Impressive. Most Impressive.

There are many impressive plays that make the rounds of the internet: perfectly timed double plays, diving catches, shoestring grabs, the list goes on. However, it is a rare thing for a play to be so impressive that the players themselves stop play to comment on it. And so, without further ado, here's this. Enjoy.

http://balls.ie/baseball/pitchers-catch-leaves-batter-in-disbelief/

The 2013 AL MVP

Since I live around Detroit, I hear an awful lot about Miguel Cabrera and how great he is. There is no doubt that he has been phenomenal, but I want to talk about one of the most underrated players in all of baseball. He's not underrated because you've never heard of him, but rather because no one seems to grasp how incredible he really has been.

Miguel Cabrera is going to win this years' AL MVP award, but he doesn't deserve it. And he didn't deserve it last year.

Why not?

Because of how much better Mike Trout has been.

Fangraphs, a wonderful little site that you should entirely check out, has a sabermetric statistic called WAR, which stands for wins above replacement. It assumes that there is a fairly standard level of play that one could expect from a "replacement-level" player (generally AAA sub). WAR tells you how much better a player is than the average replacement. It is a counting statistic that grows over the course of the season.

Over the past two seasons, Miguel Cabrera has an fWAR (the "f" distinguishes it from Baseball-Reference's version of WAR, known as rWAR) of 14.2, an average of 7.1 WAR per year. According to Fangraphs' convenient little guide, anyone with a 7.0 or higher fWAR in a season is an MVP caliber player. So Cabrera has been incredibly good.

Trout, on the other hand, has accrued a 19.8 fWAR, which averages out to 9.9 per season. Fangraphs doesn't offer any rankings above 7.0, but if they did, it would probably read "Hall of Famer." What we do know is that Trout has been worth 5.6 more wins than Miguel Cabrera over the past two seasons. According to Fangraphs, that's an entire "superstar" caliber player.

So why is Trout so much better than Cabrera, even though he doesn't hit quite as well? Because he can actually play baseball. Cabrera is good for only one thing: hitting a ball hard. Trout, on the other hand, can hit, field, and run bases -- he's a well rounded player. Allow me to demonstrate statistically:

Miguel has committed 25 errors in the past two years, Trout has only committed 6. Miguel has stolen 7 bases, Trout has stolen 81.

In closing, while it's true that Miguel hits better, it isn't true that he's a more valuable player. So the next time that you hear someone saying that Miguel Cabrera is the best player in baseball right now, think of Mike Trout. He deserves a little more recognition.

The St. Louis Cardinals, and the National League Central Race

Unlike my good friend and co-writer, I am a St. Louis Cardinals fan. My beloved team is in the middle of a very tight division race. They are currently in second, a game and a half behind the Pittsburgh Pirates, and a game and a half ahead of the Cincinnati Reds. Really, most of the other divisions are set, but the National League Central division is entirely up in the air right now.

Before I begin, I would like to express how utterly frustrating it is to not run away with the division. I love my team, and as a fan of my team, I want to see them win.

But I want to set that aside for a minute and take a moment to be a fan of baseball. It's a great thing to
be in the midst of a playoff race. It's exhilarating to experience the roller coaster ride of emotions as a team rises and falls, wins and loses. It always feels like tonight is the night that matters more than any other . . . until tomorrow night, of course.

And it's incredible to see three teams from one division that will probably all be in the playoffs. Never before has that happened.

Here's A New Home Run Race To Follow

Japanese slugger Sadaharu Oh

Japanese baseball made the front page of the New York Times today.

International baseball isn't the usual fare here at Poetry and Pros, but it's on the front page of the Times, so it's worth a mention here.


When you have a minute, look up Sadaharu Oh. He's easily the best player you've never heard of. Who's the world record holder for career home runs? Hank Aaron? Nope. Barry Bonds? Sorry, wrong answer. It's Oh. He hit 868 career homers over 22 seasons, between 1959 and 1980. That means that even with juice, Barry misses Oh's record by 106 over the same length of time. Add to this his career average of .301, OBP of .446 and his single season record of 55 homers, and he's an impressive offensive player to say the least.

The article in the Times focused on Oh's single season HR record. His record has stood in the Japanese league since 1964. This is due in a large part to the Japanese respect for legendary people, a trait not found in the US, even in a highly traditional game like baseball; in the past, this respect led pitchers to intentionally walk players who threatened to break Oh's record. But, according to the Times, the winds are beginning to change. The record is close to being broken, by a foreigner no less, and the Japanese are on the edge of their seats. And I must admit, after reading the NYT article, I am as well.