Trout vs Mantle

[fan_since79]

I found this on Facebook.

A comparison of their first six seasons. Trout's stats are up-to-date.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

Some of the areas in which Mantle has an advantage can be attributed to him playing on much better teams.

[ABC]

To think that the Yanks wanted to select him in the draft. Imagine the 24/7 coverage.

[Blarg]

1 hour ago, Vegas Halo Fan said:

Some of the areas in which Mantle has an advantage can be attributed to him playing on much better teams.

Left hander in Yankee stadium has to be a little helpful. But at age 24 Mantle had a 210 OPS+. Trout is hovering at 174 this season. 

[Angel Oracle]

12 minutes ago, Blarg said:

Left hander in Yankee stadium has to be a little helpful. But at age 24 Mantle had a 210 OPS+. Trout is hovering at 174 this season. 

CF in old Skankee Stadium pre-1975 was a big challenge defensively, being 461 feet from home plate with the monuments in front of the LCF fence.

Mantle's speed in the early days allowed him to play CF.

Unfortunately, his health didn't allow that to be for too long.

[Oz27]

Trout has the highest WAR all time for players through their age 24 season. He is at 47.8 and Mantle is at 40.9 (Mantle is third, Cobb is second with 46.7). Trout's 170 OPS+ is the second best ever for someone through their age 24 season (with a minimum 3000 PA qualifier), ahead of Mantle (166) but behind Cobb (176). Trout's 721 runs created leads Mantle by 11 and trails only Ott (760) and Foxx (734). His 23.8 career baserunning runs above average is 10th best through the age 24 season, four spots ahead of Mantle. Trout has also been worth more fielding runs, although I don't put much stock in that because 1950s defensive numbers clearly shouldn't be taken as gospel.

Anyway, it is fair to say Trout has been better than Mantle through the same stages of their career. Mantle's best season, which was his age 24 year, is probably better than anything Trout has done so far, but looking at overall performance through age 24 I think Trout is the pretty obvious leader.

[Angelsjunky]

As I said in another thread, it will be hard for Trout to ever have years like Mantle's very best (1956-57), mainly because the context of today's game doesn't allow for outlier peak stats like Mantle produced. In the 7-9th inning, Mantle faced a tired starter, whereas Trout faces different fresh relievers and simply a lot more different pitchers. For example, in 1956 Mantle's Yankees faced as many as 130 different pitchers. In 2016, the Angels have faced as many as 394 pitchers--and that's the AL only. Counting the NL, it is well over 400--so that's as many as 3x as many different pitchers that a hitter has to face in 2016 compared to 60 years ago.

My point is that I think the sheer number of different pitchers, plus the increase of relief pitchers, and probably other factors equalizes stats a bit. You'll see less extraordinary stats. Not counting the Steroid Era (~1994 to ~2009), there simply aren't as many .350+ BA years, 50+ HR years, etc, than there were in 50s and before.

[Oz27]

3 minutes ago, Angelsjunky said:

As I said in another thread, it will be hard for Trout to ever have years like Mantle's very best (1956-57), mainly because the context of today's game doesn't allow for outlier peak stats like Mantle produced. In the 7-9th inning, Mantle faced a tired starter, whereas Trout faces different fresh relievers and simply a lot more different pitchers. For example, in 1956 Mantle's Yankees faced as many as 130 different pitchers. In 2016, the Angels have faced as many as 394 pitchers--and that's the AL only. Counting the NL, it is well over 400--so that's as many as 3x as many different pitchers that a hitter has to face in 2016 compared to 60 years ago.

My point is that I think the sheer number of different pitchers, plus the increase of relief pitchers, and probably other factors equalizes stats a bit. You'll see less extraordinary stats. Not counting the Steroid Era (~1994 to ~2009), there simply aren't as many .350+ BA years, 50+ HR years, etc, than there were in 50s and before.

Good points. The quality of competition is also a factor in Trout's favor. The sport was only just being integrated in Mantle's early years so he was competing against a somewhat limited talent pool. There was also none of the international talent we see in such abundance today. My point isn't to diminish Mantle's incredible performance but just to illustrate how amazing Trout is.

[Angelsjunky]

24 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

Good points. The quality of competition is also a factor in Trout's favor. The sport was only just being integrated in Mantle's early years so he was competing against a somewhat limited talent pool. There was also none of the international talent we see in such abundance today. My point isn't to diminish Mantle's incredible performance but just to illustrate how amazing Trout is.

