Green: Sabremetrics leave out the winning factorJerry Green, The Detroit News 7:37 p.m. EST November 15, 2014
The oddity of baseball is that the teams play 162 ballgames through six months from March to September so that fourth and fifth-place clubs might engage in combat in a World Series in October. And then in November, on the glitter of the Major League Network, baseball dishes out the annual awards. It is a weeklong offering of pomp and circumstance from rookies of the year to managers of the year to the Cy Young winners; then at the climax, to the most valuable players.
Basically, all the award contests were absolutely predictable. And my version of the truth is that only the MVP awards mean much. This year the MVPs were won by what I would declare retro ballplayers. Clayton Kershaw, the 21st century version of Sandy Koufax, was the National League's MVP with the Dodgers. Mike Trout, the 21st Century mixture of Willie Mays and Joe DiMaggio, won the American League's MVP award with the Angels. Trout was a unanimous choice after two years of wailing and weeping from the Sabremetrics fiends. And now these numbers crunchers gloat. Trout has won at last after two years of watching the backside of Miguel Cabrera. And if you don't believe they gloat, take a look at the website Five Three Eight with its numbers-ingrained copy.
We are now inundated not only by numbers, but also by initials. MVP is old-fashioned. Now we have WAR, OPS, and WHIP. WAR translates into wins above replacement which translates into gobbledy####. The Sabremetrics fanatics are cheering because Trout finally is the MVP. That award was totally deserved — this past season — because his ballclub finally finished in first place in its division. Not because he led all comers in WAR. And the magnificent Kershaw, whose regular season started in March in Australia, pitched his ballclub into a first-place finish in its division. Fact is, the Dodgers won the NL West in a romp with the enemy San Francisco Giants panting after them.
I now have an offering for the Sabremetrics fanciers. They should add a category — PUP. PUP is quite simple. It stands for Performance Under Pressure. Take our two brand new MVPs for a case example. Kershaw pitched for the best team in the National League. He made the Dodgers the best team in the league. Trout played graceful and wondrous center field for the best team in the American League. The Angels had the supreme record in the league because they had the most talented player — Trout. Some funny things happened before the Giants and Royals battled through seven games in the recent World Series. The Giants were the No. 2 wild-card entrant in their league. The Royals barely were the No. 1 wild card in their league. That, in essence, made the Giants the No. 5 seed in the National League playoffs. The Royals qualified as a lofty No. 4 seed in the AL playoffs.
In old-fashioned baseball terms, this was a fourth-place team vs. a fifth-place team in what MLB and the Fox sports spielers maintained was a genuine World Series. Where were the Angels and Dodgers in late October as the Giants and Royals clashed?
Waiting for next year!
Well, consider my new category PUP. Trout and Kershaw each scored 0 — a fat nothing — in a figure that should astound the Sabremetrics stats shakers. What was highly publicized in the Los Angeles media as an upcoming Freeway World Series developed a flat tire outside of Anaheim. Trout — with all his great talent — went 1-for-12 in his postseason debut. The Angels were swept out of the playoffs by the Royals. Kershaw — with his pitching magnificence — was blown up twice by the Cardinals as the Dodgers were booted from the postseason in their first round.
PUP — Trout zero.
PUP — Kershaw zero.
PUP — Brandon Crawford 10.
