When the Angels Held Back Mike Trout
Boy, this whole Kris Bryant situation sure got heated fast, right?! On the off-chance you haven’t been keeping tabs on the MLB’s most philosophically layered spring training headline, I recommend reading Mike’s proposed rule changes; Nathaniel’s examination of what the Players’ Association could do next; and Jason Wojciechowski’s appeal to ethical business practices over at Beaneball.
Alas, this is not the first time a bright new prospect has been sent to the minors under, ahem, dubious circumstances. At this moment, Bryant’s saga cannot be discussed without heavy reliance on hypotheticals: questions of how his trip/sentence to Iowa will affect the Cubs’ 2015 season, the Cubs’ 2021 season, or Bryant’s lifetime earning potential are all, ultimately, unknowns. But we can learn from history and see how prior service-time-oriented decisions have played out for other teams and their marquee prospects. Up first: the consensus greatest player in the game.
Who held down who?: The Los Angeles Angels held down Mike Trout.
When did they hold him down?: The first 20 games of the 2012 season, April 6-27.
What was his service time situation?: Looking at data from Cot’s Contracts, Trout had accumulated .083 of a year of service time in 2011, when he played portions of July and August and then all of September for the big-league team. This means that, even if he played full seasons in 2012 and 2013, he would have been at 2.083 years of service time, safely underneath the 2.119 Super Two status cutoff. The difference between 2.083 years and 2.07 years (Trout’s actual service time record through the end of the 2013 season) did not change Trout’s Super Two status nor the timeline for his eventual free agency, then scheduled to occur after the 2017 season.
How did he do when he was held down?: Uh, pretty good, I guess you could say. In 20 games as a Salt Lake Bee, he slashed .403/.467/.623.
How did the team do when he was held down?: With splashy new free agent signings C.J. Wilson and Albert Pujols around, the team fumbled its way to a 6-14 start. Mothers’ Day was two weeks away and the Angels were already 9 games back of the division-leading Texas Rangers when Trout received the call.
What did we say about him being held down?: On April 28, 2012, the day Trout was called up to the majors, Paul indicated that the Angels should have had Trout up from the start of the season, albeit with none of the #hottake conviction that is swirling around Bryant’s saga in this week’s Internet atmosphere:
In Spring Training, the Angels used a pair of excuses to ship Trout back to the Minors. One was that he battled a virus and lost some weight, with the other potentially being more serious — he had shoulder tendinitis. But since Trout went out and clubbed four doubles, five triples and a homer in his first 20 games at Salt Lake, it seems his shoulder is just fine and dandy. The real reason he was sent down was that the Angels had a conundrum on the corners, and since he is the rookie, he drew the short end of the stick.
What did the team say about holding him down?: This anonymous report from MLB.com indicates that health, including recovery from what sounds like a wicked awful virus, was perhaps the largest factor in keeping Trout in the minors. While Trout was limited to DH duty in his first five games with Salt Lake, he also slashed .500/.542/.700 in those games. Seems pretty healthy.
How did he perform when he was called up?: Ah, well, things went alright. According to Baseball-Reference WAR, the 20-year-old Trout produced the greatest season since 1901 by any player 23 or under. It was the 22nd-best individual season over the same time span, and the 3rd-best individual season of the 21st century, surpassed only by Barry Bonds in 2001-02. And this is with 20 games lopped off the front end of his season.
How did the team perform when he was called up?: Much better! The team went 83-59 the rest of the way. That’s a .584 winning percentage, which translates to a 95-win season over a full 162-game schedule.
Was there any material impact on the team’s final record/seeding?: Well, yeah. Instead of actually winning 95 games on the year, the team’s winning percentage of .300 sans-Trout kept the squad at 89-73, or a .543 winning percentage. The Angels finished four games behind the 93-win Rangers (who finished with the same record as the Baltimore Orioles, securing the Wild Card spots) — meaning that they outperformed the Rangers by five games over the last five months of the season.
Was there any psychological/emotional fallout from holding him down?: Maybe I’m misremembering the state of the Angels’ fanbase at the time, but not really. How could Trout’s April actually be the culprit for this team missing the playoffs when huge earners like Vernon Wells, Dan Haren, and Wilson barely scraped together replacement-level seasons?
