Updating Mike Trout’s Historical Context
Two years ago, Mike Trout had the best age-20 season of all-time, by Wins Above Replacement. Last year, Trout had the best age-21 season of all time, by Wins Above Replacement. This year, Mike Trout will not have the best age-22 season of all time, because he’s regressed a little bit and also because holy crap Ted Williams.
But just because Trout hasn’t had the best season of any player ever at this age doesn’t mean we can’t have fun appreciating where his updated career totals have him relative to everyone else who has ever played the game. So, here are the five best players through their age-22 season, by WAR.
| Name | PA | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Trout | 2,157 | 186.3 | 13.7 | 29.0 |
| Ty Cobb | 2,490 | 165.5 | -24.0 | 25.9 |
| Mel Ott | 2,640 | 180.7 | -0.7 | 25.1 |
| Ted Williams | 1,944 | 199.6 | -21.4 | 24.8 |
| Jimmie Foxx | 1,974 | 154.5 | -1.3 | 21.0 |
Modern defensive metrics have error bars, of course, and that goes double for numbers from 100 years ago, so you can essentially do whatever you want with those DEF numbers and adjust accordingly; this list is not gospel. But there’s Trout at the top, and even if you ignored defense and position to just rate by offensive runs above average, he’d fall all the way to #2, behind only Ted Williams.
But that’s not unexpected; the guy who ranks #1 in WAR at both age-20 and age-21 should rank at the top of this leaderboard. So instead, here’s a slightly more fun list; the best players through their age-23 season, all time, by WAR.
| Name | PA | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ted Williams | 2,615 | 285.6 | -22.9 | 36.4 |
| Ty Cobb | 3,080 | 236.4 | -20.0 | 36.2 |
| Mel Ott | 3,313 | 245.3 | -3.3 | 33.2 |
| Mickey Mantle | 2,841 | 193.0 | 0.8 | 29.5 |
| Mike Trout | 2,157 | 186.3 | 13.7 | 29.0 |
Trout is virtually tied with Mickey Mantle for #4 on this list, ranking behind only three Hall of Famers. And Mike Trout has not yet had his age-23 season. That will be next year, and with another reasonable Trout season, he’ll pass Williams and take the top spot on that list too.
Things will get a little harder two years from now, since Ty Cobb put up 47 WAR through his age-24 season, meaning Trout will need 18 WAR over the next two years to catch him. He can do it — he’s put up 18 WAR the last two years — but it’s not a shoo-in, and so in a few years, we might actually have a list of best careers through a specific age where Trout is not #1. But it wouldn’t be too shocking if he caught Cobb and ended up atop that list too.
Let’s appreciate what we’re seeing here. The term generational talent gets thrown around too much, but Mike Trout is a generational talent.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
*shoo-in
Why does reading article about Mike Trout mean I might like a picture of $10 bills inside an egg shell?
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Luckily it was 29 foods to avoid before bed. A list of 28 is woefully incomplete, and I just don’t have the time in my busy day for 30.
Is his WAR vs. age curve higher than anyone else’s, or just shifted left, to a younger age? IOW, is he benefitting from an earlier peak of the same size that his comps attained at a slightly older age–and is destined for an earlier decline–or will he keep on outperforming most of the greats as he gets older? This year’s results suggest the former, though it’s too soon to be sure.
Another measure of Trout’s greatness. He has the most WAR from 2011-2014, though he played only about 40 games in 2011, and for the most part not very well. He’s fourth from 2010-2014, which includes an entire season he didn’t play at all, and 9th from 2009-2014, almost half of which time he wasn’t in the majors.
But he’s only #70 for the millennium:
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=2000&ind=0&team=&rost=&age=&filter=&players=
And just #124 since 1991 (when he was born):
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=1991&ind=0&team=&rost=&age=&filter=&players=
Although on that last list, he HAS passed the following retired players (all of whom started their MLB careers after Trout was born):
Kevin Youkilis
Darin Erstad
Luis Castillo
Carlos Lee
as well as Brian Roberts, presuming that this is his farewell.
So in other words, these guys were beat by a baby, or maybe even a zygote.
Per Baseball Reference, Trout is #20 among OFs in total Wins Above Average in their 20’s during the expansion era (last 53 years):
http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/season_finder.cgi?type=b#gotresults&as=result_batter&offset=0&sum=1&min_year_season=1961&max_year_season=2014&min_season=1&max_season=-1&min_age=16&max_age=29&is_rookie=&lg_ID=lgAny&lgAL_team=tmAny&lgNL_team=tmAny&lgFL_team=tmAny&lgAA_team=tmAny&lgPL_team=tmAny&lgUA_team=tmAny&lgNA_team=tmAny&isActive=either&isHOF=either&isAllstar=either&bats=any&throws=any&exactness=anymarked&pos_7=1&pos_8=1&pos_9=1&games_min_max=min&games_prop=50&games_tot=&qualifiersSeason=nomin&minpasValS=502&mingamesValS=100&qualifiersCareer=nomin&minpasValC=3000&mingamesValC=1000&number_matched=1&orderby=WAA_bat&c1gtlt=eq&c1val=0&c2gtlt=eq&c2val=0&c3gtlt=eq&c3val=0&c4gtlt=eq&c4val=0&c5gtlt=eq&c5val=1.0&location=pob&locationMatch=is&pob=&pod=&pcanada=&pusa=&ajax=1&submitter=1
Doesn’t generational mean once every 18 years? I don’t see anyone on the list who has played ball in 50 yrs, much less 18.
