[wilfra]

That was the old school argument, verbatim. The new school disagrees. I don't really have an opinion but I'm pretty certain Nate agrees with the new school and would disagree strongly with your view.

The new school argument is something like: the Triple Crown is an overvalued and superficial accomplishment and giving a player the MVP based solely on that is making a similar error to the scenes in Moneyball where the scouts cared about irrelevant things like whether a player has an attractive girlfriend or how he gets on base (walks vs hits).

[clarky07]

WAR is a nice stat as far as a general manager is concerned (or for fantasy), but it shouldn't decide who is the MVP. Last year Cabrera had the best hitting season anyone has had in decades. He finished 4th in WAR because of various weightings given to defense, baserunning, position played, and the bizarre and nebulous "replacement player." WAR is also sadly calculated differently by everyone, making it harder to judge as a useful metric. A single + SB is calculated as being worth more than a double. Why?

I have no problem with using WAR as something to include in the discussion, but it should not be the complete deciding factor.

Interesting side note, apparently Oakland's (famous for using sabermetrics) model for WAR had Cabrera on top - http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1570961-mike-trout-vs-mig...