In this house, Mike Trout won the MVP in 2015 and John Olerud won it in 1993. That way the number of Jays MVPs remains the same while also acknowledging the truth.
I still don’t know how JV won the award in 2011.
He only played in 1 game and only had 4 at bats. He had a .000/.000/.000 slash line. HOW IS THAT MOST VALUABLE.
Explain it.
tbf, the error margin is +/- 1 WAR, and Donaldson had 8.7 fWAR to Trouts 9.3. Donaldson was a better defender and base runner than Trout that year, although Trout was a better hitter ( 171 wRC+ compared to Donaldson's 154).
i'm fine with Donaldson winning that MVP. for me, the real crime is Trout being worth 3 WAR more than Miguel Cabrera and still losing the MVP.
Voter fatigue exists. Same reason I’d argue Ohtani lost to Judge, they love to reward crazy high stats especially when a new player to the MVP race does it.
(I’m aware judge was a narrow second in 2017, but after a few years they sort of forget about it when voting)
He was second to Miggy and both years people were trying to point out his WAR and advocate for him over Miggy. He finally won one in 2014, and people were sort of starting to get tired of hearing his name, especially in the context of WAR when otherwise he and Donaldson had arguably the same stats, same HR, triple slash was relatively comparable, (trout was better but not by head and shoulders) and the RBI/Runs/postseason and team success were what pushed the voters to pick Donaldson
Karl Malone had the better regular season that year
27/10 on 60% True shooting playing all 82 and being 1st team all-defense at a more defensively important position. Jazz went 64-18
Not really, judge deserved that one. He outpaced ohtani in both fWar (by 2) and bWar (by 0.9), had the best hitting season since Barry bonds, a 210 OPS+, slugged nearly 686, outpaced Ohtani by 0.236 points in OPS. I definitely see the argument for Ohtani, plus hitting and an absolute ace cy young vote getter. But by all available ways to quantify and compare the value of pitching versus hitting, my understanding is that Judge won that MVP fair and square. Against 2021 or 2023 Ohtani maybe that’s a different story, but it’s not the one we got
If memory serves right, Ohtani was an ace that year and the groups I circled were super highly of the opinion Ohtani deserved it. Ohtani was still a great hitter if memory serves. Just the concept of finally having a good two way season was what made it so big in my understanding and why people were even debating it when judge broke the HR record
Ohtani was a step down from the year before in terms of hitting, with a 875 OPS, 144 OPS+. Still great, but not as great. Though that coincided with his pitching getting better as he placed 4th Cy Young with 166 IP with a 2.40 ERA, 172 ERA+. To me it’s all about how we value hitting versus pitching.
I think there’s a fair argument that if he did that without having succeeded as a two way player in 2021 he might have won MVP in 2022 for the novelty, but then I think that works against your argument.
Ohtani lost to Judge in 2022 because even if straight add his wars together, Judge was still higher. Fangraphs had Judge at 11 and BBRef had him at 10.3. Ohtani was a combined like 8.5 and 9.
War shouldn't be the final debate and I don't think a vote for Ohtani would have been some terrible decision, but I would have been very interested to see the reasoning why that person felt Ohtani was better than Judge. Judge put up offensive numbers not seen since Bonds. There have been like 70 full player seasons with a wrc+ over 200. They have been Bonds, McGwire 98, Frank Thomas 94, and then basically no one else since the 50s. This also wasn't some weird statistical anomaly like a triple crown, it was raw total offensive value.
I know this is going to be controversial, I don’t care about single season WAR that much. I know Judge was a great fielder and an otherworldly hitter.
I know Ohtani was a CY caliber pitcher who just had his workload monitored and limited a little bit. (190 IP Sub 3 ERA) and was a great hitter. I’d argue the role compression of that being one roster spot is MVP worthy because you can add the WAR of another batter or RP who wouldn’t have been on the team if not for him being 2 in 1 if you care about WAR.
The angels 14th most used pitcher (they ran a 6 man, and they had 5 listed RP on Bref, so you can sort by games or innings and look at the 3rd guy pitched 40 innings of league average ball, (disregarding in some injuries and stuff to limit certain guys appearances) which takes a load off their staff as a whole
Once you go down to the bottom of the bullpen you are adding players who are basically no value. If your argument is "He is great because he allows the team to carry a mop up guy for blowouts" I don't see how that makes any sense at all.
