Mike Trout and the Greatest Offensive Decades in History

Last week, I noted how in roughly eight seasons, Mike Trout had already put up one of the best 10-year WAR figures in baseball history. Trout’s remarkable run requires more superlatives than my brain can muster, so let’s just agree that Mike Trout is really, really good. WAR combines the offensive and defensive components of the game, but it should not be shocking that Trout’s offensive numbers alone are fantastic. His career batting line of .305/.419/.581 has produced a 172 wRC+ and over his eight-plus seasons in the majors, Trout has been 511 runs better on offense than the average player. While Trout’s 70-plus WAR thus far puts him in rare company over a 10-year period, putting up more than 500 runs above average is even rarer.

Dating back to the start of 1900 season, 22 players have put up 128 10-year periods that resulted in a WAR at the end of that stretch of 70 or greater. During that same time period, only 16 players have combined to make 99 10-year periods over which the player was at least 500 runs above average on offense. In the last 50 years, only Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, Jeff Bagwell, and Frank Thomas have reached that mark. With two more solid seasons from Trout, only Bonds will have put up a better offensive decade than the one the Angels center fielder will finish in 2021. With even modest production, Trout is likely to be the major league leader in offensive runs above average for another half-dozen years on top of the two years he’s already produced.

Here are all the players who have ever topped the majors in 10-year runs above average since the 10-year period starting in 1900:

Here’s how Trout stacks up over the last 10 years, with the top-three 10-year offensive leaders:

Trout’s 511 runs currently ranks 90th in history, but with two years to go in his first decade, he could easily end up in the top-50, and possibly the top 25 or 30, behind only Barry Bonds since the end of World War II:

Trout isn’t going to be that high up no matter what he does over the next few seasons, but he’s already in pretty select company. The table below shows every player who have put up 500-plus run 10-year periods:

Trout has put up 139 runs above average the last two seasons; two more years like that would put him behind only Bonds over the last 70-plus years. With a potentially shortened 2020 season, Trout will have his work cut out for him. He needs around 120 runs to pass Ty Cobb on the list above. Even if he does nothing over the next two years, he’s still going to add to his total of 500-run decades, and he only needs about 50 runs total over the next three seasons to tie him with Willie Mays and Albert Pujols for 500-run decades.

Here’s where Trout stands for individual seasons since the start of 1961:

Even if Trout only gets a season and a half over the next years, a standard Trout-like performance will put him ahead of Pujols and only behind a bunch of Bonds seasons. Mike Trout is certainly a complete player, but based on his offensive production alone, he’s in the inner circle of the sort of great player rarely seen in history.

To finish this post off, below you’ll find are the top-three in offensive runs above average for every 10-year period going back to 1909: