This again. It’s like the American League MVP award exists to polarize the masses. It is baseball’s version of electoral politics, with the debates devolving into ad hominem attacks and factual misrepresentation and everything that pollutes discourse. It’s ugly and shameful and, fine, if you really want to know, it’s devilishly fun.

Stay above the fray, and the Mike Trout-vs.-Miguel Cabrera debates of yore were tremendous mental exercises, offering the ability to debunk myths of the past using knowledge from the present. Baseball, an ever-evolving game, allowed us to see how a kid in center field can be better than a Triple Crown winner.

This year’s deliberation is far more difficult, because Trout and Josh Donaldson are so very similar. They play important, difficult positions. Their offensive profiles are quite close. And amid the handful of meaningful games left in this 2015 season, they are putting on a daily anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better show.

On Saturday night, Trout did this.

And then, less than 24 hours later, Donaldson did this.

This is not going to be easy. It’s going to take more than a standard breakdown of a few numbers to determine the rightful AL MVP pick, as we use it to springboard through all the major awards 10 Degrees-style. Trout is a great pick. Donaldson is a great pick. If you could halve the MVP trophy and send one piece to Anaheim and the other to Toronto, that’s fine. Either is a worthy winner. If the job is to pick one, though, here are the many things one need consider.

Traditional stats

If Donaldson wins, it may well be because of the numbers he piled up in these counting categories. A 34-RBI difference stands out. (Even though, as I’ve written, it shouldn’t.) The run differential looks significant, too, no matter that it’s more a function of Donaldson’s teammates than any individual superiority. The on-base and slugging percentages hint at Trout’s superior offensive profile.

Advanced numbers

Donaldson has been a slightly better baserunner, according to FanGraphs, though its baserunning metric does not take into account situations, positioning, lead-off size, coaching or any other number of important variables. Baseball Prospectus agrees; its metric has Donaldson worth about 2½ runs more over the season.



The value of their gloves is confusing. Defensive metrics are notorious for disagreeing with one another, and the three major ones see Donaldson and Trout differently. Ultimate Zone Rating has Donaldson at plus-8.1 and Trout at minus-0.3. Defensive Runs Saved pegs Donaldson for plus-10 and Trout for plus-4. And Fielding Runs Above Average gives Donaldson plus-4.5 and Trout plus-9.3. Donaldson, scouts say, is a great-glove, inconsistent-arm – 13 errors – third baseman. Trout, they say, is more of an elite center fielder than metrics credit, though there’s always confirmation-bias concern with naked-eye reports.

Trout, according to Baseball Info Solutions’ data that keeps track of hard-, medium- and soft-hit balls, is across the board better. His 40.9 percent hard hit beats Donaldson’s 36.4 percent, and Trout’s 11.2 percent soft tops Donaldson’s 14.9 percent.

Story continues

And here is perhaps the most important set of numbers, because so much of Donaldson’s case is built on how clutch he has been this season. Which he has, unquestionably.

Here is Donaldson with:

Runners on: .335/.409/.601

Runners in scoring position: .358/.445/.627

RISP with 2 outs: .254/.382/.444







Now Trout:

Runners on: .319/.458/.559

Runners in scoring position: .352/.512/.693

RISP with 2 outs: .314/.556/.371







In every so-called clutch scenario, Trout is better. He’s 34 RBIs down on Donaldson because of these numbers, courtesy of Baseball Prospectus:

• Donaldson has come up with a runner on first base 204 times this year, Trout 197 times.

• Donaldson has come up with a runner on second base 121 times this year, Trout 95 times.

• Donaldson has come up with a runner on third base 85 times this year, Trout 46 times.





There are a lot of reasons Donaldson would make a great AL MVP. For those stating his case, though, ignoring the previous three numbers would be like a presidential candidate touting himself as a business genius while ignoring all the times he plunged himself into bankruptcy. Nobody would be dumb enough to do that.

Super-wonky look

If big numbers scare you, skip ahead to the next bold text. Just know that this section makes compelling cases for both Trout and Donaldson.