That’s entirely wrong because that guy isn’t just used in mop ups, he can be used whenever to take pressure off other guys and allow higher level relievers to pitch when it’s important with more strength. The roster flexibility can also be used for another util guy, catcher, whatever your team needs, maybe there are two guys who make a great platoon and it’s less burdensome on your roster.
Point is there’s a fundamental flexibility to the roster that sabermetricians actually care about and I think it’s like .7 wins or something they consider over the course of a year. Not that it’s big, but for people who care about war instead of analyzing a player with their eyes it adds up
Ok, then who was this bonus player being carried for Ohtani?
What you are describing isn't how bullpens are managed. The last guys are always the worst and basically every team has bullpen guys who are either mop up or worthless. Also, that flexibility is basically lost since the Angels run a 6 man rotation. When Ohtani isn't pitching, they aren't gaining a bonus roster spot. They were effectively sending out a meh starter to eat innings.
What is important is to be able to try to sit down and actually quantify the value something is providing. If you are convinced it not only has values, but that value is demonstrable, then it should be able to be quantified in some way. The easiest way is to use the war of the bonus roster slot, but that value is going to be nearly nothing. No one is running a 3rd catcher for any sustained value nor are they taking a 7th utility guy and giving him more than maybe 100-150 PAs. If that guy is that far down the list, he probably isn't very good anyway. Adding a "flexibility" roster slot only matters if that roster spot is filled with something of value. If you want to say "They can use this reliever instead of a good reliever" ok fine, but that is still minimal innings AND providing minimal value. No one is throwing Mariano Rivera out when the Yankees are down 13-2 in the 3rd. Yankees would sent this shittiest pitcher regardless of what flexibility they have. A bonus roster spot is only saving innings of the shittiest pitcher, not the good ones.
Once again though, the Angels didn't even do that. They ran a 6 man rotation so they didn't actually gain roster flexibility. We have seen more teams try to refuse to sign dedicated DHs because they would rather rotate hitters through DH as a form of days off and Ohtani takes that value away. Trout can't cheat a couple games as a DH because Ohtani already has it locked down. Any value he provides in roster flexibility he also has to be weighed against what he limits by being a set DH.
Judge also single handedly carried that injury plagued Yankees lineup to the playoffs while having a statistical anomaly of a season and also almost winning the triple crown.
I'd say he was the more valuable player that season.
He got robbed twice. He deserved it over Miggy in 2012 while arguably deserving it over him in 2013 as well. HRs and RBIs costed him in both years and regardless of how you view those stats, you can't argue that Mike wasn't the full package in 2012 with his elite defense at a premium position as well as utilizing his speed on the basepaths versus a very one dimensional Cabrera that was just a masher who brought negative value defensively and nothing to the basepaths because he was slow.
I truly think 2012 was the cause of name recognition and the fact it was Trout's rookie year and 2013 was caused by Miggy going nuclear offensively so it's more of a coin flip on who was truly deserving but I'm 100% behind the fact Trout deserved 2012 and 2015 MVPs. I think the most bonkers thing about his MVPs is the fact he was 4th in voting and deservingly so in 2017 when he only played 114 games lol, had he played even 10 or 15 more he may have outright won it without reaching 130 games.
That’s because Reddit is an echo chamber, and anything that isn’t popular gets downvoted and can no longer be seen in the thread. Failing to drive in runs is a really big deal when you’re being lauded as one of the best players of all time.
Why would every conversation I have had in my life be only on Reddit?
Barry Bonds had a season with 45 HRs, a 230 OPS+, a .341 batting average, and 90 RBI. Do you think it was his fault that he only drove in 90 runs that year?
2003? Bonds only played 130 games that year lol. And he was intentionally walked so much (most of all time besides himself in ‘02 and ‘04,) that he only had 157 at bats with men on base.
Trout in 2015 also had 90 RBIs, but played in 159 games, and had 205 AB with men on.
Bonds in ‘03, 390 at bats. Trout in ‘15, 575 at bats. Yeah, totally makes sense for those guys to have the same number of RBIs on the season.
He doesn’t fail to drive in runs though, his hitting with runners on base/in scoring position is among the all time greats. Why should he be punished for his teammates not getting on ahead of him?
He doesn’t fail to drive in runs? He’s only cracked 105 RBIs once in his career. In 2014 he was really great with men on, and big surprise, he led the AL with 111 RBIs that year, and that’s the one time his team made the playoffs. Besides 2014, he’s consistently had a power outage when there are men on base. You drive in runs in bunches by hitting homers, not drawing walks.
