively and on the base paths.

So Trout was clearly the best player in the game this year. He had one of the best non-PED seasons in recent baseball history.

Let's please get over this infatuation with batting avg. and RBIs. Those statistics are nearly useless.

What Nompton and RFan said.

There is no definition of what the award is actually for. That's what makes for the debate. Everyone here is pointing to stats that states that Mike Trout had the better season. I'm not going to argue that. A lot of voters will look at the triple crown (I think most rationale people know that not all writers will ignore that regardless of the meaning of those stats). The problem is that there isn't a definition as to what defines the MVP. Is it best player on the best team? Is it a combination of sabermetric calculations? Is it the media's favorite to talk to (plays into it whether it should or not)? Is it just one's opinion of the best player? Is it the guy who meant the most to his team (with leadership included)? To say that one individual is absolutely the MVP without a true definition of what makes one the MVP is where people who say there is no debate are wrong. It means different things to different people.

And to be clear - I think Mike Trout deserves it. However, I like the debate the award creates by being undefined.

MVP doesn't necessarily mean best player in the league. I think people naturally make that correlation but it's not accurate IMO. You can be more valuable without necessarily being the best player. I have a classic car that is more valuable than most new cars, but the newer cars actually are better cars with better technology. Some people prefer the classics and other prefer the latest and greatest.

Trout had a monster year...nobody can argue that. He was probably the best player in the league but does that automatically make him the most valuable. I'm not sure it does.

When A-Rod won the MVP as a player on a last place team there was no player on any winning team that could even compare to him statistically and the only argument for someone other than A-Rod was that their team made the playoffs.

This year there was someone who was historic in statistics for a team that missed the playoffs and another player that was historic in stats (regardless of how anyone feels about those stats) that helped his team make the World Series. I would have no issue whatsoever with Trout winning the MVP but I appreciate the argument that says,"Yeah, he was so valuable he led his team to... uhh.. miss the playoffs?"

There is no clear cut definition of MVP so this debate rages on. If your definition of MVP is the best player in the game and you have the stats to back up that player then you're perfectly right in arguing for Trout. If your definition of MVP includes value to the team that accomplished something that every team is vying for then you are more than justified in arguing for Cabrera. Since there is no clear definition of MVP, everyone is right.

Trout.

The MVP is an award given for someone who is the Most Valuable Player in all of the American League, and when you take the meaning of the award into consideration it is no contest. This is the new school vs old school debate that honestly I think Trout wins. I know I just went back and forth with some of you talking about Michael Young, and using stats you call outdated, but I'm not against saber metrics at all and i'm going to go with Trout, but this shouldn't even be about saber metrics, Trout is a defensive stalwart, the ball jumps off of his bat and to watch him take batting practice is a thing of beauty, even though that has no translation to the MVP voting, he can score runs at a ridiculous rate, I believe he scored 64% of the time he reached base, and of course it helps that Hunter, Pujols, and Trumbo hit behind him, but that is just unheard of and think of what it does to a pitcher to know he is on base. He stole 49 bases this season out of 54 attempts. Cabrera won't have that many the rest of his career. Cabrera is a better pure hitter than Trout right now, I would say Cabrera is probably the best pure hitter in the game, but Trout can field, he can run the bases, he has pop and he revived the Angels season. If Cabrera wins I won't be surprised, because the Triple Crown is an amazing feat, but Trout deserves this award, because he did more for the Angels than Cabrera did for the Tigers. Cabrera is a defensive and base running liability.

The MVPs haven't been announced yet.

Welp. I guess that shows how much I care about the MVP. I thought Miggy already won it.

the reason why the Angels "underachieved" may have will been the fact that Trout was not on the team in April

I see your point, but from my recollection after the Halos signed CJ and Pujols, bolstered a rotation of Weaver, Haren and Santana (who had a very good 2011), and featured a healthy Morales nobody was crowning them World Series champs because of Trout. I don't think many people outside of their organization expected him to contribute much this year and NOBODY expected him to contribute in an MVP-caliber way. He did, the rest of the team continued to under perform, and they finished as a 3rd place team. That's the way baseball go.

Again, I'm not arguing that Trout wasn't the best player in baseball this year, but IMO he wasn't the MVP and as pretty much everyone has said: since there isn't a clear definition everybody is right by picking between the two (except Evan Grant).

No matter who is announced the winner later today, I'm thankful for this thread and the fact nobody has proposed we trade Engel Beltre and Rougned Odor for Mike Trout yet.

The problem I have with the playoffs argument is that the Angels had a better record than the Tigers. Should Trout be punished because he has Oakland and Texas in his division?

Not only did LAA have a better record for the regular season, it was even better than that since Trout got called up.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is voted on before the playoffs, so Cabrera helping to advance his team to the WS would be moot - again, I may be wrong on that.