By Louis Addeo-Weiss
Mike Trout is the best player in baseball. Bet you never thought you’d hear someone say that did you?
Okay, all kidding aside, a remark such as this should surprise no one. Trout has been baseball’s best player since taking the sport by storm in 2012, winning AL MVP’s in 2014 and ‘16, finishing second 4 times, and fourth in 2017.
In eight full seasons, Trout has finished 1st, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 6th, 2nd, and 2nd in WAR respectively, and his 72.5 WAR is second among active players, trailing only teammate Albert Pujols (100.3).
Trout’s 72.5 WAR ranks third among players through their first nine seasons, trailing only the aforementioned Pujols (73.8), and Ted Williams (76.4), arguably two of the greatest hitters of all-time.
Simply put, Trout is baseball’s best and already an all-time great.
As far as this year’s model of Trout is concerned, 2019 was another fantastic season from the Angels’ center fielder, with his 8.3 WAR ranking second among American League players, trailing only Houston Astros’ third basemen Alex Bregman, who finished with 8.4 WAR.
The only chink in Trout’s season comes by way of himself, as the two-time MVP didn’t play a game after September 7th, ultimately undergoing a procedure to alleviate a neuroma in his right foot.
But it may be Trout’s injury that aids in his case for this year’s AL MVP.
Let me explain.
Trout amassed 8.3 WAR across just 134 games, while Bregman slightly edged him out in that category, but did so in 156 games. This should tell you how incredible Trout was in that abbreviated stretch of time, and even a compromised Trout would’ve easily finished the season a 9-win player.
Before further delving into the numbers though, it is important to clarify the notion of MVPs and winning teams.
If the 2019 Washington Nationals, who are playing their first season without former number one overall pick Bryce Harper, can make it to their first World Series without the 2015 NL MVP, this idea of one player making a team complete is archaic.
For Trout’s respective team, the Los Angeles Angels, a 72-90 finish is reflective of a franchise in limbo regarding their competitive fortunes.
However, I don’t consider this to be important in factoring into the decision of who wins the league’s Most Valuable Player award. We saw this in 2016 when Trout won the MVP despite the Angels finishing 74-88. Lose Trout and the Angels are a 64 win team – far worse off than they already were.
What further makes Trout the darling of the American League is the value of other players around him.
Second to Trout in WAR on his respective team would be third basemen David Fletcher, who managed 3.8 WAR, per baseball-reference.
For Bregman and the Astros, Justin Verlander finished second in WAR at 7.8, with the likes of Gerrit Cole (6.9) and George Springer (6.2) behind him. This isn’t to discredit Bregman, but note the sheer volume of great players on this year’s team.
The point here sits that removing Bregman from Astros would still make them a 99-win team at season’s end.
For context, the second-place club in the American League West, the Astros division, the Oakland Athletics, finished the year with 97-wins, so a hypothetical season without Bregman still would’ve seen the Astros win the division by two games.
Further delving into the statistical side of this argument, metrics such as OPS+, which gauge total offensive output, Trout’s OPS+ of 185 was higher than Bregman’s 162.
Metrics such as OWn% (Offensive Winning Percentage) favor Trout to Bregman, .815-to-.775, as do slugging (.645-to-.592), on-base percentage (.438-.423), Win Probability Added (5.2-4.0), Adjusted Batting Runs (64.7-to-57.4), and a bevy of other means of quantifying player production.
With all of this at your dispense, it should be obvious who the American League MVP is, but I’m sure there are a cast of contrarians out there who place an added importance on playoff success.
And to that, I’ll leave the non-concur-folk with this, one player doesn’t make-or-break a team, and in the case of Bregman in 2019, this is no more evident.
