Greater career - Mike Trout or Bryce Harper?

he's very good and started very young, so yeah he's a good bet. but idk -- he's had one incredible season, a couple all-star seasons, and then some regular major league corner outfielder seasons

he's 5 WAR behind andruw through age 24, and while i don't expect harper to fall off a cliff at 31, it doesn't seem like his defense will help him much either.

there's plenty of time left, and maybe he'll be rejuvenated when he gets to play wherever he wants, but after that 2015 season i think we all expected something more

Harper seems like a guy who could fall into a Tulo injury hole any minute. I think any team signing him for $400 million might wind up with a disaster.

Go Yankees

I guess the thing Harper is he’s maybe the one guy who could bust out 3 trout-like seasons in a row and it wouldn’t be THAT surprising.

I don't know last season he was in the running for MVP up until the injury, he hit a pretty solid 156 wrc+ which is what Stanton got a MVP for. This season he is walking at a career high rate, striking out at a career low rate and his babip is absolutely unsustainable. It's a weird position he is in, he is leading the league in home runs, on pace for another 40 HR season, but only has 6 doubles, all of which in a contract year. The big development is that his defense is cratering at a stunning rate, not that he was ever famous for it but this year it's just really bad right now.

In short, he is obviously not Mike Trout but then who is. He might just be Stanton and that's pretty pretty good, especially considering the numerous setbacks he got injuries wise. To me he is in the running for the HOF (through age 25 he compares well to Beltre, Cabrera and Stanton for example).

Also yeah he is not worth 400 millions even in this crazy inflated salaries context.

2015 aside, Harper feels more and more like the new Mr. May. (Or Mr. April--his career slash line for April is .309/.436/.619. No other month is close.)

He does have the foundation for a HOF career, though. Long way to go.

(Just looked up the career splits for the original Mr. May, Dave Winfield. May was only his fourth best month--April, June, and July were better. In a broader sense, though, Steinbrenner may have been on to something--his two worst were August and September. And then, the real issue, there was his poor postseason record.)

I don't know how much validity there is here, but it's an interesting approach to Harper's seasonal swings.

http://www.billjamesonline.com/how_old_is_bryce_harper/

Looking at the Active Career WAR leaders I realize:

1. Of course the only question now is between Harper and Machado, except:
2. Mookie Betts is as young and has more WAR than EITHER of those two. And is potentially better going forward if Machado stays at SS.
3. I forget sometimes just how unbelievably good Albert Pujols was. He was as good as any of these not named Mike Trout through 25 and then he just turned it up and was BETTER for five more years in a row.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mike-trout-has-been-as-good-as-manny-machado-and-bryce-harper-combined

I'm floored by the AAV, which is Jake Arrieta money. This almost seems like a deal designed to enable the #Phillies to sign a second prime free agent in two years.

— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) February 28, 2019

Curious how Bryce Harper's first seven seasons compare to Bobby Abreu's? Check the Play Index https://t.co/1SYvrZnKR5 pic.twitter.com/SiPbgY5CRM

— Baseball Reference (@baseball_ref) March 3, 2019

BA = #60 on the Mitchell Report.

lol abreu is my go-to example of WAR being a flawed metric

how so? i didn't really follow baseball during his entire career - i checked out in the mid 90s and came back in the early 2010s. but by his stats he looks really good, even by counting stats? 20-30 HRs, 30-40 steals, around .300 BA each year, really good plate discipline, high OBP?

he had a very nice run with the phillies, definitely in the hall of the very good but (yes subjectivity alert here) anyone following baseball at the time would not put him in the near-elite status his war would have you believe. tbf the bad back end of his career is maybe clouding my judgment a bit but walking a lot and striking out even more does not a great player make!

his career trajectory is interesting. there used to be a general idea of youth leading to a "prime" (age 25-30, give or take), then a slow decline to retirement. but in recent years that's kind of been revised to players generally being at their best in the first few years, then a slow decline all the way to retirement. but very few players actually follow that exact trajectory. bobby abreu does. he was at his very best in his first few years, then very good for years afterward, then good, then serviceable, then mediocre, then old and bad, in a very linear fashion. also very durable!

Bobby Abreu's career, in one character:

\

Abreu wasn't elite, but you could easily make the argument that he was the most underrated player in baseball during his prime.

Harper isn't elite either, save for his one MVP year.

In an O Henry twist, it seemed that when people started to pay attention to Bobby Abreu being really good 5 Tool player is when his production seem to slide. This be at the peak when he won the home run derby and then went into a total power slump in the second half, that seemed to be when his power slid of in general.

The Craig Biggio dynamic: by the time everyone notices how good you are (in Biggio's case, predicated on his getting 3,000 hits), you're no longer good.