What was the impact on the player’s individual salary?: Trout’s 2012 tenure in the minors didn’t really change anything — it was the length of his 2011 tenure with the major-league club that already determined he would not be a Super Two player. Trout was also not held down long enough in 2012 to push his free agency back a season. All was, apparently, forgiven and forgotten: at the beginning of the 2014 season, Trout signed a 6-year/$144.5M extension that will keep him an Angel through the end of the 2020 season.
Was there any material impact on the team’s payroll in future seasons?: No. The Angels are so bloated with sunk costs that having Trout qualify as a Super Two player would amount to something of a rounding error behind Josh Hamilton’s upcoming $32.4M annual salary in 2016 and 2017. In this, the first year of Trout’s extension, he is merely the eighth-highest-paid player on the Angels, behind Huston Street and David Freese, among others. Next year, when Trout’s salary jumps by $10M, up to $16.083M, he will still only be the fifth-highest-paid player on his own team.
Would the team hold him down again?: No. What’s incredible about this story, in hindsight, is that even the Angels didn’t seem to realize that they had the game’s best player on their hands up until the moment he became the league’s best player. A team with the Angels’ annual salary has proclaimed itself to be an all-in contender every season, and this hesitation to push all-in didn’t bring the organization any strategic or financial advantage.
Miles Wray contributes sports commentary to McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Ploughshares, The Classical and Hardwood Paroxysm. Follow him on Twitter @mileswray or email him here.
In hindsight they really should have left him down 8 more days. Do you think that was the plan and he was just so good and the major league team was so bad that ownership squeezed management into making a poor decision?
A big-market team like the Angels (or Cubs) can make a lot of extra money by having a playoff run — certainly enough to justify having to pay more to the player.
A big-market team like the Angels (or Cubs) can make a lot of extra money by having a playoff run — certainly enough to justify having to pay more to the player. The marginal value of a win in that situation is far greater than the average value of a win.
We’re not talking about paying more here. We’re talking about an extra year of control. 8 days would guarantee having Mike Trout on your roster for an extra year. In this case his age 27 season. An 8-win season in 2018 might be worth $70M dollars. Even if you’re paying him $35M that’s still another $35M of value. It’s hard to imagine making the playoffs in 2012 is worth $35M.
And since you started it by writing ‘In hindsight’, there was an understanding that they didn’t make the playoffs. So they would have needed to get $35M value just from being somewhat close to the playoffs. I highly doubt they made that much extra money by bringing him up then.
So yeah, in hindsight they would have been better off keeping him down another 8 days.
Let’s say that he’d have had an additional 1 WAR back in 2012 had he started the year with the team. That’s speculation, but right off the bat, it’d be millions in value and would have to be based on the marginal value of a win when you are around 90 wins.
Add in to that the fact that we’re talking about the second largest market and the best player in the game, and I imagine we already are nearing at least $10 million in value, even without the playoffs.
Obviously, the value of the playoffs would be based on the team’s success in them.
Hindsight is 20/20, but I think the speculation of a power struggle where the owner was obviously wrong and that management was obviously right has zero merit.
Since this looks like a template you’ll be using again, I’d suggest you do the analyses for Jason Heyward. Not sure whether Braves fans would have rather had the short-lived post season run or another year on his contract. Side note, I also wonder if another month of seasoning helps to reduce sophomore slumps even in the slightest.
Great suggestion! Hadn’t thought of Heyward.
I have often wondered about the statistical analysis of the sophomore slump. That would be a great article.
Well, as another example, the Braves put Jason Heyward on the opening day roster in 2010, thus forgoing an extra year of team control. The team won the wild card (before there were two), by one game over the Padres. Jason Heyward was their second best player by fWAR that season, and performed to a 138 wRC+ over the first month. He undoubtedly helped the team make the playoffs, where they lost in the first round per usual. In exchange for this goodwill and on top of being a home town player, he granted the Braves a discount, signing a reasonable ten-year contract extension, hopefully ensuring that he would become the next career Brave, a la Chipper Jones.
Oh wait, that last part didn’t happen.
I disagree that he should have begun the season in the majors. He struggled in his call up the previous September and barely had any at bats in spring training. He needed those weeks in Salt Lake
http://losangeles.sbnation.com/los-angeles-angels/2012/3/31/2917018/angels-spring-training-2012-mike-trout-considered-spring-training
He had a wRC+ of 87 with a .247 BABIP. His batted ball profile almost perfectly mirrored his now career marks, which have resulted in a .361 BABIP. Add 100 points to his 2011 BABIP and his .220 AVG would have been .292. Considering his LD BABIP was so poor, it’s likely that a couple of those extra hits would have gone for extra bases, as well.
tl;dr: Trout’s struggles in 2011 were luck based, not the result of undeveloped skill.
