Last season, Mike Trout took the world by storm and became the most talked about player in baseball. Sadly, this season, he is even better but plays on a severely disappointing team and has fallen away somewhat as a conversation leader. By the end of the season, he will bring up once again the age old debate on if an Most Valuable Player Award should go to a player on an awful team. Because of his team, he might lose out on the award he deserves for the second straight season.
To illustrate the point, I am simply going to give you some numbers to give you an idea of how special Mike Trout has been. Here are a bunch of numbers and his corresponding rank in baseball based on them:
- WAR - 7.6 rWAR, 7.3 fWAR: First in baseball either way
- wOBA - .424: Third
- Slugging - .574: Fifth
- OBP - .424: Third
- BA - .331: Third
- OPS - .998: Third
- wRC - 101: Second
- Doubles - 32: Third
- Hits - 143: First
- Walks - 67: Third
- Extra base hits - 59: Second
- Runs - 79: Tied for Second
- WPA - 3.40: Seventh
- Base running runs - 6.3: Fourth
- Stolen bases - 24: Tenth
- ISO - .243: Tenth
As you can see by the numbers, Mike Trout can do it all. His fielding numbers have fallen off a bit, but otherwise, Mike Trout is the best overall player in the game this year. Now if only the Angels could get some pitching...
2 comments:
still high picking against the braves he? hehehe
Perry Husband on the Angels' star.
"Between last September and the beginning of May, Mike Trout has a zero-percent chase rate on middle-up fastballs just out of the zone. Some would say that means he is very disciplined and does not swing at high fastballs. But I see it as an indication that he has given up that part of the strike zone to any pitcher with the courage to throw there. If he doesn’t chase anything up out of the zone, that means he doesn’t like high-fastball strikes, due to their higher EV speeds. He’s intentionally letting those balls go by, and waiting for something more to his liking.
"That’s his game plan. And if you know what that game plan is, you should be able to pitch around it. Virtually all Trout’s hard-hit balls during that same time frame are on slower fastballs and faster off-speed pitches — middle-away, down-middle and down-in fastballs and sliders, and changeups with high placement that increases their EV.
"He is screaming out his game plan, but the only way to recognize it is to understand what his chase rate actually means. Does that make him an easy out? Not even close — but how has keeping the ball down worked out for the pitching world? The fastball slows down, comes in closer to the velocity of the off-speed pitch, and hides no other strike that follows. It’s brilliant on Trout’s part, and ignorant on the side of the pitchers."
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