Mike Trout's injury is starting to seem serious

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

I think he’s using JAWS here.

Griffey is slightly ahead of Trout in total WAR still, though WAR really is designed around the current game.

I think it was designed around Trout. Seriously. Or at the very least his game was suited to maximize his WAR.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I think it was designed around Trout. Seriously. Or at the very least his game was suited to maximize his WAR.

They play to WAR now, and WAR was built for the very modern way of play. I don’t think it’s all that great at cross era comparison or the old guys as a result. Trout and a lot of others are rated higher by WAR than is probably warranted. Trout’s WAR rate makes him, as I recall, #2 behind only Ruth, which seems a little more than his figures warrant.

[packs]

The ranking is based on JAWS and is a position by position ranking system.

Ruth is ranked number 1 in WAR all time. Number two is Walter Johnson and number three is Cy Young.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by packs

The ranking is based on JAWS and is a position by position ranking system.

Ruth is ranked number 1 in WAR all time. Number two is Walter Johnson and number three is Cy Young.

I said WAR rate, not total WAR.

[mrreality68]

Regardless of Which metrics to use he is one of the top centerfielders in mlb.

That being said it is hard to rank him compared to others when he is still in the middle of his career and some like JR. have amazing numbers that Trout may or may not achieve.

Now with this new injury that is supposed to effect the rest of his career and may slow him down it make it more difficult for me to put him up higher and I might move him down a few slots.

[nat]

WAR is designed to allow cross-era comparisons. Note it doesn't tell you what a player would have done if he'd played in another era (that's probably impossible to know), it tells you what he did against the competition he actually faced, and then puts that in a common currency that you can use to compare how someone else did against the competition that they actually faced.

The only reason that Trout's WAR scores are so good is that he's really good at baseball.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by mrreality68

Regardless of Which metrics to use he is one of the top centerfielders in mlb.

That being said it is hard to rank him compared to others when he is still in the middle of his career and some like JR. have amazing numbers that Trout may or may not achieve.

Now with this new injury that is supposed to effect the rest of his career and may slow him down it make it more difficult for me to put him up higher and I might move him down a few slots.

So here is an interesting question. If in fact this latest health issue will greatly negatively impact Trout's ability to play at a high level going forward, would he be better off just retiring now to better preserve his legacy and retain his status in the minds of most baseball fans as an elite player, or should he continue honoring the remaining years he has on the 12-year contract he is currently playing under, even if he can only be an average player at best going forward? He's signed through 2030, so he has over 8 years left to go. Tacking 8+ years of average, injury riddled play onto his career could cause his esteem to diminish greatly in the eyes of many people, especially younger fans who may not have seen been around or as aware of his play during the earlier part of his career.

And before anyone starts chirping about this being a stupid question because of course he signed a contract for huge money, and therefore he should continue to play to keep collecting all that money, I am well aware of that fact and fully realize any sane person would likely continue playing to collect all that money. The question and potential discussion though is to consider the possible impact such a decision can have on Trout's legacy and career perception to baseball fans, not on his pocketbook.

It is sort of like the Sandy Koufax paradox. When Koufax called it quits, though still fairly young, he was at the top of his game and remembered as such to fans at the time. Just contemplate how different the perception of Koufax might have been had he decided to continue playing for several more years with his health and issues possibly causing him to not be anywhere near as effective as he was during the height of his career.

[G1911]

Nobody thinks Trout is not great at baseball.

WAR has explicit era factors, the biggest to punish the 19th century pitchers because without it, it turns out a pitcher who throws 500 innings and leads the league in ERA produces more value to their team than a pitcher that grows 220 innings and leads the league in ERA, which is not what people wanted to see. It also has a minor component that upscales modern players for playing against what it assumes to be tougher competition, which may or may not be fair but is also an explicit favoring of players of modernity.

The calculation is based on numerous statistics with weighted values, every one of which is arbitrary and values the things valued today, not the things valued long ago. There is also the softer component, that players like Trout shape their game around these metrics, whereas Mantle and Speaker could not possibly.

Guys with a high WAR tend to be great players. To conclude that Trout is half a season away from producing more career value than Griffey and has already surpassed DiMaggio means we must take almost all of WAR’s many underlying value assumptions to be true. One can argue reasonably that they are all correct, one may argue reasonably that they are not. That a player in 2022 has a marked advantage over a player from 1922 or even 1992 seems obvious.

[KCRfan1]

Bob, that's a great question.

Trout's health going forward and retirement.

I may be in the minority, however I say retire now.

It could be the difference of him being able to walk in 10 years or confined to a wheelchair. Not mention the possibility of being on pain killers the rest of your life.

Better put health first. Those of us who have dealt with serious health issues know that's truth.