Earlnash otm, Abreu’s career seemingly can be split into his pre-derby 6.0 WAR-type minor star seasons and his post-derby “solid but now-overrated” era.

Harper will clearly be elite at the end of this season.

I would not be surprised that Harper might win a HR title or two playing in Philly, but 13 years is a long, long time. I could see Harper getting knicked up over and over, as it has happened already. I'd probably be looking to move him to 1b pretty quick and get him out of the outfield.

DH probably will be in the NL by the time the contract hits, so it is possible that could be a benefit to Philly at some point.

http://www.dirtsheet.com/los-angeles-angels-considering-10-year-350-extension-for-mike-trout/

You have to love "considering." They're also considering offering Pujols to the Red Sox for Mookie Betts--they just want to time it right.

Who is the worst outfielder Hoskins or Harper

someone find me a position player who had a better career than bobby abreu and also never made the top 10 in mvp voting (in his league) in any season

Was going to say Robin Ventura but he had one top 6 mvp vote in 1999.

Now back to my very important question.

i feel pretty confident that hoskins is worse

Ian Kinsler, arguably. Almost the same bWAR in five fewer seasons. Also would rank higher in a list of all-time second basemen whereas Abreu would be much farther down the list of outfielders.

good call

yeah, i had the realization a few months ago that ian kinsler is one of best second basemen since integration and yet he's seen as just a good, solid player. combo of his value coming from above average (but not elite) defense, speed, above average (but not elite) offense, and playing for the tigers, i guess

oh and Willie Randolph as well, basically managed to put up a stellar WAR over an 18 year career in which he never hit more than 7 home runs in a season (finishing with 54!) but he was a good baserunner, walked a lot, and was outstanding in the field.

Found one more with a slightly higher career WAR than Abreu, his value completely camouflaged by his era and his park: Willie Davis. (Four MVP finishes in the 15-30 range.)

did willie randolph even get any interviews after being fired by the mets? far less successful managers have gotten multiple chances, but he just seemed to drop off the face of the earth

Kinsler did very well to sign with the Padres.

One follow-up on Bobby Abreu, then Trout/Harper can have their thread back.

In the history of baseball, there are two players who have played in 150 games or more for 13 consecutive seasons:

Willie Mays
Bobby Abreu (Happy 45th Birthday)

Pete Rose, Cal Ripken Jr., and Rafael Palmeiro likely would have matched if streaks were not interrupted by strikes.

— Chris Bodig ⚾ (@cooperstowncred) March 11, 2019

I know that's one of those specious benchmarks with cherry-picked parameters (if you drop it to 145 games, Aaron hits 16 consecutive seasons), but who would ever come up with Abreu as one of the two?

more hot bobby abreu content

Bobby Abreu has been selected as the 2019 Toyota Phillies Wall of Fame inductee!

He will be inducted on Saturday, August 3, as part of Toyota Alumni Weekend. pic.twitter.com/TthmZAbIpf

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) March 20, 2019

brb - have to go buy a Toyota

In the liner notes to one of the Pavement CD reissues, Stephen Malkamus references Bobby Abreyu's scream at the 2005 HR derby

I'm sure most of you are aware of this, but I'd be a little cautious about Harper's great start. April is far and away his best month historically: .310/.438/.627. No other month is even close.

MLB leaders in OPS as of this morning:

1. Harper - 1.479
2. Trout - 1.476

trout is having an insanely hot start

considering the lineup around him, i'm not sure why anyone ever throws him a strike

Trout's gonna benefit in the counting stats department by being paired with Pujols and Trumbo for the foreseeable future..
― johnathan lee riche$ (mayor jingleberries), Tuesday, July 10, 2012 2:01 PM (six years ago)

At the time, this seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

trumbo we believed in u

Just to jump the gun by several miles...If Trout were to win MVP unanimously this year, he'd move ahead of these players in MVP Award Shares: A-Rod, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Aaron, Mantle, Mays. (And MVP votes were easier to come by in a smaller league...DiMaggio did lose time to the war, and Gehrig's a separate thing because of an erratic MVP structure pre-1931.)

I'm sure most of you are aware of this, but I'd be a little cautious about Harper's great start. April is far and away his best month historically: .310/.438/.627. No other month is even close.

― clemenza, Tuesday, April 2, 2019 7:58 PM (two months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

welp

Trout's 2019 OPS by monthly splits:

March/April - 1.052
May - 1.032
June - 1.236

Harper:

March/April - .878
May - .811
June - .718

Harper's K rate is noticeably higher, which i guess could be attributable to scuffling under early "new contract" pressure but he's on pace for 200+, which is maybe alarming for a guy who only twice before just barely exceeded averaging one K per game (and in some seasons was well below that).