Revisiting the AL 2016 AL MVP Race

[Darnell's Son]

Jessica Brand (@Delonte James Jr.) is the first up in the SoSH Win Sox Tickets contest.

Her piece looks at Betts/Trout argument using Statcast-based statistics, specifically batted ball data.

 

[Niastri]

It is far from amazing to see the author's conclusion that Trout was worthy of being MVP last season. In fact, it seems obvious.

What was surprising to me is the margins of his excellence. Several very complicated stats (using batted ball statistics from Statcast, among others) were used by the author to demonstrate Trout's superiority. In many of those statistics sited, Trout was literally twice as good as Betts, who was himself in the top 10 in the league.

Trout had a season comparable to some of Pedro's best seasons last year. Especially when you compare him to not just the rest of the league, but to the rest of the league's best hitters. Wow.

 

[Hoodie Sleeves]

I think it's pretty obvious that Trout is a much better hitter than Mookie (he's a much better hitter than pretty much everyone) - the claim for Mookie largely rests on him being a significantly better defender than Trout (who is no slouch) - and us not being very good at valuing defense.

It's similar to the Trout/Cabrera MVP (And I think Trout was the superior choice both times)