ESPN Top 100

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Pujols is still active. Are you suggesting we can't assess him yet?

Everybody else can do what they want. I just feel you need to wait till they are finally done so you can compare complete careers to complete careers - apples to apples. Obviously the closer to the end of their career a player is, the more you know of what they've done and how those accomplishments compare to others in history. But Trout is barely halfway through his career, assuming he comes back 100% healthy and continues playing for many more years, but there is no guarantee that is going to happen. So for now, Trout appears to be getting a lot of credit for how people think he's going to be doing in the future, which isn't fair to those who completed their careers and for whom their final accomplishments are known. And while a player is still playing, you really don't know how much longer they'll continue to play. So how do you decide when they're close enough to the end of their careers to start properly comparing their careers with others, especially when you don't normally know much in advance when they will end their careers. And rather than trying to pick some arbitrary date to be able to start comparing an active player's career to those of retired players, like one year, or maybe two years, before they finally retire, I'm for not guessing at all, and just waiting till they actually retire. Just makes sense to me.

[Tabe]

Not sure where this idea that Trout hasn't led the majors in anything is coming from. He's led the majors in runs 3 times, walks 1 time, OBP 3 times, slugging 2 times, and OPS 2 times. And he's led the AL in multiple categories multiple other times.

No, he's not leading the league in homers. But he's hitting 40+ when he's healthy. No, he's not leading in RBI (which is a dumb stat to worry about in the first place) but batting 1st or 2nd in the lineup for 3/4 of his career PROBABLY has something to do with that.

Again, 1st or 2nd in MVP EVERY time he plays 120 games. Nobody else can say that.

[Shoeless Moe]

and....

Gold Glove awards:

Betts - 4
Altuve - 1 (...and why I mention Altuve, the guy is like 5 feet tall, no one his size in the world can play like he does, plays tough as nails, if he was 6'2" Trout would be his bitch, and pretty much already is in that division....Astros own the Angels)
Trout - 0


For every 1 leaping catch Trout makes he takes about 5 bad routes to balls and comes up empty.


Don't managers & coaches vote for GG's. I believe they do. Too bad it wasn't Auction Houses and owners of his rookie card that voted, right Pete?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Not sure where this idea that Trout hasn't led the majors in anything is coming from. He's led the majors in runs 3 times, walks 1 time, OBP 3 times, slugging 2 times, and OPS 2 times. And he's led the AL in multiple categories multiple other times.

No, he's not leading the league in homers. But he's hitting 40+ when he's healthy. No, he's not leading in RBI (which is a dumb stat to worry about in the first place) but batting 1st or 2nd in the lineup for 3/4 of his career PROBABLY has something to do with that.

Again, 1st or 2nd in MVP EVERY time he plays 120 games. Nobody else can say that.

I was working off things stated in post #120 mostly. If they were not factual, my bad for not doing additional research and trusting what others posted without doing my own independent verification. And do not dispute or disagree with your comments regarding the MVP voting, but do tend to agree with statements by others that his competition during his tenure is possibly not as strong as others have faced in earlier periods.

I have no real problem if others want to go ahead and already give him their rankings on the all-time greatest list, but realize his career is far from over and that what happens in the coming years can likely have a major impact on how he will be viewed and rated in the future. Especially given the injury question and how well he can come back and perform going forward. In his so far 11 year career, Trout has really only had what I'd call 8 regular, full seasons of play. In my personal thinking, I tend to discount, or completely ignore statistics and performances in such severely truncated seasons, regardless of the reason(s) why, because they do not represent a typical player's normal, full season of play and are therefore likely to misrepresent how they would typically perform. He technically has met the 10 year requirement for induction into Cooperstown, so if he were to never play another game, he will almost certainly get into the HOF, especially given his clean-cut, wholesome, all-American likeability, overall favor with the fans and the media, and complete lack of virtually any scandalous or illegal activities, or even rumors thereof. (This is the kind of guy Fathers want their sons to grow up to be, and Mothers want their daughters to grow up and marry.)

But do those 8 really good years all by themselves truly propel him into the ranks of the greatest players of all-time, or are we getting into another one of those "peak performance" type of arguments, because that's what this is beginning to look and feel like. And that's when the arguments start to revolve around things like is 8 years enough compared and comparable to those who performed at a somewhat equally high level for say 10, 15, or even more years. And everyone has their own idea of what to them is enough time or years to qualify for such acceptance of a player's record to qualify them for consideration as an all-time great. And they are all completely arbitrary with absolutely no consensus on what is or isn't an appropriate peak period of time sufficient to afford such consideration for a player. I mean come on, if you're just going to look at peak performances then why aren't Maris, Vander Meer, and Larsen near the top of this list? Oh wait, what's that, they didn't perform at that high a level long enough to qualify. Okay, so what is long enough, one year, five years, ten, or maybe even more years? And why is what you think may be the proper length of time for such consideration make you believe it might be any better, accurate, or more appropriate than what anyone else may think? The simple answer is, it isn't! It's simply each person's own damn opinion.