View photos Mike Trout robbed Seattle's Jesus Montero of a home run in late September. (AP) More

About Trout’s offensive superiority: It’s actually quite strong, when adjusting for Donaldson’s advantage of playing in Rogers Centre and Trout’s superiority in on-base percentage and slugging. It’s worth noting that intentional walks juice Trout’s OBP about 15 points, and he reaps those because teams aren’t nearly as scared of his protection, Albert Pujols, as they are Donaldson’s, Jose Bautista. This is the rare scenario where team problems help a player’s individual case.

Let’s take the metric wRC+ – adjusted weighted runs created. This, as FanGraphs says, is like the wider-used OPS+, only instead of using a formula like OPS that weighs on-base and slugging percentages evenly, it uses one (wOBA , or weighted on-base average) that tips the scale toward on-base percentage. Trout’s is 172, or 72 percent better than league average. Donaldson’s is 157.

Trout’s bat, in fact, makes up for the defensive and baserunning differences in the three major outlets that public their Wins Above Replacement metrics.

Trout WAR Donaldson 8.7 FanGraphs 8.7 9.8 Baseball Prospectus 7.8 9.1 Baseball-Reference 8.9

On the other hand, Donaldson leads Trout in both Win Probability Added and RE24, two numbers that try to qualify tangible contributions to a victory – the sort of thing that would seem to bring true value to a team trying to make the postseason.

Both numbers make the case that the clutch figures above for Donaldson actually underrate him, and things like walk-off home runs have a far greater impact than metrics like WAR. There’s a good argument here, maybe Donaldson’s strongest, though the seeming fallibility of WPA – it has Anthony Rizzo, Joey Votto and Kris Bryant over Bryce Harper – and RE24’s top two players being on borderline and non-contending teams (Harper and Votto) when the number is being framed as connoting performance in meaningful games does lessen the impact some.

Special achievements

Donaldson hit three walk-off home runs this season. Those are fun.



Trout (.316/.432/.653) was far better than Donaldson in September (.296/.403/.531).

Donaldson’s team won its division and may finish the season with the best record in the AL.

Trout’s team, with far less talent, is one game back of the final spot in the AL with three games left in the regular season.

Not-so-special achievement

If Josh Donaldson wins MVP, here’s why: .218/.352/.337. That was Mike Trout’s line in August. He hit one home run. It was his worst month since he struggled as a 19-year-old half a decade ago. The Angels went 10-19.



It’s the sort of thing, one could argue, that should torpedo an MVP candidate: an awful month that may destroy the Angels’ chances at the postseason. It’s interesting, though, because what better proves a player’s value than just how awful his team is when he stinks? This is like the question “How good would his team be without him?” come to life. Trout disappeared in August. So did the Angels. He thrived in September. So have the Angels.

Outside of August, Trout is hitting .314/.410/.639. August exists, though, and it’s an ugly spot. Just not ugly enough to keep me from handing my …

1. AL MVP award to Mike Trout. Ultimately, it came down to this: I’m not convinced Donaldson’s fielding and baserunning are that much better than Trout’s to make up the gap in their offense. And because that gap isn’t all that big, a strong weekend from Donaldson and a poor showing from Trout could flip it. This is the sort of finish that needs a 50-megapixel DSLR.

Here is the rest of my ballot:

1. Mike Trout

2. Josh Donaldson

3. Manny Machado

4. Lorenzo Cain

5. Nelson Cruz

6t. Dallas Keuchel

6t. David Price

8. Jose Bautista

9. Chris Davis

10. Miguel Cabrera





















The esteemed Tim Brown, who will be joining us for the remainder of the proceedings, owns an AL MVP vote this season. And per Baseball Writers Association of America rules, we’re not allowed to reveal our ballots until after the award is given out. I like that rule, and that’s why I have Keuchel and Price tied on my MVP ballot, in alphabetical order: It’s about where they both belong, and I’m still not certain who is going to be first on my …