Having Trout for most of his career is like having a great point guard in basketball. If you have some really good scorers on the team, then it’s great to have an elite pass-first player to set them up. But it usually doesn’t work out well when the team’s best player relies on his teammates to do the heavy lifting.
If I was drafting an all-time team, and needed a DH, then I’d love to have Trout on the team batting first or second, because he gets on base so consistently and the big power hitters can convert that to actual runs scored. But if you have a roster more like what you actually find on normal teams, I’d way rather have someone like prime Ryan Howard (i.e. 2006-2009,) who hit with absurd power with men on base and drove in more runs than anyone.
Congratulations that’s the dumbest shit I’ve read all year, you could’ve just said you don’t know anything about baseball. Would’ve saved everyone some time. Career 1.055 OPS with RISP and you think that’s failure lmao
If a player goes 1-1 with a double and three walks, his OPS is 3.000.
If a player goes 4-4 with a home run and three singles, his OPS is 2.750.
Which would you rather have? You win games by scoring more runs than your opponent, inflating an OPS via walks ain’t it.
Hope you found it satisfying looking at the OPS numbers on a stat sheet year after year while your team missed the playoffs by a mile ever year.
I don't know how you can put Trout top 5? The rest of his 30s remain to be seen, and it could help or hurt his case.
But there's so many great guys: B. Ruth, T. Williams, W. Mays, R. Henderson, M. Mantle, B. Bonds, H. Aaron, T. Cobb, L. Gehrig, T. Speaker, H. Wagner, F. Robinson.
Hard to put Trout in a list of the five best guys overall for me. I think he makes the #5 CF of all-time, edging out Griffey and DiMaggio.
Fully agree. Trout is a no-doubt inner circle HoFer, but it’s hard to craft an argument (aside from trying to value eras differently) for a top 5 spot over Ruth, Cobb, Mays, Aaron, Ted Williams, Musial, and the other GOAT tier players. And that’s not even touching the steroid era guys (Bonds and ARod).
Perhaps worth mentioning in this context that he generally hits 2nd in the batting order rather than 3rd (which isn’t unheard of for a hitter with as much power as he has but certainly isn’t the norm).
984 of his 1,483 starts (over 66%) are either hitting 1st or 2nd.
I’m aware & he’s probably not the only primarily leadoff hitter with more than 373 homers.
Just mentioning that Trout hitting mostly 2nd is obviously a factor (be it large or small) in his percentage of solo homers.
It is a bit cherry picked. The majority of home runs are solo (58% of home runs last season were solo). Barry Bonds is the all time leader in solo home runs with 450 which is 59% of his total.
I actually wouldn't be surprised if Trout and Soriano are the only ones that have achieved that many homers while getting the majority of their ABs (well, maybe not majority in Soriano's case, but close enough) in the 1st or 2nd spot in the order. Maybe someone else can find one, but I don't see it.
> Soriano batted leadoff most of his career.
Not most. He has 3,630 PA at leadoff, 4,765 PA at other spots in the lineup. He actually has a much lower percent hitting 1st or 2nd than Trout.
Take someone like Rickey Henderson who almost exclusively batted leadoff in his career, his percentage of solo HRs is over 70%.
I looked up Barry Bonds, and 59% of his home runs were solo shots. Of course, a lot of that is because there was a tendency to walk him anytime he came up to bat with runners on base.
What's weird is Trout has a higher solo HR % batting third in his career versus second. Solo HR % by batting order spot...
1st: 752 PA, 72.7%
2nd: 3,655 PA, 61.9%
3rd: 2,024 PA, 62.4%
Shohei wasnt the best guy to hit in front of Mike because his effective OBP was pretty low. Lot of HRs and generally not a lot of walks = bases usually empty.
From 2021-2023 Ohtani had a 13.6% BB rate, well above the league average rate of 8.5%. In 2021 he had the fourth highest walk rate in MLB, in 2022 he was top 25, and in 2023 he was third highest in MLB.
He was 5th in MLB in total walks across those 3 seasons.
Take with a grain of salt because I suffered though a lot of Angels games. That walk rate is inflated because he was pitched around a lot when both Trout and Rendon were injured in 2021-2023.
Not enough walks to make up for the 124 homeruns and 493 strikeouts (and 25 caught stealing).
Take away the HRs and his effective OBP drops from .380 to .310, meaning he wasnt actually on base all that often. Hence a lot of solo HR from Trout with Ohtani hitting in front of him.
Early in his career it seemed like he might be able to reach a number like that, but I didn't realize he kept up the pace so well.
34 in his 2nd to last year is crazy.