2nd definition on dictionary.com suggests 30 years as generational. Really, its use varies greatly by context. In this context, the approximate length of an MLB career, minus any lousy seasons at either end, is about right.
It is supposed to be the time it takes for children to be born, grow to adulthood, and begin to have children of their own. Traditionally, it was considered 30 years even though the average age of a woman in the US having her first child was much closer to 20. That age is now closer to 30, so 30 actually finally makes some sense as a definition, at least in the US.
What would have happened had Ted Williams played during his 24,25 and 26 year old seasons; or even played more than 45 games during his 33 and 34 year old seasons. The man could hit a little bit. I know he was far from the only one who missed time during the prime of his career for WW2, I just wonder how his career numbers would have ended up.
Well, he had 11 WAR in the two years before and after WWII, so you could assume 11 WAR/year for those three years, or 33 additional WAR.
You could also assume that in ’52 and ’53 that he could have creates 7 WAR per season as that’s roughly what he did in ’51 and ’54. That would give the Splendid Splinter another 12 WAR for those two years.
Adding those 45 total WAR lost by two wars and Teddy Ballgame would have 175 WAR (first all-time for hitters) and a very convincing argument as living up to his goal is being the greatest hitter that ever lived.
“you could assume 11 WAR/year for those three years”
No. Lawd.
Fair enough. We all know what happens when we assume (insert cliche here). It’s fun to do it though, and have a spirited argument with it while imbibing some spirits, preferably at the watering hole of your choice.
Also remember he missed all but about 2 months of the 1952 and 1953 seasons due to the Korean War. He missed nearly 5 healthy, in-his-prime years.
But fWAR has him 38 WAR away from the all-time leader. bWAR has him 39.9 WAR from the top. We can’t say what he would’ve done in those missing years.
But chew on this: he’s (I believe) the only player in baseball history to put up 10+ WAR for 4 years in a row. And in the middle of that run, he was interrupted by his first 3 years of military service.
Oh I totally agree that he would likely have had excellent seasons. Even if you project him at, say, 7-8 WAR for his WWII seasons and 6 for his lost Korean War seasons, he would be in rarified air on the all-time WAR leaderboards. (Even more so than he already is.) That would tack on another 30-35 WAR to an already stellar career. (And who knows, he may have even reached the 45 you mentioned! Like you said, it’s fun to imagine…)
Barry Bonds lowest fWAR in 2001-04 was 10.1
(For the same reason that projection systems don’t project 10-WAR seasons for Trout, even after the amazing things he has done before.)
Jason B, those projection systems don’t have the luxury of knowing Trout’s numbers from 2018 and onward. In projecting Williams’ hypothetical 1943-1945 seasons, we shouldn’t be regressing him as much as we regress purely forward-looking projections. We KNOW he had 22.6 WAR in 41 and 42, and 22.3 WAR in 46 and 47. We also know that aging curves say the 3 seasons he missed, ages 25-27, are right smack in the middle of a hitter’s prime. I don’t think it’s at all far-fetched to project that he would’ve accrued 30 WAR during those years. There’s also a pretty decent chance that he would have had a career year in at least one of those seasons, perhaps reaching 12 or even 13 WAR.
I think we have enough data to be confident those 41-42 and 46-47 seasons weren’t flukes. The 43-45 seasons should really only be regressed for injury risk. The aging curve boost he should get for those 3 seasons might even be enough to fully offset the injury risk regression.
So counting Korea Williams conservatively lost about 40 WAR to war.
Even the injury regression should be less than it would be for a forward-looking projection. We know Ted Williams was healthy in 1943-1945. And he didn’t sit in a padded room. In retrospect, we also know that he didn’t suffer from any chronic or debilitating problems.
Yeah. He was obviously more durable than most. Not only did he make it through 8 full seasons without any serious injuries, he made it through 3 years of World War II unscathed!
“I don’t think it’s at all far-fetched to project that he would’ve accrued 30 WAR during those years.”
Perhaps. But no projection system is going to project 11-WAR seasons even if you know what came before and what came immediately after (and rightfully so). The chance of slumping (to the level of mere mortals!) or injury is decidedly non-zero, even for Teddy Ballgame.
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/oracle/discussion/zips_projections_ted_williams
I think the most impressive thing is that Williams hit .406 with just a .378 BABIP! That takes some skill!
That’s what happens when you have 10 more home runs than strikeouts.
Trout has bumped Garrett Anderson out of the Angels top 10 all-time WAR on Baseball-References’s graphic:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/ANA/
Enough with the Trout gushing, tz!
I don’t think there could ever be enough Trout gushing.
You think that’s bad, just ask me about Mookie Betts! 😉