Can Anyone Catch Cabrera? Comparing the AL MVP Candidates

Last year I addressed the AL MVP race with a lengthy diatribe of how Miguel Cabrera was more deserving of the award then Mike Trout, who put together the most impressive rookie season I've seen in my lifetime.  Many baseball analysts lobbied for Trout to win, as Trout had a higher WAR and was a true five tool player, which one hardly sees in baseball these days.  However, MVP stands for most valuable player, not most impressive player.  Thus, Cabrera ended up winning, as he brought value to his team by leading them to the playoffs in addition to putting up gaudy #'s, while Trout, merely put up an extremely impressive stat line. 

Miggy has put himself in position to win a 2nd AL MVP

Despite what baseball pundits have been saying, this year the AL MVP race isn't much different from last year.  One can't ignore the noticeable emergence of Chris Davis, but Cabrera and Trout have been the best players in the AL yet again.  Many baseball analysts see the AL MVP Race as a runaway victory for Cabrera, but it is fair to view it that way if they're looking at the race from the sabermetric perspective they use last year? Definitely not. I've narrowed down the MVP race to four batters to see if Cabrera should really be running away with the award.

Below is a chart I downloaded from Fangraphs comparing all four candidates: Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera, Chris Davis, and Manny Machado, in traditional and sabermetric categories to evaluate their respective AL MVP candidacies.  The reason I chose these four players is that they had the highest WAR of all AL batters, and all stood out from the competition in some way or form.  I did not chose Max Scherzer, despite his 19-1 record, because his 2.90 ERA dictates that he's been very fortunate with his run support to rack up such an impressive record.

Just like last year Trout is leading the AL in WAR (Wins Above Replacement) pacing the league with a 9.6. Cabrera, despite his -15.5 in the fielding category (a horrible score) still has a WAR of 7.6, slightly higher than the 6.9 he achieved in his triple-crown run last season.  Besides fielding and stolen bases, Cabrera leads Trout in all the other hitting categories, batting 23 points higher despite a BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) that's 21 points lower (!!). Considering Miggy has 20 more HRs and 48 more RBI than Trout, in addition to a better walk and strikeout rate, you have to give the edge to Cabrera again in 2013.  Not to mention the value he brings to the Detroit Tigers, who are the reigning AL champs and in prime position to make the playoffs again this year, unlike the Los Angeles Angels.

In addition to Trout and Cabrera, Manny Machado and Chris Davis have emerged as AL MVP candidates.  What sets Machado apart is his fantastic fielding (he's second among AL qualifiers behind Shane Victorino) compared to Davis and Cabrera, who are liabilities in the field. Machado has a low strikeout percentage, but what sets him back compared to the competition is his awful BB%, OBP, and SLG compared to the competition.  In several years when Machado's bat catches up to his glove, he could definitely be the AL MVP, however he needs to improve his plate discipline and start turning his line drives into home runs.  Just like Machado, Davis needs to improve his plate discipline, hence his 28.9% K%, 7th highest in the AL. His HR/FB% of 31.1% is astronomically

Machado definitely has the glove of an MVP but the bat lags behind

high, and he's very unlikely to repeat that.  Davis also only has a .298 batting average and a .381 OBP, which pales in comparison to the OBP and BA of Cabrera and Trout. 

So can anyone catch Cabrera in the race for AL MVP? Most likely not. Cabrera leads the AL in batting average, slugging percentage, on base percentage, OPS, and RBI. His stranglehold on the most valuable batting categories, in addition to the value he brings to a playoff contender, will definitely be enough to propel him to a 2nd AL MVP, and maybe even a second consecutive Triple Crown if he can catch Chris Davis in the home run column.