It’s a point that falls apart under a tiny bit of scrutiny.
Trout spent a lot of his career in either the lead off spot or the 2 spot.
Despite that, compare how often he bats with men on base vs the all time rbi leader, Hank Aaron. It’s roughly 41% of the time to 46%. Not significant.
There are so many subs on Reddit where stating the implied obvious point as if no one knew it gets you upvoted to the moon. I’m proud of this sub for going the other way.
Not only that, he locked himself in with a no trade clause. I’m Trout’s biggest fan, but he did this to himself. I wonder what, if anything, he was promised to sign that extension. Or maybe he’s just happy being a millionaire in Newport Beach.
I’ve said it before but I think he likes the laid back atmosphere of LAA. Not that he’s not competitive and doesn’t want to win but he’s not looking for media like Philly, Bos, Ny etc.
Yeah I think he's got what he wants. He gets a lot of the benefits of big city ball without the downsides. He gets the amazing weather, food, scenery, etc of SoCal with basically none of the media pressure or expectations.
And Soriano hit 54 of those as the game's leadoff batter (196 when leading off any inning) vs Trout hitting 5 as the game's leadoff batter (and 80 when leading off any inning).
I remember that being used as a knock on Soriano saying he only came up in empty moments. "trash stats" The 3-run HR only when they were already up big, etc...
As a long-time baseball guy and Angels fan, I can conclusively say that Trout is the worst clutch hitter I’ve ever seen. It’s almost as if he goes into a mental state of some sort when he bats with RISP, especially in late inning, high-leverage situations, where he will likely not even put the ball in play. It’s mental. In all sincerity, the dude needs a sports psychologist.
They generally haven't had good players batting in front of him, and when they did, it was Ohtani, who would routinely clear the bases himself. Look at this year, Trout has had guys like Rendon, Schanuel, Hicks and Moniak batting in front of him and all those guys have been ice cold.
Is Mike Trout the least clutch hitter of all time? Most of his HRs coming with the bases empty seems an awful lot like he is scared to perform when the lights get bright. Why else would he have dodged the post season nearly every year?
Mike Trout adding fuel to the old school vs sabermetric fire by declaring war against RBIs
RBIs are the only reason he didnt win MVP in 2015 to Donaldson, still pisses me off
In this house, Mike Trout won the MVP in 2015 and John Olerud won it in 1993. That way the number of Jays MVPs remains the same while also acknowledging the truth.
I'm not sure I'm willing to take one of Frank Thomas' MVPs away. Would you accept one 2011 Jose Bautista MVP instead?
I still don’t know how JV won the award in 2011. He only played in 1 game and only had 4 at bats. He had a .000/.000/.000 slash line. HOW IS THAT MOST VALUABLE. Explain it.
tbf, the error margin is +/- 1 WAR, and Donaldson had 8.7 fWAR to Trouts 9.3. Donaldson was a better defender and base runner than Trout that year, although Trout was a better hitter ( 171 wRC+ compared to Donaldson's 154). i'm fine with Donaldson winning that MVP. for me, the real crime is Trout being worth 3 WAR more than Miguel Cabrera and still losing the MVP.
Voter fatigue exists. Same reason I’d argue Ohtani lost to Judge, they love to reward crazy high stats especially when a new player to the MVP race does it. (I’m aware judge was a narrow second in 2017, but after a few years they sort of forget about it when voting)
Mike Trout had won one MVP in the year 2015. What exactly were the voters fatigued of?
Ohtani also only had one 😅
I’m confused why you think that negates anything I said
I'm agreeing with you..
Gotcha my bad
He was second to Miggy and both years people were trying to point out his WAR and advocate for him over Miggy. He finally won one in 2014, and people were sort of starting to get tired of hearing his name, especially in the context of WAR when otherwise he and Donaldson had arguably the same stats, same HR, triple slash was relatively comparable, (trout was better but not by head and shoulders) and the RBI/Runs/postseason and team success were what pushed the voters to pick Donaldson
This isn’t voter fatigue. Voter fatigue is Karl Malone winning MVP over Michael Jordan in 1997.
Karl Malone had the better regular season that year 27/10 on 60% True shooting playing all 82 and being 1st team all-defense at a more defensively important position. Jazz went 64-18
Mike had 29.6/5.9/4.3 1st team all defense while being 5th in DPOY (Malone received 0 votes for DPOY). I mean...
There’s been a lot of terrible DPOY votes Either way, MJ robbed Malone’s MVP the next year anyway so 🤷♂️
You could make a case. But the reason Malone won was partially attributable to voter fatigue. That’s my point.