His BB rate was about half his now career mark. His K rate was essentially the same. Be fair.
I… am? Move Trout’s 2011 BABIP closer to his career marks and his slash lines would have looked remarkably like Carlos Gomez’s 2013 and 2014 seasons. Similar LD, FB, HR/FB, BB, and K rates.
the BABIP isn’t all “luck”. Perhaps he just hit the ball harder, which elevates his BABIP?
Yes, it seems as though the article should at least mention his mediocre 87 wRC+ in his 2011 call-up.
Also, he was terrible (.273 wOBA) in 111 PA in the hitter friendly Arizona Fall League. The consensus was that he was exhausted due to the long season. That plus his spring training illness was plenty to keep him down to start.
I love this article format; keep it up!
Boras as an agent (and his policy to not negotiate extensions) and Trout’s agent are two big differences between him and Bryant.
This piece is clueless, an “in hindsight” joke. First off, Trout had put up a .220/.281/.390 line in 123 AB during the previous season, before struggling miserably in the Arizona Fall League. Second, the sarcasm about Trout’s illness the following season is absurd. In fact, Trout lost about 25 pounds while ill the following Feb/March, and was out of action until the final week. He ended that spring going 1-for-6 with 2 Ks.
I’m pretty sure that the facts on the ground at this time three years ago — i.e., Trout’s physical condition at the time, his recent performances, that he’d seen ZERO Triple-A AB, and that the Angels had a terrific defensive CF in Peter Bourjos, who was coming off of a .271 BA 12 HR and 22 SB in his first full MLB season — had more to do with Trout spending April at AAA-Salt Lake City than the Angels “holding Trout back”. Columns like this give baseball writers and Fangraphs a bad name.
Was about to bring up the same thing. Trout’s cup of coffee wasn’t impressive and gave the Angels more then enough wiggle room to justify sending him back down. Not even close to same situation as Bryant.
While I don’t dispute the value that Trout added to the 2012 Angels, let’s not forget that in Pujols’ first month with the team, he batted .217 with ZERO homers and 4 RBIs (I know, not stats du jour, but you get the point…. he sucked in April). He hit 30 HRs and drove in 101 the rest of the way. So I think it’s safe to say they would have been a better team with or without Trout because they basically had a big nothing in the heart of the batting order for the first month of the season.
The Angels might not have fully understood what they had in April 2012, but they had enough of an idea that they plugged him in at lead off in the batting order and left him there, despite…
gm 1: 0 for 4
gm 2: 0 for 3, 1 bb
gm 3: 1 for 4
No runs, no rbi’s in those first 3 games. They not only started him in game 4, they left him in to bat leadoff, and the rest is history.
Batting someone leadoff should be a signal of a high degree of faith in that player’s hitting ability, but in reality it is just a belief that the player is fast and not a complete dumpster fire at the plate.
Is Jason Wojciechowski related to Asher?
No. It’s actually a common name in the old country.
Terence, you’re mis-reading the service time (partly the author’s fault). Trout had 83 days of service time after 2011; the time in the minors in 2012 reduced that to 1 year and 70 days after 2012 rather than 1 year and 83 days. To reset Trout’s clock, he had to be down until mid-June or so — the 83 days he had plus the 12 to not count as a “year.”
An example of that is, not surprisingly, Anthony Rizzo. I don’t see service time on Cot’s but it looks like 81 service days in 2011 for the Padres. Traded to the Cubs, he was kept in AAA for about half the season despite hitting 342/405/696. At the end of 2012 that left him with 168 service days, the magic number.
As to Heyward, looks to me like he’d have been traded this year anyway. It’s not like the 2015 Braves with Heyward would have been a playoff caliber team, nor likely the 2016 Braves. Trading 2 years of Heyward rather than 1 should bring more in return but the difference of an extra lottery ticket or upgrading from Jenkins to, say, Jack Flaherty or Alex Reyes is likely not a big deal.