So to me, rather than just being arbitrary, I've always felt it best to simply wait till a player's career is actually over so you have all the information and statistics in front of you to better weigh and compare against similar career information for others. But that's just me using using logical, common sense.

Here's another way to look at it that I think the attorneys in the audience will appreciate. People are called to form juries so as to weigh facts and evidence to then make an unbiased decision, based on ALL the evidence and information made available and presented to them. They are questioned beforehand so as to determine that they in fact do NOT have any pre-formed or biased opinions prior to being selected for a jury that would impair their ability to be fair and impartial in rendering such a decision, and are normally immediately excused from that jury if it is found to not be the case. So how in Trout's case, where all the facts and evidence of his career performance are not yet known and available, could you possibly ever consider letting someone who already has a pre-formed opinion of him, based on only partial information and evidence from his career and statistics so far, be part of a jury now deciding if he's one of the all-time greats of baseball, and about where he should rank on that list? I'm not sure you can arguably find a more logical and higher standard than what I'm presenting for determining who maybe should or shouldn't be deciding Trout's place in baseball history, and for waiting till ALL the facts, evidence, and information about his career are available. But if others want to put down what is simply my opinion on this because I have higher standards and thinking, well..............that's on them!

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by BobC

I was working off things stated in post #120 mostly. If they were not factual, my bad for not doing additional research and trusting what others posted without doing my own independent verification. And do not dispute or disagree with your comments regarding the MVP voting, but do tend to agree with statements by others that his competition during his tenure is possibly not as strong as others have faced in earlier periods.

There's certainly a chance that Trout has faced lesser competition for his MVPs. I haven't bothered to dig into that. I know he lost at least one to Miguel Cabrera when Miggy was in his prime - a prime that pretty much any superstar would be proud to have.

As for Trout's ranking, yeah, I wouldn't put him top 20 right now either. It's clearly based on future projections and I'm not comfortable with that. If you did that and were making a list in 1965, Sandy Koufax would've been an easy top 10 pick. Instead, of course, he was retired a year later.

But I'm also not going to sit here and criticize the guy because he's been stuck with lousy teammates (seriously - the best pitcher he's played with is either Jered Weaver or a freaking DH). The year they made the playoffs, they had 2 guys hit 20 homers - Trout and the corpse of Albert Pujols. One year, they had 2 guys in the starting lineup who hit under .190. Another year (2019), they were 2-2/3 innings from becoming the first team in history to have no pitchers throw 100 innings in a season.

So, yeah, Trout went 1 for 12 in 3 games in the playoffs. It happens. Jose Altuve, the gold standard held up earlier in the thread, had a stretch of 3 games where he went 0 for 17. He had another of 0 for 10. He also had back-to-back 1 for 13 stretches for a total of 2 for 26. But, yeah, let's kill Trout because he had a very brief cold streak, one that is perfectly normal among every player who has ever held a bat.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Tabe

There's certainly a chance that Trout has faced lesser competition for his MVPs. I haven't bothered to dig into that. I know he lost at least one to Miguel Cabrera when Miggy was in his prime - a prime that pretty much any superstar would be proud to have.

As for Trout's ranking, yeah, I wouldn't put him top 20 right now either. It's clearly based on future projections and I'm not comfortable with that. If you did that and were making a list in 1965, Sandy Koufax would've been an easy top 10 pick. Instead, of course, he was retired a year later.

But I'm also not going to sit here and criticize the guy because he's been stuck with lousy teammates (seriously - the best pitcher he's played with is either Jered Weaver or a freaking DH). The year they made the playoffs, they had 2 guys hit 20 homers - Trout and the corpse of Albert Pujols. One year, they had 2 guys in the starting lineup who hit under .190. Another year (2019), they were 2-2/3 innings from becoming the first team in history to have no pitchers throw 100 innings in a season.

So, yeah, Trout went 1 for 12 in 3 games in the playoffs. It happens. Jose Altuve, the gold standard held up earlier in the thread, had a stretch of 3 games where he went 0 for 17. He had another of 0 for 10. He also had back-to-back 1 for 13 stretches for a total of 2 for 26. But, yeah, let's kill Trout because he had a very brief cold streak, one that is perfectly normal among every player who has ever held a bat.

