Gardner: Trout's year truly MVP stuff

• Trout's year truly MVP stuff
• Cabrera's primary job is to drive in runs. Trout's job is to score them
• Trout's home runs, runs scored and stolen base totals put him in a class by himself

No doubt, leading the American League in batting average, home runs and RBI — as Miguel Cabrera is poised to do — is an amazing accomplishment. But it shouldn't be the trump card that ends all debate.

Tradition tells us those three categories are important, but they aren't the only important ones.

Cabrera's primary job is to drive in runs. Mike Trout's job is to score them.

While Trout comes up short of Cabrera in those Triple Crown categories — .329 to .325 in batting average, 44 to 30 in homers and 137 to 83 in RBI — he is far superior in two other offensive areas that are arguably just as important. Despite spending almost all of April in the minors, Trout tops the major leagues in runs scored with 129 (Cabrera is second with 109) and stolen bases with 48 (in 52 attempts). Cabrera has four.

By winning the Triple Crown, Cabrera will do something that has been done 13 previous times since 1900. That's elite company.

However, Trout's home runs, runs scored and stolen base totals put him in an even more exclusive club. All by himself. Yes, no one in baseball history has ever reached those totals in a single season.

There is another aspect of being valuable that is easily overlooked: defense. There, Trout has a sizable advantage. Unfortunately, fielding percentage doesn't tell the whole story. It doesn't take into consideration the number of balls Trout catches that other outfielders couldn't. It doesn't track home runs robbed. It doesn't measure how he cuts off a ball in the gap and holds a batter to a single rather than a double.

There have been attempts to quantify defense more accurately, such as Defensive Runs Saved or Ultimate Zone Rating. But no matter what metric is used — even the old-fashioned eye test — Trout is one of the top defensive outfielders in the major leagues. Cabrera, on the other hand, is not a great fielder. He moved to third base this season after the Tigers signed first baseman Prince Fielder, despite not playing there regularly since 2007.

Although Cabrera's unselfishness is commendable, his position change has contributed little since the Tigers defense has been among the worst in the majors.

Baseball experts have spent decades trying to find a way to quantify all of a player's contributions and boil it down into one number. The best measurement we have is what's known as WAR, or Wins Above Replacement. There are different ways to calculate it, mostly because of the difficulty of evaluating defense. But in every instance, Trout's all-around game puts him ahead of Cabrera.

Finally, the most illogical step in the whole MVP argument is that Cabrera is somehow more valuable than Trout because he led his team to the playoffs. That argument elevates Cabrera and penalizes Trout solely on the basis of their teams' division rivals.

The Angels have a better overall record than the Tigers, but the fact that they play in the AL West with two 90-win clubs is no reason for Trout's accomplishments to be downgraded. Should Trout be penalized just because the Texas Rangers and Oakland Athetics are much harder to beat than the Chicago White Sox?

When Trout was promoted on April 28, the Angels had a record of 6-14. Since then, they've gone 83-58 – which just happens to be the best mark in the majors.

The fact that the Angels might have barley missed the playoffs because they didn't have Trout for that first month might be an even better argument for why he has been the AL's most valuable player.