2. AL Cy Young ballot. The race is obvious enough to identify the two favorites: Toronto’s Price and Houston’s Keuchel. The rest of the ballot is a giant jumble, as the AL hasn’t exactly acquitted itself with staggering starting-pitching performances this season. In lieu of something from me, here are Tim Brown’s picks:

1. Dallas Keuchel

2. David Price

3. Sonny Gray

4. Chris Archer

5. Chris Sale











Price is done for the season, saving his arm for the playoffs. Keuchel pitches Friday, the Astros’ necessity for a win so strong that they’re unable to position him in the rotation to be on full rest for a potential wild-card game. The Astros are nearly locked in a tie, appropriate seeing as …

3. NL Cy Young is the next award. And before we get to the two-man race, let’s pour one out for Clayton Kershaw, who on Sunday should become the first pitcher to strike out 300-plus batters in a season since teammates Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling did it in 2002.

(Schilling, incidentally, did not get a single Cy Young vote in 1998 despite striking out 300, leading the NL with 268⅔ innings and throwing 15 complete games. An ERA of 3.25 and 15-14 record doomed him to finish behind John Smoltz – who threw 101 fewer innings – and Johnson’s 11-start cameo with Houston.)

While Kershaw won’t be resigned to a similar fate, he’s likely to crack the top two on only a handful of ballots from sabermetrically inclined sorts. Zack Greinke and Jake Arrieta have been that good, incredible enough to render what would’ve been a Cy Young-winning year just about any other season to bronze-medal status. With Arrieta’s start Friday and Greinke’s on Saturday likely to determine the winner, it’s only fair to pit the two against one another in a mini-Trout-vs.-Donaldson-style tale of the tape.

Greinke Category Arrieta 1.68 ERA 1.82 214 2/3 IP 223 6.0 H/9 6.0 1.6 BB/9 1.9 8.0 K/9 9.2 0.5 HR/9 0.4 1.76 RA/9 2.10 1 CG 4 0 SHO 3 18-3 W-L 21-6 47.4 GB% 55.7 86.0 LOB% 79.8

View photos Zack Greinke likes to leave runners on base. (Getty) More

So, yeah. Not easy. Greinke allowed fewer runs. Hits are the same. Walks might as well be. Arrieta struck out more hitters. And induced more groundballs. And threw more complete games and shutouts. And logged more wins.

And yet I keep going back to runs. In 8⅓ more innings, Arrieta allowed 10 more runs than Greinke (including unearned). Greinke may not have some sort of magical ability to strand runners, per se, but his LOB%, as calculated by FanGraphs, is one of the highest in history. That says he got outs at important times. And with metrics these days getting more granular, we can better understand from whence those outs came.

Baseball Prospectus debuted something called Deserved Run Average this year, and it tries to assign a pitcher’s performance to a number of factors. Among them: how much his catcher and the umpire help with calls, the stadium and weather in which he pitched, quality of opponents and how well his fielders perform behind him. While the reputation of Dodgers fielders isn’t sterling, DRA says the support behind Greinke (and Kershaw and other Dodgers) has been among the worst in the game. For Greinke, then, to shake off the miscues and keep runs from scoring is even more impressive.

He did have help. Yasmani Grandal is an incredible pitch framer. Dodger Stadium is a friendly place to pitch. A lot works in his favor. More, though, goes into pitching than the ability to strike guys out, limit walks and keep balls inside the stadium. Arrieta got more help from external factors, according to DRA, and Greinke still allowed about 20 percent fewer runs.

A vote for Arrieta is completely warranted and draws no quarrel from me. Hell, Kershaw is a defensible choice. (DRA has him first in its version of WAR, as does FanGraphs.) Greinke is mine, though, and I’m not alone.

Jeff Passan’s picks:

1. Zack Greinke

2. Jake Arrieta

3. Clayton Kershaw

4. Madison Bumgarner

5. Gerrit Cole











Tim Brown’s picks:

1. Zack Greinke

2. Jake Arrieta

3. Clayton Kershaw

4. Gerrit Cole

5. Madison Bumgarner

Pretty much the same. Our ballots for …













4. NL MVP, on the other hand, are rather different after the top four, which are the likely top four for those who, like Tim and I, ascribe to the don’t-have-to-be-a-playoff-contender-to-win-MVP line of thinking.