Chris,

For the record, I'm not dissing Trout, I'm just waiting till he finishes his career before even thinking about where he belongs on an all-time list. Everything you said I don't disagree with at all. It wasn't me saying anything about Trout's playoff history, or blaming him for who else they have onthe team. Just making sure you weren't directing some of your comebacks at me. LOL

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by BobC

For the record, I'm not dissing Trout, I'm just waiting till he finishes his career before even thinking about where he belongs on an all-time list. Everything you said I don't disagree with at all. It wasn't me saying anything about Trout's playoff history, or blaming him for who else they have onthe team. Just making sure you weren't directing some of your comebacks at me. LOL

I didn't think you were but my reply certainly might've made it look that way. It was more of a response to you and then a general response to everybody else.

I think you and I are on the same page with regard to Trout.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by BobC

Everybody else can do what they want. I just feel you need to wait till they are finally done so you can compare complete careers to complete careers - apples to apples. Obviously the closer to the end of their career a player is, the more you know of what they've done and how those accomplishments compare to others in history. But Trout is barely halfway through his career, assuming he comes back 100% healthy and continues playing for many more years, but there is no guarantee that is going to happen. So for now, Trout appears to be getting a lot of credit for how people think he's going to be doing in the future, which isn't fair to those who completed their careers and for whom their final accomplishments are known. And while a player is still playing, you really don't know how much longer they'll continue to play. So how do you decide when they're close enough to the end of their careers to start properly comparing their careers with others, especially when you don't normally know much in advance when they will end their careers. And rather than trying to pick some arbitrary date to be able to start comparing an active player's career to those of retired players, like one year, or maybe two years, before they finally retire, I'm for not guessing at all, and just waiting till they actually retire. Just makes sense to me.

It's a consistent position, but I guess my thought is you need to be flexible and when you have someone where it's pretty clear your assessment won't change much, it's fine to rank them. Pujols, Miggy, Verlander I would certainly put in that category. And I really have no issue ranking ANYONE based on performance to date, worst case you reassess later.

[insidethewrapper]

2021 Angels record with and without Trout playing :

With Trout 17-19 .472
Without Trout 60-66 .476

[nat]

There's an obvious way to rank active players without wishcasting on their future: rank them based on what they've done already.

Given what's he's done already, it's obvious that Trout isn't a top-20 player. I don't think I've seen anyone here disagree with that. ESPN's ranking is too high. (But then their list is terrible for lots of other reasons as well.)

FWIW, he's 75th all-time in WAR. Sandwiched between Bobby Wallace and Paul Molitor. Subjectively, that feels about right. If he were to retire tomorrow, he'd be a deserving but not top-tier hall of famer.

Now, that's probably not where he's going to end up. I'm still pretty confident that Trout will end up being a top-20 player. He's not there yet, and so shouldn't be ranked there yet. But from the fact that we don't know where he'll end up at the end of his career, it doesn't follow that we can't rank him now, given what he's already accomplished. (With the acknowledgement that the list will need to be revised in the future.)

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

It's a consistent position, but I guess my thought is you need to be flexible and when you have someone where it's pretty clear your assessment won't change much, it's fine to rank them. Pujols, Miggy, Verlander I would certainly put in that category. And I really have no issue ranking ANYONE based on performance to date, worst case you reassess later.

Of course, but the thing is, do you really want to have an all-time list where you have current players you have to reassess and move around every year based on how their last season was? It is bad enough when you have to move people around when someone finally retires and comes onto the list for the first time ever.

And besides, with this crazy world we have today, you never know what's going to happen. So can you really just go and make your judgements of someone as it appears they're nearing the end of their career, sure, if you want to. As in the case of Pujols, I doubt anything detrimental to him or his career will come out at this point, and till he retires. But what if it suddenly was discovered that he'd been using corked bats throughout his career, or maybe he gets caught failing a drug test for PEDs. Or how about an informant comes forward with the evidence and revelation that during his time with the Cardinals, that team was involved in a cheating scheme/scandal on a par with what Altuve and the Astros had been doing, and Pujols was directly involved and taking full advantage of it for years. I honestly don't believe any of that would ever happen, but you never know 100% for sure. I figure if a player is getting that close to finally retiring, why be chomping at the bit to hurry up and judge/grade him? If he's that close, let him finish his career, and then do the assessment and ranking. Just makes the most sense to me.