Mike Trout needs his own thread

Great headline:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mike-trouts-teammates-dont-deserve-mike-trout/

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/columns/story?id=6605429

i love reading his old scouting reports. apparently in HS he played a lot of SS (not a surprise, given his athleticism) and even dabbled with switch-hitting. can't find any video of this, sadly

"I can't tell people what I really think because they think I'm insane," Arkansas manager Bill Mosiello said from behind his desk. "Now, they're probably saying, 'You were right.'"

Scouts send Mosiello texts about Trout all the time. Here's one he got last season, when he managed him at Single-A Cedar Rapids, just a few months after Trout graduated from Millville High outside Philadelphia: Maybe this is what Mickey Mantle looked like at 18.

One said: My only prototype for him is Rickey Henderson.

Another said: I've been doing this 40 years. I've never seen a kid doing what he's doing.

The other night, two American League scouts were swapping information about Texas League players. One of them, who had just pulled into town, asked the other to describe Trout's speed. The other guy didn't say a word. He just got this canary-eating grin on his face and slowly traced the Nos. 8 and 0 in the air with his index finger.

Perhaps, in the interests of balance, we should get this out of the way immediately: Trout is not the perfect baseball-playing machine. He's a mediocre base-stealer for his speed, his arm isn't a weapon and some doubt he'll hit the ball with enough lift to be a big-time slugger in the majors. When he hits home runs, they tend to be rising line drives, more like the trajectory of a Ryan Braun home run than a Prince Fielder blast. He takes too many first-pitch strikes for some people's tastes, often hitting behind in the count.

on the way back to the dugout, he avoids eye contact. he sometimes reaches for his glove between innings and makes an imperfect connection with it. his older friend him that his dad died and he froze up. his next day he told him he was sorry but the mood had changed. his speed from home to 1B on routine ground balls to 3B declined significantly between his rookie and 4th seasons. he accidentally ran into the doorway on his way out of the shower. his WAR/PA rolling 20-game average rose and smoothed back down. his bloodied dental floss didn't fly entirely into the trash can. his z-swing % rose from 55.6 to 59.% from 2015 to 2016.

his fart butt farted butt fart

trout cycle watch: HR and a triple through 3 innings

25 today. with 160 homers, 130 stolen bases and 45 WAR

0-3 with 3 Ks. 25 year old mike trout kind of sucks

http://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2016/08/07/1023638983/1470608058466/asset_1800K.mp4 tho

niiiice. he had a nice play going back to the wall last night too

Yeah, and hit a 3-run homer off Felix the other night. As an M's fan it's nice for once to see him do cool shit and not wipe out their barely visible playoff hopes.

lou brock played 18 seasons, had 3023 hits, stole 938 bases

trout has passed him in WAR

smh

You're going to wear yourself out making note of every guy he passes in WAR.

but do be sure to let me know when he catches current surname trout war leader dizzy trout (50.6 fWAR)

Most WAR since 2001:

1 Albert Pujols
2 Alex Rodriguez
3 Adrian Beltre
4 Miguel Cabrera
5 Carlos Beltran
6 Chase Utley
7 Ichiro Suzuki
8 Barry Bonds
9 Lance Berkman
10 David Wright
11 Chipper Jones
12 Matt Holliday
13 Scott Rolen
14 Jimmy Rollins
15 Derek Jeter
16 David Ortiz
17 Evan Longoria
18 Robinson Cano
19 Joe Mauer
20 Mike Trout

Obviously, position players. Sabathia, Greinke, Kershaw, Felix, Hamels, and Verlander would be on a pitchers-included list if you use Baseball Reference. (Not meant as a slight to Trout.)

