Hey, guess what?
Tony Romo just threw another pick-6 against the Bears bit.ly/T0TyXW, and Jim Furyk missed another gimmie putt at Medinah, yhoo.it/StjWrN, which happens to be pretty close to Chicago.
But fortunately, Team USA isn’t the only group that choked things away in the Windy City. The Chicago White Sox also managed to find a way to cough up a large lead and because of their weak constitution, I’m able to write this beautiful sentence: The Detroit Tigers are your American League Central Division champions.
Those words are more than enough to make this man go “Gangnam Style” like it’s nobody’s business youtube.com/watch?v=TTqpEJh03fI.
But before I do, I need to spend a few moments on the biggest faux debate going on in America. No, I’m not talking about whatever our presidential candidates blathered about during last night’s debate, which I can pretty much sum up for you right now even though I’m writing this 10 hours before it is scheduled to begin:
Republican to Democrat: You hate rich people.
The Democratic response: You hate poor people.
Both will agree our military is great, and that the moderator is biased.
Now the fake debate I’m referring to is the one being promulgated on sports talk radio. It centers around who should be the AL MVP – Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera or LA Angels rookie phenom Mike Trout.
Baseball has always been a master of hyperbole and making people care about what nonfans rightly view as pap. In fact, it is fair to argue that our national pastime wouldn’t be what it is if not for the meaningless debate: Babe Ruth versus Barry Bonds, Roger Maris’ asterisks, swing away or sacrifice, DH or no DH.
But even I have to admit that the game has topped itself this time in how they have spun this choice over who should be crowned the best player in baseball.
Basically, this decision is billed as the vote that will determine if baseball greatness will continue to be evaluated by the same statistics used since Dickey Pearce invented the bunt in the 1870s — little things like home runs, RBI, batting average, wins, ERA and saves.
Or, will it be judged by sabermetrics? That is defined as the statistical and mathematical analysis of baseball records, and argues that the statistics mentioned above are basically meaningless and should be scrapped for statistics like run differential, on-base percentage plus slugging, and the acronym at the center of this year’s debate — the appropriately named WAR, wins above replacement.
WAR is a single number that presents the number of wins the player added to the team above what a replacement player would have given. Basically, it asks how much value the team would lose if the player being rated was injured and had to be replaced with a minor leaguer or someone from their bench fangraphs.com/library/index.php/misc/war/.
For example, this season Mike Trout’s WAR is currently 10.3, while Miggy’s is 7.1. And by that logic, Trout should be MVP because a computer determined he’s worth more to his team. Not to mention he is a far superior defender and is probably going to be the first rookie ever to hit 30 home runs and steal 50 bases in the same season.
Now don’t get me wrong, Trout has had a great season. I mean people in the know, young and old alike, are comparing the dude to Mickey Mantle. It is well-earned praise that says a lot. I’m also not saying that sabermetrics don’t have a place in baseball. If nothing else, there’d be no fantasy baseball without it.
But let’s be real. Cabrera is going to win the triple crown, which for those of you who do not know what that means, he’s going to lead baseball in home runs, RBI and batting average in the same season. It hasn’t been done since Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1967 and has only been done nine times since 1900.
Plus, even though Trout’s WAR may be higher, the fact of the matter is when the baseball playoffs start this weekend, Cabrera is going to be standing in the batter’s box fighting for a World Series ring. Trout, on the other hand, will be fishing.
If you have comments on this or anything to do with sports, contact me at chad.t.jones.civ@mail.mil.