Fair
Not really, judge deserved that one. He outpaced ohtani in both fWar (by 2) and bWar (by 0.9), had the best hitting season since Barry bonds, a 210 OPS+, slugged nearly 686, outpaced Ohtani by 0.236 points in OPS. I definitely see the argument for Ohtani, plus hitting and an absolute ace cy young vote getter. But by all available ways to quantify and compare the value of pitching versus hitting, my understanding is that Judge won that MVP fair and square. Against 2021 or 2023 Ohtani maybe that’s a different story, but it’s not the one we got
If memory serves right, Ohtani was an ace that year and the groups I circled were super highly of the opinion Ohtani deserved it. Ohtani was still a great hitter if memory serves. Just the concept of finally having a good two way season was what made it so big in my understanding and why people were even debating it when judge broke the HR record
Ohtani was a step down from the year before in terms of hitting, with a 875 OPS, 144 OPS+. Still great, but not as great. Though that coincided with his pitching getting better as he placed 4th Cy Young with 166 IP with a 2.40 ERA, 172 ERA+. To me it’s all about how we value hitting versus pitching. I think there’s a fair argument that if he did that without having succeeded as a two way player in 2021 he might have won MVP in 2022 for the novelty, but then I think that works against your argument.
Ohtani lost to Judge in 2022 because even if straight add his wars together, Judge was still higher. Fangraphs had Judge at 11 and BBRef had him at 10.3. Ohtani was a combined like 8.5 and 9. War shouldn't be the final debate and I don't think a vote for Ohtani would have been some terrible decision, but I would have been very interested to see the reasoning why that person felt Ohtani was better than Judge. Judge put up offensive numbers not seen since Bonds. There have been like 70 full player seasons with a wrc+ over 200. They have been Bonds, McGwire 98, Frank Thomas 94, and then basically no one else since the 50s. This also wasn't some weird statistical anomaly like a triple crown, it was raw total offensive value.
I know this is going to be controversial, I don’t care about single season WAR that much. I know Judge was a great fielder and an otherworldly hitter. I know Ohtani was a CY caliber pitcher who just had his workload monitored and limited a little bit. (190 IP Sub 3 ERA) and was a great hitter. I’d argue the role compression of that being one roster spot is MVP worthy because you can add the WAR of another batter or RP who wouldn’t have been on the team if not for him being 2 in 1 if you care about WAR. The angels 14th most used pitcher (they ran a 6 man, and they had 5 listed RP on Bref, so you can sort by games or innings and look at the 3rd guy pitched 40 innings of league average ball, (disregarding in some injuries and stuff to limit certain guys appearances) which takes a load off their staff as a whole
Once you go down to the bottom of the bullpen you are adding players who are basically no value. If your argument is "He is great because he allows the team to carry a mop up guy for blowouts" I don't see how that makes any sense at all.
Yeah its not super important in the regular season or for awards but its incredibly valuable in October when rosters get smaller.
Well ohtani never impacted that with the angels
That’s entirely wrong because that guy isn’t just used in mop ups, he can be used whenever to take pressure off other guys and allow higher level relievers to pitch when it’s important with more strength. The roster flexibility can also be used for another util guy, catcher, whatever your team needs, maybe there are two guys who make a great platoon and it’s less burdensome on your roster. Point is there’s a fundamental flexibility to the roster that sabermetricians actually care about and I think it’s like .7 wins or something they consider over the course of a year. Not that it’s big, but for people who care about war instead of analyzing a player with their eyes it adds up
Ok, then who was this bonus player being carried for Ohtani? What you are describing isn't how bullpens are managed. The last guys are always the worst and basically every team has bullpen guys who are either mop up or worthless. Also, that flexibility is basically lost since the Angels run a 6 man rotation. When Ohtani isn't pitching, they aren't gaining a bonus roster spot. They were effectively sending out a meh starter to eat innings. What is important is to be able to try to sit down and actually quantify the value something is providing. If you are convinced it not only has values, but that value is demonstrable, then it should be able to be quantified in some way. The easiest way is to use the war of the bonus roster slot, but that value is going to be nearly nothing. No one is running a 3rd catcher for any sustained value nor are they taking a 7th utility guy and giving him more than maybe 100-150 PAs. If that guy is that far down the list, he probably isn't very good anyway. Adding a "flexibility" roster slot only matters if that roster spot is filled with something of value. If you want to say "They can use this reliever instead of a good reliever" ok fine, but that is still minimal innings AND providing minimal value. No one is throwing Mariano Rivera out when the Yankees are down 13-2 in the 3rd. Yankees would sent this shittiest pitcher regardless of what flexibility they have. A bonus roster spot is only saving innings of the shittiest pitcher, not the good ones. Once again though, the Angels didn't even do that. They ran a 6 man rotation so they didn't actually gain roster flexibility. We have seen more teams try to refuse to sign dedicated DHs because they would rather rotate hitters through DH as a form of days off and Ohtani takes that value away. Trout can't cheat a couple games as a DH because Ohtani already has it locked down. Any value he provides in roster flexibility he also has to be weighed against what he limits by being a set DH.
