Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera, and Measuring Value
http://ppt.cc/9VGu
by Dave Cameron - September 19, 2012
It’s that time of year again – with just a few weeks left in the season,
baseball writers are turning their focus to the postseason awards, and as
usual, the MVP races are the ones that are going to get the most attention.
In the NL, the conversation is mostly about finding ways to make sure that
Ryan Braun doesn’t win his second straight trophy, with Buster Posey
stepping up to provide BBWAA members the out that they so desperately want.
Over in the AL, there hasn’t been as much discussion for most of the summer,
as Mike Trout has been running laps around the rest of the contenders, making
it hard to put together any kind of realistic argument for a non-Trout
candidate.
又到了决战的时候 一堆棒球作家开始关注季赛奖项 而想当然的MVP是最受注目的
在NL因为Buster Posey优秀的表现 我们大概可以说Ryan Braun不大可能再次获得MVP
而来看AL 几乎在整个夏天 没人能跟Mike Trout竞争
However, Miguel Cabrera is having a monstrous September, hitting
.373/.426/.797 over the last couple of weeks, and now that he’s taken the
lead in both batting average and runs batted, the talk of a potential “
triple crown” has breathed life into his candidacy. Jon Morosi went so far
as to call the decision to give Cabrera the award “a formality” and say
that it’s “obvious” that Cabrera is the right choice. Instead of engaging
in a hyperbole-off, however, let’s actually investigate the actual
differences between them this season and see whether the case for Cabrera
actually stands up to logic and reason.
然而胖卡布怪物般的9月成绩(.373/.426/.797) 他现在在打击率跟打点领先
有机会站上三冠王的顶点
Jon Morosi(FOXSports.com's writer)说胖卡布明显的是MVP正确的选择
现在让我们来看看这两人这季的差别
Thanks to the custom leaderboards, it’s easy to put Trout and Cabrera’s
season lines right next to each other for easy comparison. So, let’s just go
through and look at the actual differences between what they’ve done this
year, starting with their overall performances at the plate in the basic
counting statistics.
以下是两人最简单的出赛以及相关成绩
Plate Appearances: Cabrera, +60
Singles: Cabrera, +2
Doubles: Cabrera, +14
Triples: Trout, +6
Home Runs: Cabrera, +13
Walks + Hit By Pitch: Cabrera, +1
Ground Into Double Plays: Cabrera, +21
Total Bases: Cabrera, +64
Outs Made: Cabrera, +54
Because Trout got called up to the Majors at the end of April, Cabrera has
played in 21 additional games, so most of the counting stats go in his favor.
And, Morosi has a legitimate point when he talks about number of games
played, as we can’t simply ignore the fact that Cabrera has played an
additional three weeks worth of games, creating value for his team in the
process.
因为Trout在4月底才被叫上来 所以比胖卡布少出赛21场
所以累积成绩当然也的确是胖卡布领先
Morosi提到关键的一点就是这三个星期以来胖卡布的精采表现让老虎继续保持竞争力
However, that last category is the one that never gets mentioned, but is
perhaps the one that speaks the loudest out of all of them. Cabrera’s
additional playing time has earned him an additional 60 trips to the plate,
but in those 60 extra plate appearances, he’s made 54 extra outs. If we’re
going to depend on counting stats to measure the difference in value from a
quantity standpoint, we cannot ignore the fact that Cabrera’s propensity for
hitting into double plays — he leads the American League with 28 GIDPs —
has had a significant negative impact on the Tigers offense. We cannot
simply count up the number of additional positive benefits that the Tigers
have gotten from Cabrera’s playing time advantage without also accounting
for the negatives.
然后最后一个数据是几乎不会被注意到的(Outs Made)
胖卡布多60打数却多制造54个出局数
他打双杀打是AL最多(28次) 的确是对老虎的进攻产生负面的影响
我们不能只看胖卡布对于球队有正面的帮助 而忽略负面的
Of course, comparing double plays grounded into between a leadoff hitter and
a clean-up guy isn’t apples for apples, since Cabrera comes up with men on
base far more frequently. Cabrera is first in GIDPs in large part because he’
s second in GIDP opportunities — only Robinson Cano, with 144 chances to hit
into a double play this year, has had more GIDP opps — and Cabrera’s 138
GIDP opportunities is nearly double Trout’s 75, which is a natural byproduct
of their positions in the batting order. We shouldn’t just hold Cabrera’s
extra GIDP outs against him without adjusting for the context of his quantity
of chances.
当然比较第一棒跟三番的双杀次数并不公平
胖卡布会有AL第一名的双杀次数是因为他有第二多的双杀机会(第一多是Cano的144次)
胖卡布双杀机会有138次 Trout有75次
这跟棒次绝对是有非常大的关系
我们不能只单纯看胖卡布的双杀次数而不做些调整
But, of course, that’s exactly what the argument for Cabrera wants you to do
with RBIs. Ignore context, ignore opportunity, and just focus on the fact
that Cabrera has driven in 52 more runs than Trout has. If you’re going to
quote Cabrera’s RBI advantage, you must also quote his massive disadvantage
in GIDPs – they are the fruit of the same tree. The more intellectually
honest way to measure this value is through looking at both GIDPs and RBIs as
a function of plate appearances where those results were made possible by the
actions of the people batting in front of both players, but if you’re not
going to do that with RBIs, then you have to count the full weight of Cabrera
’s extra outs against him.
但是支持胖卡布的是请叫你看RBI 而忽略内容 忽略机会
只注意胖卡布比Trout多了52个RBI
如果你想要强调胖卡布的RBI优势 那你就该接受他GIDP次数多的批评
因为GIDP跟RBI是同源的(更多RBI机会也有更多GIDP的机会)
If you’d rather actually adjust for those opportunity differences, however,
we should probably note that Cabrera has had 415 baserunners when he’s
batted this year, compared to just 274 for Trout. Cabrera has driven in 52
additional runs while having an extra 141 guys on base because of where he
hits in the line-up. If we look at runs driven in as a percentage of total
men on base when both men hit, we see that Cabrera has driven in 31% of his
total baserunners, while Trout is at 28% – both way above the league average
of 15%, and a difference much smaller than raw RBI totals would lead you to
believe.
如果要做些调整 我们先记得胖卡布打击时有415个跑者在垒上
Trout则是274个
在比Trout多141个跑者的情况下 胖卡布多打了52个RBI
如果我们看两位打者把跑者打回来的机率
胖卡布:31% Trout:28% 联盟平均则是15%
这样看来两者的RBI差距也就没那么大了
There’s really two choices here – ignore opportunities and give Cabrera
credit for driving in many more runs while also penalizing him for creating
many more outs, or adjust for opportunity and realize that Cabrera hasn’t
actually been that much better than Trout at bringing his teammates home once
they get on base. And, of course, none of this accounts for anything that
happens after the two of them leave the batters box, or the value of the
extra runs that Trout creates with his legs.
有两个选项
1.忽略跑者的机会 让胖卡布有RBI的绝对优势 但是他也制造更多出局数
2.调整打回跑者的机会 然后了解胖卡布与Trout的差距没那么大
然而这不包括Trout离开打击区制造的价值