As to Bryant, the first question is (and has been for months) why wasn’t he called up last year? It is very hard to find a player (in the 20-23 age range) who dominated AA or AAA for 2-3 months and didn’t get a call-up, at least in Sept and usually much earlier. Given the service time difference, the relevance of Trout to Bryant is that, like most, Trout got called up in 2011 after destroying AA and it didn’t take the Angels long in 2012 to realize he was wasting his time in AAA.
As one example, the Red Sox called up Mookie Betts last year, giving him 70 days of service time. The Red Sox and Cubs are pretty similar franchises in terms of franchise value, market, revenue and were pretty similar in 2014 performance … and pretty similar in 2015 expectations. Betts and Bryant are pretty similar in terms of projected future value and prospect ranking. They didn’t hold Betts in the minors for all of 2014 and the start of 2015 to get an “extra year.” I haven’t noticed any Red Sox fans concerned about this nor did I see at the time nor this offseason any saber writers calling out the Red Sox for their dumb decision.
I’m not sure it matters much to your points, but I think the hype machine on the Cubs has hit red when you say they have the same expectations for 2015 as the Red Sox.
There aren’t going to be any true historical parallels for the Kris Bryant situation, no matter how hard we squint.
Bryant has already obliterated AAA pitching over hundred of plate appearances, and then popped his 9 spring training homers in 40(!) at-bats. He’s as much of a sure thing as a rookie can ever be. (And Mike Olt and Tommy LaStella, whom Bryant figures to displace from the hot corner, ain’t bonafide MLB starters.)
The Cubs couldn’t be more of a borderline playoff team. Every projection I’ve seen, plus the Vegas over/under, has them either a game or two above or below the last wildcard slot. There’s a good chance that every win will indeed matter — not unlike the 2010 Braves and Jason Heyward example cited above.
The Cubs are owned by a billionaire and rake in the 4th-highest annual revenues in the sport according to Bloomberg. Cub management is being penny wise and playoff foolish; Dollar Store Tampa Bay tactics and Rodeo Drive Red Sox revenues do not go together.
So, summing up:
1) Bryant is ready right now.
2) He represents a likely massive upgrade.
3) The team is *unanimously* forecast to need every marginal win very badly.
4) Ownership has a shitload of money, and makes a shitload more each year.
If I could get, say, 3-1 odds, I’d wager that the Cubs will really really miss the (admittedly theoretical) single extra win Bryant could’ve provided, i.e., they will finish tied or one game out of the division title, or either tied or one game out of one of the two N.L. wildcard slots.
Trout flopped in his call-up the previous year. He was not the #1 prospect for most publications anymore. He wasn’t held down, it was the right decision for his development. This has nothing in common with the Bryant situation.
I don’t remember anyone discussing service time when this was happening. It is always fun to see top specs get the call, but there was no reason to think he was ready.
Bryant needs 40 PAs to work on his strikeouts, and 90 innings in LF to work on his defense. It’s almost like everyone knows better than the professionals making this decision.
This is a horribly mis-leading statement:
“Instead of actually winning 95 games on the year, the team’s winning percentage of .300 sans-Trout kept the squad at 89-73,”
Although factually accurate, it’s almost certain that having Trout up at the beginning of the season would not have transformed the Angel’s 6-14 start into a 12-8 start.
Someone else stated that at best, he would have given the Angel’s one additional win. I think that’s a reasonable conservative estimate.
Well he did hit .220 and he was only 19. Even though he tore up the minors maybe management thought he needed a little more seasoning? You know, is it soup yet?
Please let’s not forget that some prevailing wisdom in APril 2012 was that though Trout was a huge prospect, he’d been ill, and more importantly the Angels’ outfield was full of old and very expensive veterans. His shot was going to come once one of them got fairly well-injured, and that was exactly the reason he was brought up so SOON in late April (was it Bobby Abreu?). Most expected him to be up in June.
First off, in the first 16 games when Trout arrived on the team “2012”, the Angels win 9-0 & 8-3 in the two games that Trout was BENCHED. In the 14 games he did play, the Angels were 7-7 and were SHUT OUT 5 times ! Trout .283/ .344/ .491/ .935 , with 2 SB’s. Not the IMPACT that FanGraphs are attempting to stuff in our heads.
Since the so called “Best Player” had a Media hyped impact, why should the Cubs be influenced by Boras and the media for a year of the rights of a player in his prime ?
Kiss my hotch, Al.