My takeaway from that list: Bonds retired ten years ago and he's still 8th???

really a surprise? those last years were y'know

yeah whoops I forgot to mention no pitchers

trout is hitting .302/.356/.583 in 104 PAs that have reached 0-2 this season

MLB is collectively hitting .150/.158/.222 in those situations

dang dog

yeah he's an insane 2 strike hitter, he has no fear

it's practically boggsian!

http://www.baseballspast.com/samplepage_files/11094_master_%202_strike_hitting.pdf

They were talking about the AL MVP vote on one of the local call-in shows. Assuming it's a five-way race (Trout, Altuve, Donaldson, Betts, and Machado--you could add Ortiz, I suppose), I think Trout's going to benefit this time from all the closely-matched candidates on contending teams. Voters who only pick players from contending teams as their #1 will still have Trout third or fourth at worst, maybe even second; he'll get #1 or, at worst, #2 votes from more sabermetric-minded voters. Meanwhile, all the other #1s will be scattered between four or five players.

i think if the season ended today the final order would be betts/altuve/donaldson/trout/ortiz/machado

whoa

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/17437855/mike-trout-los-angeles-angels-uninjured-serious-highway-crash

up to 9.3 WAR

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-case-for-mike-trout-for-american-league-mvp/

they're doing these pieces for all the contenders, but trout really is the only choice. a month ago that wasn't the case tho!

xpost only 8.2 by fWAR, but still way more than the runner-up (donaldson, 7.0 fWAR)

why does this guy sit so many games now :(

because the angels are anything but

he's up to 10.0 rWAR now

i don't know why i chose these particular players, but trout appears to be keeping pace

http://i.imgur.com/OIeBQ6L.png

he's got an outside shot at an 11-win season, at least by baseball-reference. and he probably won't win MVP

in more ways than one, this is sort of albert pujols' fault

albert pujols turned into mid-decline phase ryan howard so quickly

pujols has the same WAR (bbr) as Ichiro this season.

and he probably won't win MVP

You think Betts will win, I take it. I'll stick with what I said a month ago (awards thread)--I think Altuve and Donaldson will cut into Betts' support enough that Trout will win. Trout has sabermetric voters to himself; even if that's still a smaller part of the pool than traditional-stat voters, the latter will split its vote.

Cameron:

Betts is clearly a fantastic defensive player, and he deserves credit for his all around game, but the reality is that the argument that Betts and Trout have had similar 2016 seasons is an argument for accepting the validity of single-season DRS at face value. We’ve probably done more to advocate for the acceptance of stats like UZR and DRS as anyone, but even I wouldn’t look at Betts’ 2016 defensive numbers and argue that we should accept that he was the best defender in baseball this year, and far more valuable defensively than Trout, who still plays the more demanding defensive position.

And unlike single-season defensive metrics, which continue to have some noise influencing their results, we can very easily identify the offensive difference between Trout and Betts. It wasn’t just “some walks”; it was 86 outs made. And those 86 outs are why, with all due respect to Betts as a great player who had a great season, it isn’t really all that close this year.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-actual-difference-between-mike-trout-and-mookie-betts/

i'm not sensing a lot of betts momentum compared to previous dudes who have won, it feels like a lot of people are saying trout deserves it.

I think that Cameron article makes it clear why Trout will win. You've got the old-school traditional guy (Luddite, if you prefer) who's going to vote for Betts--but even he's putting Trout second. You've got a second guy who's about halfway; prefers the MVP to play for a contender, but doesn't treat that as an absolute--and he's voting for Trout. So if Trout gets some of the halfway voters, plus all of the sabermetric voters, and then you get people like Heyman putting Trout second (or at worst third), I'm sure that'll put him comfortably ahead of a Betts/Altuve/Donaldson/Machado traffic jam.

still think ortiz will siphon off some betts votes too

Definitely, should have mentioned Ortiz--lots of sentimental support, Triple Crown stats, vote-splitting on the same team, etc.

if i understand correctly how bbref's MVP shares works, a trout win would put him 16th all time. after 5 seasons

@BNightengale
The three finalists voted on by the players for their Player of Year Award: Jose Altuve, Mookie Betts and David Ortiz

the trees do not understand the forest

the trees like narrative, which i guess isn't too surprising