.288

[Angels]

Trout led the majors in WAR with his 8-WAR campaign. And if you look at fWAR, it wasn't even close. Perhaps this is just a semantics issue... but leading the majors in WAR by a relatively huge margin is an "absurdly great" year any way you look at it. Compared to the competition, he was the best and it wasn't even close.

[Angels]

I'm not worried about Trout's K rate, either. A lot of that is correctable. There are a bunch of players who make less contact and who swing & miss more than Trout. But you would never know it by looking at their K rates. Trout takes too many early strikes and he falls behind the count too often. Pitchers know this.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Angels

[Docwaukee]

I don't see the problem with having the discussion.  Mike Trout had a tremendous year but an important crack was exposed and it will be interesting to see how it affects him as a player.  Prior to being able to see that crack, he had arguably the two best seasons to start a career in the history of baseball and it's even more ridiculous when taking his age into account.  A true inner circle talent.  One of those guys with amazing numbers with occasional seasons of absolute jaw droppingness.  

 

To me, it's interesting relative to how he evolves.  

[Ohtaniland]

Well Mike Trout was hitting .313 before he entered the Air Archery Derby. His swing has never been the same. 

 

Edited September 29, 2014 by Hamiltown

[mulwin444]

Not sarting almost every count 0-1 is the biggest adjustment he'll need to make next season

[Blarg]

Trout led the majors in WAR with his 8-WAR campaign. And if you look at fWAR, it wasn't even close. Perhaps this is just a semantics issue... but leading the majors in WAR by a relatively huge margin is an "absurdly great" year any way you look at it. Compared to the competition, he was the best and it wasn't even close.

 

If you look at BBREF Trout had an 8 WAR season but Donaldson and Kluber both had 7.5 and Beltre in a last place team had 7.0 so it's not as though Trout ran away from the pack. It is all about who's formula you like the best and serves your agenda but this season Trout was not really so far above the rest of the league as he was in the two previous seasons, only having really one guy, Cabrera, challenging him as the most productive player in baseball.

[Angels]

Not sarting almost every count 0-1 is the biggest adjustment he'll need to make next season

He also takes a ridiculous amount of called third strikes. You can't take a good or borderline pitch in those situations. When you have two strikes on you, anything close and you have to swing unless you are absolutely sure it's a ball. As we've seen all too often, he gets burned.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Angels

[Angels]

If you look at BBREF Trout had an 8 WAR season but Donaldson and Kluber both had 7.5 and Beltre in a last place team had 7.0 so it's not as though Trout ran away from the pack. It is all about who's formula you like the best and serves your agenda but this season Trout was not really so far above the rest of the league as he was in the two previous seasons, only having really one guy, Cabrera, challenging him as the most productive player in baseball.

Why are you including pitchers? Trout isn't a pitcher.

I prefer fWAR since UZR appears to be more closer to reality than DRS.

And yes, you're right.. he didn't have as good of a season this year as he did the previous two. And he didn't separate himself from the rest of the pack as much as he did in 2012 and 2013. But when your WAR is 8.1 and your next closest competition is McCutchen at 6.9... That isn't even close. A 1.2 WAR difference is huge.

[Docwaukee]

I'm not worried about Trout's K rate, either. A lot of that is correctable. There are a bunch of players who make less contact and who swing & miss more than Trout. But you would never know it by looking at their K rates. Trout takes too many early strikes and he falls behind the count too often. Pitchers know this.

I would partly agree.  I'm not worried about it even though I'd like to see him K a lot less. If this is who he will be going forward, then so be it and great.  I do agree it's correctable, but my only concern is that it lasted an entire season uncorrected.  So if he were intent on fixing it, you'd think he'd have made some adjustments.  

 

Also, Trout had the 4th highest number of at bats where he was ahead in the count.  It would be interesting to see how often he is 0-1 relative to the rest of the league, but he finds a way to get the count in his favor by the end of the atbat, so it's tough to argue with the results.   He also ended up 95th overall in # of atbats behind in the count.  

 

 

He's actually decent relative to the league when he's behind (sOPS+ 123), but he's awful behind in the count relative to when he's not (tOPS+ 21).  It would be interesting to see the tOPS+ gaps or differentials for players ahead vs. behind in the count.  Trout's tOPS+ for ahead, even, and behind is 180, 68, and 21.  I would wager that his gap is one of the largest in the league.  

 

Another thing is that he's actually pretty pedestrian to bad when swinging at the first pitch.  Small sample, but it's not good.  

