A Baseball Blog - Scientific and Speculative Thoughts from Third
Base  Monday, September 24, 2012     Let’s just start by saying
that the Triple Crown, while interesting, doesn’t necessarily do
the best job at determining the best player. It obviously
doesn’t account for defense or base running. But on top of that,
it’s just not good at determining who’s the better hitter. Home
runs are pretty solid, but RBI should not be used to directly
compare players, thanks to the slew of context issues present
with them. And batting average, while not as bad, is still prone
to huge luck-based fluctuations year-to-year (for example, look
at Ichiro’s 2004-2005-2006-2007 seasons, where his average went
.372-.303-.322-.351, thanks to batting averages on balls in play
of .399-.316-.348-389).  This isn’t to say the Triple Crown is
bad. It’s interesting, and usually the person who wins is the
best hitter that year. But it isn’t a given, and it should not
guarantee that a player is the MVP.  With that, some Cabrera-
supporters h