Sort of a classic conundrum coming up here, at the end of the American League season.

One guy won the Triple Crown. The first man to do so since 1967.

The other, however, had a better season. A significantly better season according to stat wonks.

So, how will this turn out?

Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers third baseman, led the AL in batting average (.330), home runs (43) and runs batted in (139). That constitutes a Triple Crown, rarely achieved.

Normally, historically, the discussion about American League MVP would be over. The guy who wins the Triple Crown, last accomplished, in 1967, by Carl Yastrzemski, is going to win the MVP vote. As Yaz did, 45 years ago.

But new baseball metrics indicate that Mike Trout,the Angels rookie outfielder, had the better season. Not in the Triple Crown categories, (Trout batted .326 with 30 homers and drove in 83 runs), but overall.

Discussion over?

Uh, no. Not in 2012.

Trout is clearly better than Cabrera as a defensive player and as a baserunner. Trout plays a key defensive position, center field, and is very very good at it. Cabrera is a mediocre first baseman and a worse third baseman. Trout stole 49 bases in 53 attempts. Miggy struggled to go from first to third on a single.

The question here is … have the baseball writers who vote for the MVP reached a point where a majority of them will vote for the guy who had the better sabermetric season? Or the one who had the best traditional season?

In this Grantland piece, a modern stat guy suggests (without apology) that Trout is an obvious choice. He runs out his “Wins Above Replacement” stat, and expects everyone to stand up and salute.

Me? I’d rather have Mike Trout. Now, and especially going forward. He may never win a Triple Crown — though he has the tools — but most baseball fans probably still believe Miggy should win the MVP this season.

And maybe most voting Baseball Writers Association of America do, too.

I would vote for Mike Trout. I would feel a little guilty, because Cabrera did enough to win the award — over the first 120 years of baseball. But now we mash up our stats a bit differently, and those 139 RBI begin to crumble under the weight of all those numbers.

How this turns out will tell us where the discussion has gone. Do the traditionalists win? Or the modernists? We will find out soon.