 

Still think it has more to do with him not hitting the ball the other way with authority this year.  he hit 30 less balls and had 20 less hits to the opposite field this year relative to his first two years.  Granted, it could be the way they are pitching him due to the hole in his swing on balls up in the zone.  

 

Bottom line is that he's gonna have to learn to do something with that pitch up in the strike zone.  

[Docwaukee]

He also takes a ridiculous amount of called third strikes. You can't take a good or borderline pitch in those situations. When you have two strikes on you, anything close and you have to swing unless you are absolutely sure it's a ball. As we've seen all too often, he gets burned.

true.  he was second in baseball with 51.  I've always felt his two strike approach was interesting relative to how I would expect pitchers to pitch him with two strikes.  He seems to look breaking ball a lot and even when he swings with two strikes, he's behind on the fastball which they throw him a lot in those situations.  

[Inside Pitch]

I don't see the problem with having the discussion.  Mike Trout had a tremendous year but an important crack was exposed and it will be interesting to see how it affects him as a player.  Prior to being able to see that crack, he had arguably the two best seasons to start a career in the history of baseball and it's even more ridiculous when taking his age into account.  A true inner circle talent.  One of those guys with amazing numbers with occasional seasons of absolute jaw droppingness.  

 

To me, it's interesting relative to how he evolves.  

 

 

Yep, its worth watching where it goes from here.

[ELEVEN]

This is like complaining Mona Lisa doesn't have huge jugs

That always bothered me...

[ABC]

No, because his high strikeouts have led to a reduced BA, which in turn has led to a reduced OBP.

 

I personally dig BA; it is an old favorite.

 

 

Good for you. Maybe you should watch more games.

[Angelsjunky]

There is no denying his otherworldly talent. For me this is best illustrated by the fWAR leaders over the last three years:

 

28.6 Trout

22.0 McCutchen

19.7 Cabrera

19.0 Cano

18.2 Posey

 

Fangraphs describes a 6 WAR season as a superstar, so those are the five players that have averaged superstar level over the last three years - and Trout is hugely above the pack. But most of that is 2012-13. 2014 was great, just not as jawdroppingly great (good word, whoever used it).

 

There is also no denying that he needs to figure out high fastballs. We can look at his overall numbers this year and say "I can live with that," but the fact of the latter is that this year was two seasons - and his second half numbers weren't great and it is in the second half that pitchers seemed to finally realize that throwing high in the zone was the way to pitch to him.

 

Hopefully he'll come into next year with a more level swing. If that means five HR per year, he'll still be a better player for it. If somehow he can manage to retain his power gains AND reduce his Ks by 20%, well we'll see the kind of year Scotty was predicting.

[VariousCrap]

As others have posted, the big difference is the strikeouts.  So the question is, what is it that Trout can do to lower the strikeouts?

[Angelsjunky]

As others have posted, the big difference is the strikeouts.  So the question is, what is it that Trout can do to lower the strikeouts?

 

Well it seems that there are two elements to this. One is that he watches a lot of strike ones and threes go by, which gives him few good pitches that he's actually swinging at. A bit more aggressiveness on strike one in particular might help - give himself another strike to try to hit.

 

The other element is his inability to hit high heat. This has less (nothing, really) to do with bat speed, and more (or all) to do with his swing angle, which is an extreme upper-cut "golf swing." This led to a lot of HR in the first half as he was crushing balls down and away, but eventually pitchers figured this out and he was essentially a typical .250 BA, .500 SLG power hitter in the second half.

 

I don't know for certain, but I imagine his uppercut also cut down on ground balls and thus reduced the number of infield hits.

 

So yeah, my armchair hitting couch advice: 1) Be more aggressive on the first pitch, 2) level off swing a bit.

 

He might hit more grounders and thus less HR, but if he gets more hits then his overall total HR might stay the same, just a lower HR rate.  Going forward it might be the difference between hitting .280-.290 with 35 HR, and .310+ and 30 HR. All things being equal, I'd take the latter - but I'm not convinced his HR would actually even go down because of increased hits.

[Ohtaniland]

Someone please define what a great hitter is. I've always thought that Gwynn and Carew were great hitters. Mike Trout is a great slugger. There's a difference.

[Angel Oracle]

Can his hitting be worsened by not being patient always with that first strike?

Some would say it allows him to see more pitches to study the hitter.

But aren't most pitchers just pounding the zone now on that first pitch, knowing that he won't swing?

Maybe a change from that would then throw the pitchers off in 2015.  

[VariousCrap]

I honestly don't remember him having trouble with the high heat the past two years.  Was that perhaps because his swing was more level?  You'd think he could make that adjustment then.