The future of Mike Trout

[Peter_Spaeth]

WAR is not perfect but probably the best tool we have for comparing players relative to their time. Trout's 162 game average is 9.3 Bagwell's was 6.0. That's a huge delta.

Trout has won 3 MVPs, finished 2nd 3 times, and 3rd once. He is absolutely the dominant player of his time, so far. Who is even close? Bagwell I believe won 1 MVP and might have finished 3rd a couple of times. He was not close to being the best player of his time. Off the top of my head, Bonds, Griffey, and ARod were better, at a minimum. And likely others. Manny Ramirez probably although I haven't studied his numbers. Maybe Frank Thomas.

[RCMcKenzie]

Points taken. Sounds good. Frank Thomas and Bagwell are comps I think.

Quan brought up Mike Scott, I'll start my own thread on that one day. That 1986 Cy Young year, whoa...Cheers

[G1911]

Look at those per 162. Look at that OPS+. Look at the era context. To claim that at his best, as has been repeatedly claimed, Trout's ceiling is to be roughly equal to Jeff Bagwell is utterly and completely devoid of a mathematical basis.

B.J. Surhoff has more hits than Jeff Bagwell. He's better than Bagwell. Tom Brown scored more runs than Jeff Bagwell, he's better. Adam Dunn ended up with more home runs than Bagwell, he's better. A reasonable person would see how ridiculous and illogical those arguments are and be cognizant that while playing time matters, it is not everything, and it is almost completely irrelevant when one is basing it not on career value but on their upside performance ceiling.

A reasonable argument could probably be had if we looked at if Trout's 85.2 WAR vs. Bagels 79.9 is a good standard, has Trout up to today actually produced more value in his much shorter career? But that take isn't hot enough, evidently.

Can't wait to see what the next ridiculous argument based on an absurd bias is. Maybe we can debate if Ted Simmons was better than Johnny Bench because he accumulated a bit more in raw traditionals over a longer time.

[packs]

At 31, Trout is a 10 time All Star with 3 MVP awards. At 31, Jeff Bagwell was a 4 time All Star with 1 MVP award. It seems cut and dry to me.