THIS DAY IN BÉISBOL November 15: Miguel Cabrera wins 2012 MVP

The recent great debate over who deserved the 2025 American League MVP Award more — Aaron Judge or Cal Raleigh — was nothing compared to how the baseball universe wrangled over whether the first Triple Crown winner in nearly five decades had a better year than a flashy five-tool rookie with dominant sabermetric statistics.

On this day in béisbol, November 15, 2012, tradition won out over the growing use of advanced metrics to measure a player’s overall performance when veteran Miguel Cabrera was named the AL’s Most Valuable Player over Mike Trout, that season’s sensational Rookie of the Year Award winner.

Cabrera, the Detroit Tigers’ third baseman, was deemed the winner by virtue of his MLB-leading 44 homers and 139 RBI, plus his 205 hits and .330 average.

Those gaudy numbers made the Venezuela-born veteran MLB’s first Triple Crown winner in 45 years, since Carl Yaztremski in 1967.

By comparison, Trout established himself as an instant star with 30 homers and 83 RBI mostly from the leadoff spot, to go with a .326 average and MLB-best 49 stolen bases — and a phenomenal 10.5 WAR among other fancy measures that acolytes insisted was proof Trout had a better year than Cabrera.

Trout’s breakout season was a preview of a generational talent that would bring the 21-year-old Angels centerfielder three MVPs in a Hall-of-Fame worthy career marred by constant injuries.

But Cabrera’s year, arguably his best among a 21-year career that made him a no-doubt Hall of Famer when he’s eligible in 2028, showed old-school stats were still a viable measure of excellence.

Also on this day: Albert Pujols was named the 2005 National League MVP, his first of three, with a .330 average, 41 home runs and 117 RBI as the Cardinals won 100 games but lost the NLCS to the Astros.

In 2021, Rays outfielder Randy Arozarena, who was on Tampa’s postseason roster in 2020 and had a spectacular playoff run with 10 homers and 13 RBI — and was the ALCS MVP — is named Rookie of the Year. The Cuban import hit 20 homers and stole 20 bases, the first of five 20-20 seasons.

Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; LatinoBaseball.com illustration