2012 MLB Regular Season Running Thread

He must have forgot his injection this month.

 

And they had Ryan Braun the year before.

 

If you want to argue that finishing strong matters, then it only matters in relation to how the teams finish. Detroit won exactly one more game than the Angels during August-September, so it's not like his monster finish made that big a difference. Who played better defense in August-September?

 

I assume Trout played better defense, but not nearly enough to offset the difference between an OPS of almost 1.100 and one in the .850 range.

I won't have a big problem with Trout winning, but I'd vote Cabrera.

 

At this point, Mike Trout will need to win the batting title to win the MVP.

 

Tabler and Martinez - and others - droned on endlessly about what a great mentor Vizquel would be to the younger Jays, especially the Latinos. Well we see how that worked out with Escobar's stupidity, Sierra's adventures in the field and Lawrie's kamikaze baserunning and occasionally overaggressive fielding. And then Vizquel calls out Farrell and the coaches for not doing enough to police the place, leading one to believe he was never there to mentor anyone.

 

OPS, 2012:
Miguel Cabrera: 1.001
Mike Trout: .963

 

Follow the conversation. We were talking about the last two months.

 

DETAILS.

 

Returning also to this -- I think Cabrera's monster finish made a huge difference. If Trout produces like Cabrera in August and September, the Angels probably make the playoffs; and if Cabrera produces like Trout, the Tigers probably don't.

We're entering the part of the debate that I really dislike, because I'm not so much criticizing/finding fault with Trout's final two months as I am pointing out just how much Cabrera turned it up. But there is no doubt Cabrera meant more down the stretch.

I wonder how much of this debate is that people locked onto Trout as the runaway winner a month ago and didn't leave room for the possibility that Cabrera would go .330/.395/.688 with 11 home runs in Sept/Oct.

 

Until late-season games start counting for more in the standings, this argument is nonsensical to me.

 

They do mean more in the very real sense that if you're tied in April and win a game, you have succeeded on roughly 0.75 percent of your schedule. If you're tied in September and win a game -- a very common occurrence and pretty much how teams get in the playoffs -- you have succeeded on 5 percent of your schedule.

But, I realize that's just a philosophical gap that is not likely to ever be bridged.