Why does the Triple Crown seem underhyped?

always good to see you weigh in, casty. i agree, checking nos, 2 and 6 in mr. whitman's list. as i noted on a similar thread, even an old fart such as myself has been swayed by the sabermetrics crowd and admit i pay far less attention to BA and RBI than i used to (especially BA). so, whereas the triple crown categories were once ALL anyone cared about when we were youngin's, now that two-thirds of it have been rendered as markedly less indicative of a batter's prowess it onlyy stands to reason the 'TRIPLE CROWN' cache' has lost qquite a biit of luster.

hey, it's still a heckuva achievement, dont get me wrong. and anyone who comes even close to pulling it off is certainly an offensive force pitchers everywhere must fear. it's just that other stats have replaced tem as the 'be all, end all' of stats.

maybe one of the saber wizards out there will create a modern-day 'triple crown,' in which BA and RBI are replaced by the more relevant abbreviated categories tossed about today. and heck, for all i know te amazing mr. cabrera would win THAT triple, too -- or still finish with a higher overall sore than the trouts of the world.

FWIW, it seems clear to me that cabrera will probably win the race with trout by a pretty sizeable amont, given his amazingly strong finish down the stretch and detroit's playoff berth. woulda been a helluva race if the angels had snared a wild-card spot, though.

 

Exactly. Just like 1998 when the brown guy set the all-time season home run record, and the white guy won the NL MVP.

 

They already have. And it's not as cherry picked as you'd think. No other player has hit 30 HR, stole 45 bases and scored 125 runs in a season. That's more exclusive than the triple crown.

Jayson Stark said it best. (I'm paraphrasing) Cabrera might be the best hitter on the planet this season, but Mike Trout has been a better all-around player.

 

That right there hits the nail on the head. Cabrera is the best hitter (at least for this season) and Trout's defense makes him the better overall player. It all comes down to how much do you value defense when you're considering your MVP vote.

 

How many have won the Slash Crown, i.e. Avg./OBP/SLG?

A quick search shows that Bonds did it twice. Mauer did it in 2009, the season he robbed Jeter of the MVP award. George Brett did it in 1980.

Cabrera actually will fall short of it this year because of Mauer and Fielder and possibly Trout in OBP.

 

Clever. Except Sosa was likable and his team made the playoffs, and he played in Chicago.

Otherwise, you're dead on.

 

Again ... batting average holds EXACTLY the same weight it did 10-15 years ago. Sabermetricians' insistence that it's not as important, right or wrong, is what has changed.

 

Frank Robinson won the Slash Crown in each league. Pretty cool.

 

Batting average doesn't bother me. I still think it's a really important component of a player's production.

RBI is the one that has fallen out of favor completely, and rightfully so.

Really, this is the Double Crown, no? I mean, how many players have led in average and home runs, but not RBI? Can't be too many.

 

I am going to admit the Slash Crown is pretty damn cool sounding and makes sense.

 

Count it. +1

 

Ted Williams won five Slash Crowns.