Where Is Mike Trout Going to Finish?

By now, you’ve probably heard of The Freeze. Although many would say he flopped in his All-Star Game appearance, The Freeze has nevertheless become a sensation in Atlanta. There’s a reason he was invited to the All-Star Game in the first place. The premise: Between innings, some lucky fan gets to try to run pole to pole, in the outfield. The fan is given a head start of several seconds, after which The Freeze gets to sprint after him. It’s a regular footrace, except that one of the contestants is some random individual with limited training, and the other is a world-class sprinter. Hence the head start. It tends not to matter. You’ve seen the footage, and, every damn time, it’s amazing. The closing speed is unfathomable.

On a related note, Mike Trout is back. Most importantly, that’s great news for Trout and for the Angels, but hereabouts, we don’t have a particular Angels lean. They’re one of 30 ballclubs, and it doesn’t make a real difference to me what they do. We’re people who love Trout and statistics, and, officially, Trout will have missed a month and a half with a tear in his thumb. Which means that, if Trout stays healthy the rest of the way, he’ll play three quarters of one season. The other top players should play four quarters of one season. Where is Trout going to finish in WAR?

So that we can compare apples and apples, let’s think about position players, only. I think just about everyone here would agree that Mike Trout is the game’s best position player. There might be one current challenger — that’s up to your opinion. But Mike Trout is the proven king of WAR. With that in mind, let’s take a glance at the current top 15, setting a nifty minimum of zero plate appearances:

Trout, presently, ranks 13th, between Corey Seager and Logan Morrison. You notice the 47 games played, and the 206 plate appearances. That’s the fewest games in the sample by 18, and it’s the fewest plate appearances in the sample by 68. Justin Turner’s first half was also out of this world, but he’s still off the pace that Trout set. Trout’s the best. He just had to miss a bunch of weeks.

At the end of this post is a poll. It will ask you, very simply: Where is Mike Trout’s position-player WAR going to rank, when the season’s complete? There are options for each slot in the top 10, and then there’s one more option, in case you think he’ll miss out on the top 10 completely. There’s no penalty for a wrong answer, because I’m really just addressing your gut. Trout, right now, is outside the top 10. He needs to make up ground just to enter the picture. Yeah, Trout’s great. Isn’t Seager? Isn’t George Springer?

Let’s play the pessimist for a moment. Trout will have missed several weeks of big-league action. No player would choose to do so on purpose, and it stands to reason Trout might come back with worse timing. It could take him some games or weeks to find his footing. It’s impossible for us to fathom just how difficult it is to terrorize major-league pitchers, and Trout could be forgiven if he initially struggled. And that’s without even considering any possible lingering soreness in his thumb. Maybe his swing mechanics will have slightly changed. Maybe his power will be slightly sapped. He wouldn’t be the first guy to come back from a thumb injury and seem a little worse.

And beyond that, you know who’s really good? The league leaders in Wins Above Replacement. It’s one thing to have a high WAR after one month, but it’s quite another to have a high WAR after three and a half, because then the samples have had more time to settle. What if Trout is pursuing really great players or breakouts? Jose Ramirez has now had a year and a half of looking legit. This could be Carlos Correa putting it together. Ditto Springer, who’s been a five-tool tease. Those players aren’t up there by mistake. They’ve earned their stats, and every team would be lucky to have any one of them.

So it’s not going to be easy for Trout to pass any one of those individuals. He could have his own issues, and all of those players are rolling. Now, on the flip side: Only one of those players is Mike Trout. Mike Trout, again, is the king of WAR. Trout’s already on that list, having played just two months. Trout is projected for the highest rest-of-season WAR. The next-best projection is behind by nearly one entire win.

There’s some possibility that Trout won’t struggle. Sure, his timing could be off. But, alternatively, he could be fresher than the average player down the stretch, on account of having had time off. The grind is real, and it’s brutal, and Trout could benefit from getting an extended breather. And, you know, Trout is projected to be worth 3.6 WAR from here on out, but his five-year average in the second half of the season is 4.1. Back in 2012, second-half Trout had a WAR of 5.6. The next year, 4.6. Last year, 4.1. Trout could exceed his own projection, and if you extrapolate out what he was doing earlier in this season, his second half could be worth almost five wins. One remembers that, when Trout was hurt, he was on pace to have the best season of his already historic career.

Last season’s top 20 first-half players averaged a WAR of 6.1 per 600 plate appearances. Their second-half selves averaged a WAR of 4.1 per 600 plate appearances. Most of the players performed worse, because most of any pool of extreme players will be expected to perform worse. On a per-game basis, only four of those 20 players had better numbers in the second half than in the first. Trout was one of them. Everywhere you look, he’s incredible. He does things other players don’t do.

Let’s say you feel good about Trout. Let’s say you feel great about Trout. There could be just the one stumbling block, because Aaron Judge is out in front by more than a win. Judge makes this difficult. It used to be Bryce Harper who made this difficult, but Harper, it turns out, is no Mike Trout. Judge might not be, either, but we don’t know entirely what to make of him, because he’s a singularity. He’s been blessed with a sort of strength that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the game, and so he hits home runs where other players might hit cans of corn. First-half Judge is something almost brand new. It’s tempting to fully believe. If I could submit just a few points: He has still struck out 30% of the time. His BABIP is over .400. In last year’s cup of coffee, he was awful. We don’t know Judge as well as we think we do, is all.

To put it another way: Maybe the best individual first half from the past decade was achieved by 2011 Jose Bautista. That year, before the All-Star break, Bautista was worth 6.0 WAR. In the second half, he remained a very good player, and he went on to cement himself as a Blue Jays icon, but second-half Bautista in 2011 was worth 2.1 WAR. It’s just something to keep in mind when you look at Judge’s projection and shake your head. Aaron Judge has a half-season of performing like Trout. Mike Trout has a half-decade. Make of that what you will.

The poll — the poll is up to you. I cannot wait to see what you choose.