Jeff Passan’s picks:

1. Bryce Harper

2. Joey Votto

3. Paul Goldschmidt

4. Anthony Rizzo

5. Zack Greinke

6. Jake Arrieta

7. Clayton Kershaw

8. Buster Posey

9. Andrew McCutchen

10. A.J. Pollock





















Tim Brown’s picks:

1. Bryce Harper

2. Joey Votto

3. Paul Goldschmidt

4. Anthony Rizzo

5. Andrew McCutchen

6. Buster Posey

7. Kris Bryant

8. A.J. Pollock

9. Jason Heyward

10. Nolan Arenado





















I chose Votto and Goldschmidt’s individual performances over that of Rizzo’s, whose clutchness this season came with far less impressive overall stat lines than either of the first baseman before him. Tim is not much of a put-the-pitcher-on-the-ballot voter. I think Greinke and Arrieta’s performances have been transcendent, more vital even than the incredible Buster Posey. Because Posey plays every day, he gets five times the opportunity to sear moments into the minds of voters, and that may well place him higher on the actual ballot than mine. Pollock should appear this year thanks to his great hitting season and superlative glove in center field. He’s a star who emerges slowly and quietly, as opposed to the winner of …

5. NL Rookie of the Year who arrived with hoopla and proceeded to exceed it.

Jeff Passan’s picks:

1. Kris Bryant

2. Noah Syndergaard

3. Matt Duffy







Tim Brown’s picks:

1. Kris Bryant

2. Matt Duffy

3. Jung-Ho Kang







Bryant, the Cubs’ third baseman, is a no-brainer. Here are the last five rookies to qualify for the batting title and slash at least his line of .279/.369/.495: Bryant, Jose Abreu, Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Todd Helton. Most measures of WAR have Bryant’s rookie season as the third or fourth best this century, behind Trout and Pujols and hand in hand with Ichiro Suzuki’s MVP-winning campaign. Bryant should appear down-ballot on plenty of MVP votes this season.

In other words, the idea that Duffy or Kang or Randal Grichuk or anyone in the NL might overtake Bryant is, in hindsight, amusing. Kang’s awful knee injury bumped him off my ballot. He played 126 games, or 77.8 percent of a total schedule. Syndergaard, the Mets’ monster right-hander, has thrown 143 innings. Out of the 180 innings or so at which point most teams would shut down rookies, that’s 79 percent. Syndergaard was better in his time than Kang, and Duffy beats Kang because of the playing-time difference, even if Kang’s peak was slightly better than the Giants’ surprise breakout. The race for …

6. AL Rookie of the Year isn’t nearly as easy. Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa are both 21 years old, both born in Puerto Rico, both shortstops, both looking to return some respectability to the position in the AL. And both have strong cases.

Lindor’s happens to be slightly stronger. While Correa comes with superior power, with his 21 home runs to Lindor’s 11, and better plate discipline, Lindor has beaten him this season in just about every other facet of the game. Their offensive profiles are practically even when adjusting for the fact that Correa plays in the bandbox that is Minute Maid Park. Lindor’s glove, on the other hand, is already among the best in the AL, while Correa’s is acceptable but not much more.

Jeff Passan’s picks:

1. Francisco Lindor

2. Carlos Correa

3. Miguel Sano







Tim Brown’s picks:

1. Francisco Lindor

2. Carlos Correa

3. Miguel Sano







Sano is a bat-only pick – and a damn fine bat at that. He could be baseball’s next 50-home run guy, just another standout in the finest group of position-playing rookies the game ever has seen. It’s a crowded field like the …

7. AL Manager of the Year race, which really could have any of seven managers on the ballot. New York’s Joe Girardi, Toronto’s John Gibbons, Kansas City’s Ned Yost, Minnesota’s Paul Molitor, Texas’ Jeff Banister, Houston’s A.J. Hinch and Los Angeles’ Mike Scioscia are each likely to land on at least one of the 30 ballots cast. The top two are a consensus here.