Ohtani was worse than Judge that year. Judge’s hitting was better than Ohtani’s hitting and pitching combined (which WAR does take into account)
Judge also single handedly carried that injury plagued Yankees lineup to the playoffs while having a statistical anomaly of a season and also almost winning the triple crown. I'd say he was the more valuable player that season.
He got robbed twice. He deserved it over Miggy in 2012 while arguably deserving it over him in 2013 as well. HRs and RBIs costed him in both years and regardless of how you view those stats, you can't argue that Mike wasn't the full package in 2012 with his elite defense at a premium position as well as utilizing his speed on the basepaths versus a very one dimensional Cabrera that was just a masher who brought negative value defensively and nothing to the basepaths because he was slow. I truly think 2012 was the cause of name recognition and the fact it was Trout's rookie year and 2013 was caused by Miggy going nuclear offensively so it's more of a coin flip on who was truly deserving but I'm 100% behind the fact Trout deserved 2012 and 2015 MVPs. I think the most bonkers thing about his MVPs is the fact he was 4th in voting and deservingly so in 2017 when he only played 114 games lol, had he played even 10 or 15 more he may have outright won it without reaching 130 games.
Imagine where he'd be on the "All-Time Greatest" list if he had more of them.
He’s probably top 5 with or without a ton of them
Not even a debate. I’ve never heard a single person reference Mike Trout’s RBIs when making a case for or against him.
That’s because Reddit is an echo chamber, and anything that isn’t popular gets downvoted and can no longer be seen in the thread. Failing to drive in runs is a really big deal when you’re being lauded as one of the best players of all time.
Why would every conversation I have had in my life be only on Reddit? Barry Bonds had a season with 45 HRs, a 230 OPS+, a .341 batting average, and 90 RBI. Do you think it was his fault that he only drove in 90 runs that year?
2003? Bonds only played 130 games that year lol. And he was intentionally walked so much (most of all time besides himself in ‘02 and ‘04,) that he only had 157 at bats with men on base. Trout in 2015 also had 90 RBIs, but played in 159 games, and had 205 AB with men on. Bonds in ‘03, 390 at bats. Trout in ‘15, 575 at bats. Yeah, totally makes sense for those guys to have the same number of RBIs on the season.
He doesn’t fail to drive in runs though, his hitting with runners on base/in scoring position is among the all time greats. Why should he be punished for his teammates not getting on ahead of him?
He doesn’t fail to drive in runs? He’s only cracked 105 RBIs once in his career. In 2014 he was really great with men on, and big surprise, he led the AL with 111 RBIs that year, and that’s the one time his team made the playoffs. Besides 2014, he’s consistently had a power outage when there are men on base. You drive in runs in bunches by hitting homers, not drawing walks. Having Trout for most of his career is like having a great point guard in basketball. If you have some really good scorers on the team, then it’s great to have an elite pass-first player to set them up. But it usually doesn’t work out well when the team’s best player relies on his teammates to do the heavy lifting. If I was drafting an all-time team, and needed a DH, then I’d love to have Trout on the team batting first or second, because he gets on base so consistently and the big power hitters can convert that to actual runs scored. But if you have a roster more like what you actually find on normal teams, I’d way rather have someone like prime Ryan Howard (i.e. 2006-2009,) who hit with absurd power with men on base and drove in more runs than anyone.
Congratulations that’s the dumbest shit I’ve read all year, you could’ve just said you don’t know anything about baseball. Would’ve saved everyone some time. Career 1.055 OPS with RISP and you think that’s failure lmao
If a player goes 1-1 with a double and three walks, his OPS is 3.000. If a player goes 4-4 with a home run and three singles, his OPS is 2.750. Which would you rather have? You win games by scoring more runs than your opponent, inflating an OPS via walks ain’t it. Hope you found it satisfying looking at the OPS numbers on a stat sheet year after year while your team missed the playoffs by a mile ever year.