Yeah, quality of competition is the overall factor, with what I was talking about being a sub-set.

My view is that you can't compare "surface" traditional stats--whether counting (RBI, HR, etc) or percentage (BA, OBP, SLG)--across eras very well. This is why you need contextualized stats, anything from the relatively simple OPS+ to the more complex wRC+, wOBA, and of course WAR. Even so, those only go so far because they don't take into account the "outlier factor" I was talking about.

[Ohtaniland]

4 hours ago, fan_since79 said:

I found this on Facebook.

A comparison of their first six seasons. Trout's stats are up-to-date.

The Mick played in 31 postseason games and won 4 championship rings during his first 6 seasons. 

[mulwin444]

1 hour ago, CALZONE said:

The Mick played in 31 postseason games and won 4 championship rings during his first 6 seasons. 

Yeah, he did it all by himself 

[Stradling]

3 hours ago, CALZONE said:

The Mick played in 31 postseason games and won 4 championship rings during his first 6 seasons. 

Excellent Driver.  

[DoubleOffTheWall]

Trout will be an old man by the time this franchise is in any position for the playoffs again

[arch stanton]

All I know is that if I'm going clubbing I'm choosing Mantle all day long.

[Docwaukee]

mantle faced 550 pitchers his entire career.  Trout has already fact over 600.  

Trout already has 1105 PA vs. relievers in his 800 games.  Mantle had 2578 PA vs. relieves in 2401 games.    

Trout's ops vs SP is .980.  Mantle's is .961.  

Trout's ops vs RP is .919.  Mantle's is 1.109.   

The other thing of note for pitchers during Mick's era was that they didn't miss bats.  They pitched to contact.  Defenses were worse.  fewer teams.  Fewer players.  

 

 

[Blarg]

Fewer teams and players means a more distilled product but in fact you can't compare farm boys playing the game with kids that had private coaching since they were 7 years old. Easier to say Mantle was head and shoulders better than his competition in his Era while Trout holds that distinction now. 

[Rico]

Too bad we are wasting him.

[Ohtaniland]

8 hours ago, mulwin444 said:

Yeah, he did it all by himself 

Just like Trout.

[tdawg87]

How many minutes to Wapner?

[Ohtaniland]

14 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

How many minutes to Wapner?

I'll take "Greatest players with no rings" for $1000 Alex.

[tdawg87]

That's not a unit of time, Claude. 

[mtangelsfan]

6 minutes ago, CALZONE said:

I'll take "Greatest players with no rings" for $1000 Alex.

I am beginning to think you are one of the worse posters here.  Even the mega-downers like waybackman don't come into most every thread and bring it down.  

You are like a vacuum sucking the life out of this forum.

[Stradling]

He's turned himself into a troll, sad really.  He's done some very charitable things for the board, but is shtick has gotten old.  

[ten ocho recon scout]

12 hours ago, Oz27 said:

Good points. The quality of competition is also a factor in Trout's favor. The sport was only just being integrated in Mantle's early years so he was competing against a somewhat limited talent pool. There was also none of the international talent we see in such abundance today. My point isn't to diminish Mantle's incredible performance but just to illustrate how amazing Trout is.

Something else I've pondered over the years, especially in the 50s in terms of talent pools, how much of it was diluted because of the war(s)? Just about every able bodied male went to the war or war effort in the 40s, and a ton were called up for korea. I think that had to play a role.

[mulwin444]

3 hours ago, CALZONE said:

Just like Trout.

The numbers referenced are the parallels between the first 6 seasons of regular season play that both Trout and Mantle actually have control over...so what the hell does Yankees championships have to do with it?

The Yankees teams Mantle happened to play on were in a league of 16 total teams...now its 30.

Mantle played with Hall of Famers in their prime (Berra, Ford, Rizzuto for example), Trout plays with Pujols.

I don't know if you know what argument you are trying to make but it seems you are desperately searching for a way to devalue Trout's accomplishments as an individual player by comparing it to what Mantle was able to accomplish as part of a team after the regular season.   

I think you need to step away for a bit...take a walk; work in the garden, see a movie...something...because this obsession with polluting every thread with troll droppings is unhealthy.