Jeff Passan’s picks:

1. Jeff Banister

2. Paul Molitor

3. Ned Yost







Tim Brown’s picks:

1. Jeff Banister

2. Ned Yost

3. Paul Molitor







Following the injury to Yu Darvish, the Rangers looked like a mess waiting to happen. Banister weathered an inconsistent first half and reaped the benefits in the second. Rougned Odor’s demotion could’ve gone sideways. Shin-Soo Choo could’ve been benched. Reintroducing Josh Hamilton to the clubhouse could’ve been damaging. Transitioning players acquired via trade could’ve been troublesome. Instead, the Rangers sidestepped every calamity, and Banister, the longtime minor-league manager and big-league coach in his first year with the Rangers, was the constant. He’ll have some pretty good company, no matter who wins …

8. NL Manager of the Year in what’s a similar race to so many: close at the top.

Jeff Passan’s picks:

1. Joe Maddon

2. Mike Matheny

3. Clint Hurdle







Tim Brown’s picks:

1. Terry Collins

2. Joe Maddon

3. Mike Matheny







Tim threw something of a curveball with Collins, as Maddon and Matheny are considered the odds-on favorites. Certainly Collins has his bona fides, as Tim wrote here. The work from Maddon and Matheny – the former managing a deep roster with skillful strategy and leading an ascendant team to the playoffs, the latter for his deft handling of Oscar Taveras’ death and weathering awful injuries – is worthy of winner status in most seasons. And that’s not to mention Hurdle, whose gravitas grows with each playoff appearance.

Maddon’s on-field and locker-room touch wins the day over Matheny’s triple-digit victories. Maddon is a great manager. If he’s not there yet, Matheny is awfully close, this his best season for a chance to return from the disappointment of an NLCS whipping by San Francisco and grab his first ring as a manager. It’s not exactly a resurgence equivalent to those winning …

View photos Prince Fielder is making things happen for Texas. (AP) More

9. Comeback Player of the Year, which tends to go to players in the doldrums who rediscover their star. For a while, Alex Rodriguez looked like the shoo-in candidate in the AL, even if he was coming back from something of his own doing. Whatever intellectual hoops Major League Baseball was going to jump through to keep him from reaping the reward – it is the one major honor not chosen by baseball writers – are no longer necessary on account of Rodriguez’s miserable final two months.

Tim and I agree on the winners here: Prince Fielder in the AL and Matt Harvey in the NL.

Harvey’s competition isn’t nearly as fierce; there’s Joey Votto, coming off a really good season by pretty much anyone else’s standards, and Brett Anderson, whose groundball-heavy game has sustained the Dodgers but not contributed anything close to Harvey’s triumphant return from Tommy John surgery.

The AL brought plenty of options aside from Fielder and Rodriguez: Chris Davis (awful and a drug suspension), Kendrys Morales (awful after ill-advised holdout), Jason Kipnis (just awful) and even Ryan Madson (not awful because he hadn’t pitched for three years after Tommy John complications). Fielder’s return from neck surgery that sidelined him for three-quarters of 2014 after years as baseball’s present-day iron man has far exceeded expectations of those who feared his age (31) and the perils of serious surgery might neuter his bat. Fielder is hitting .309/.382/.472, and his Texas Rangers are trying to hold off …

10. Mike Trout and the surging Los Angeles Angels. Without the Angels’ leap back toward playoff contention, Trout’s candidacy in real life, outside of the argumentative bubble I’ve created, is dead. It might still be. The story of Donaldson arriving in Toronto via trade and helping the Blue Jays to the playoffs for the first time in more than two decades is the sort of story MVP voters love.

This shouldn’t be about the story, of course. Value, distilled to its essence, is production, and production exists everywhere, on teams good and bad, ascendant and in decline, in the middle of the lineup and middle relief. Whoever produces the most provides the most value. That seems pretty simple.

And whether it’s Trout in the AL or Harper in the NL, a minuscule advantage or runaway win, their value exceeds others’. That may be polarizing. The truth usually is.

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