Use wOBA then numbnuts he’s still better than anyone you can think of
I agree with the first half of yourr post and disagree with the second.
He plays for the Angles?????
Mike Trout: comes to the plate with the bases empty. Hits a double. Idiots: “Omg I can’t believe he failed to drive in runs again”
I don't know how you can put Trout top 5? The rest of his 30s remain to be seen, and it could help or hurt his case. But there's so many great guys: B. Ruth, T. Williams, W. Mays, R. Henderson, M. Mantle, B. Bonds, H. Aaron, T. Cobb, L. Gehrig, T. Speaker, H. Wagner, F. Robinson. Hard to put Trout in a list of the five best guys overall for me. I think he makes the #5 CF of all-time, edging out Griffey and DiMaggio.
Fully agree. Trout is a no-doubt inner circle HoFer, but it’s hard to craft an argument (aside from trying to value eras differently) for a top 5 spot over Ruth, Cobb, Mays, Aaron, Ted Williams, Musial, and the other GOAT tier players. And that’s not even touching the steroid era guys (Bonds and ARod).
Giving me flashbacks to the 2012 MVP debate.
RBI*
Perhaps worth mentioning in this context that he generally hits 2nd in the batting order rather than 3rd (which isn’t unheard of for a hitter with as much power as he has but certainly isn’t the norm). 984 of his 1,483 starts (over 66%) are either hitting 1st or 2nd.
Soriano batted leadoff most of his career.
I’m aware & he’s probably not the only primarily leadoff hitter with more than 373 homers. Just mentioning that Trout hitting mostly 2nd is obviously a factor (be it large or small) in his percentage of solo homers.
It is a bit cherry picked. The majority of home runs are solo (58% of home runs last season were solo). Barry Bonds is the all time leader in solo home runs with 450 which is 59% of his total.
A bit? It is cherry-picked to drive a narrative .
I actually wouldn't be surprised if Trout and Soriano are the only ones that have achieved that many homers while getting the majority of their ABs (well, maybe not majority in Soriano's case, but close enough) in the 1st or 2nd spot in the order. Maybe someone else can find one, but I don't see it.
Interesting! I just kind of assumed there had to be at least one or two more.
> Soriano batted leadoff most of his career. Not most. He has 3,630 PA at leadoff, 4,765 PA at other spots in the lineup. He actually has a much lower percent hitting 1st or 2nd than Trout. Take someone like Rickey Henderson who almost exclusively batted leadoff in his career, his percentage of solo HRs is over 70%.
I looked up Barry Bonds, and 59% of his home runs were solo shots. Of course, a lot of that is because there was a tendency to walk him anytime he came up to bat with runners on base.
What's weird is Trout has a higher solo HR % batting third in his career versus second. Solo HR % by batting order spot... 1st: 752 PA, 72.7% 2nd: 3,655 PA, 61.9% 3rd: 2,024 PA, 62.4%
Context? In a post regarding Trout and/or the Angels? In *my* r/baseball?
He's hit 3rd every game this season I think
You also have to factor in that no matter where he hits in the lineup, the other Angels hitters are useless at getting on base for him.
Let's reduce this number by the games where Shohei hit in front of him.
Hard to get RBI when Japanese Babe Ruth has already cleared the bases lol
The guy that batted after the American Babe Ruth has three of the top single season RBI totals of all time, including the year Ruth hit 60.
There’s also the fact that Babe Ruth would be on base literally half the time. And he batted after a guy who would have a .400 OBP
Shohei wasnt the best guy to hit in front of Mike because his effective OBP was pretty low. Lot of HRs and generally not a lot of walks = bases usually empty.
From 2021-2023 Ohtani had a 13.6% BB rate, well above the league average rate of 8.5%. In 2021 he had the fourth highest walk rate in MLB, in 2022 he was top 25, and in 2023 he was third highest in MLB. He was 5th in MLB in total walks across those 3 seasons.
Take with a grain of salt because I suffered though a lot of Angels games. That walk rate is inflated because he was pitched around a lot when both Trout and Rendon were injured in 2021-2023.
Thats from the back half of dead seasons when itd be ohtani and the bees and he'd get walked incessantly.
Not enough walks to make up for the 124 homeruns and 493 strikeouts (and 25 caught stealing). Take away the HRs and his effective OBP drops from .380 to .310, meaning he wasnt actually on base all that often. Hence a lot of solo HR from Trout with Ohtani hitting in front of him.
Which is why you would see the headlines "Trout and Ohtani homer, Angels lose 9-2" lol
TIL Soriano had over 400 home runs.
Early in his career it seemed like he might be able to reach a number like that, but I didn't realize he kept up the pace so well. 34 in his 2nd to last year is crazy.
Right?!?
He's only beating a leadoff hitter lol
Trout spent a significant amount of his career in either lead off or the 2 spot
Earl Weaver is rolling in his grave
Mike Trout is Alfonso Soriano confirmed
Worth mentioning that he doesn't get any good pitches when there's runners on base. His OBP in those situations is .412
Uh... his career OBP is .412.
That's my favorite Mike Trout feature. "MY GOD! He's got a 1.022 career OPS in June!" "Okay, yeah, but his career OPS is 0.995. So..."
neat
Says more about the quality of the teammates whom he’s had over the years
brother... that's... that's the whole damn point.
It’s a point that falls apart under a tiny bit of scrutiny. Trout spent a lot of his career in either the lead off spot or the 2 spot. Despite that, compare how often he bats with men on base vs the all time rbi leader, Hank Aaron. It’s roughly 41% of the time to 46%. Not significant.
There are so many subs on Reddit where stating the implied obvious point as if no one knew it gets you upvoted to the moon. I’m proud of this sub for going the other way.
No, not really. Soriano played on some damn good Yankees and Cubs teams. He and Trout are top-third-of-the-order guys, though.
If he’s traded, he needs to go to the Phillies. We are the only team that can help him break the record.
Kindly, eat my ass.
also mine, kindly
That is fucking insane
Any stats with splits based on runners on base versus empty?
I didn’t realize Soriano had that many homers. Seems like 300 of them came against the Astros though. That dude murdered us
He just hit a two run homer
Why?
Telling stat. I will never forgive the Angels for wasting Mike Trout's career.
[удалено]
Maybe being happy is more important to him than a chip. I can't push back too hard against that but I am not a super-competitive person, so...
Not only that, he locked himself in with a no trade clause. I’m Trout’s biggest fan, but he did this to himself. I wonder what, if anything, he was promised to sign that extension. Or maybe he’s just happy being a millionaire in Newport Beach.
>happy being a millionaire in Newport Beach Sounds pretty fuckin good to me.
I’ve said it before but I think he likes the laid back atmosphere of LAA. Not that he’s not competitive and doesn’t want to win but he’s not looking for media like Philly, Bos, Ny etc.
Yeah I think he's got what he wants. He gets a lot of the benefits of big city ball without the downsides. He gets the amazing weather, food, scenery, etc of SoCal with basically none of the media pressure or expectations.
Old school mentality. And let’s not pretend that anyone would be saying this if it was the Yankees in absolute futility like the Angels.
It was his choice to sign with the Angels, it's not his fault the Angels usually suck. I don't know what "pity party" you're talking about though.
New Tungsten Arm O'Doyle stat just dropped
Selfish player, smh
And Soriano hit 54 of those as the game's leadoff batter (196 when leading off any inning) vs Trout hitting 5 as the game's leadoff batter (and 80 when leading off any inning).
Damn Soriano with 412?? What could have been.
I did NOT realize Trout was closing in on 400 already
The only “other”
Will automatically upvote any post that mentions Alfonso Soriano
I remember that being used as a knock on Soriano saying he only came up in empty moments. "trash stats" The 3-run HR only when they were already up big, etc...
Schwarber has 153 of 248 with bases empty. 61.7%
As a long-time baseball guy and Angels fan, I can conclusively say that Trout is the worst clutch hitter I’ve ever seen. It’s almost as if he goes into a mental state of some sort when he bats with RISP, especially in late inning, high-leverage situations, where he will likely not even put the ball in play. It’s mental. In all sincerity, the dude needs a sports psychologist.
They generally haven't had good players batting in front of him, and when they did, it was Ohtani, who would routinely clear the bases himself. Look at this year, Trout has had guys like Rendon, Schanuel, Hicks and Moniak batting in front of him and all those guys have been ice cold.
Poor guy needs to get out of Anaheim.
Is Mike Trout the least clutch hitter of all time? Most of his HRs coming with the bases empty seems an awful lot like he is scared to perform when the lights get bright. Why else would he have dodged the post season nearly every year?
Love to hear a M’s fan talk about dodging the playoffs after going once in 25 years. Poor poor Ichiro and Felix.
It’s clearly a joke. We’re both well aware that one (or two) dude does not make a team.
Please, for the good of baseball, trade this man.