Mike Trout Monday: We probably don't deserve Mike Trout

[Chuck]

Our partners at USA Today have a great writeup on Mike Trout.

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2018/05/los-angeles-angels-mike-trout-monday-too-good-war-goat-mlb

[floplag]

I posted on twitter that seeing him makes me nostalgic for the times when our best athletes played baseball over football and the NBA... i would have loved to have seen games like that.  Can you imagine a roster of 25 Trout-ish level players and how amazing that would be to see? 

[tdawg87]

[Stradling]

8 minutes ago, floplag said:

I posted on twitter that seeing him makes me nostalgic for the times when our best athletes played baseball over football and the NBA... i would have loved to have seen games like that.  Can you imagine a roster of 25 Trout-ish level players and how amazing that would be to see? 

Players back then couldn’t throw hard, run fast, hit the ball far and couldn’t bench press.   Also something something white guys.  

[floplag]

You know, i started to qualify the statement by saying something about the 50/60s era post segregation... i guess i gave people too much credit for not automatically playing that card.   

[Stradling]

10 minutes ago, floplag said:

You know, i started to qualify the statement by saying something about the 50/60s era post segregation... i guess i gave people too much credit for not automatically playing that card.   

I’m totally kidding, I think it’s all nonsense, but we actually have people on here who believe that.  

[krAbs]

https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/measuring-the-change-in-league-quality/

I'll just leave that here.

[Make Angels Great Again]

This is an excellent article.

Man are we lucky to have drafted this guy. I remember that I actually watched that draft back in '09, I was screaming at the TV "pick Trout!"

Now...

[Taylor]

15 minutes ago, krAbs said:

https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/measuring-the-change-in-league-quality/

I'll just leave that here.

It's an interesting discussion, but 100 years from now, people might be saying, "Meh, Mike Trout wasn't that great compared to [2118 sensational player], because Trout never had to face alien ballplayers."

[krAbs]

3 minutes ago, Taylor said:

It's an interesting discussion, but 100 years from now, people might be saying, "Meh, Mike Trout wasn't that great compared to [2118 sensational player], because Trout never had to face alien ballplayers."

I think that will be super interesting moving forward - the problem with comparing backwards is that all the methods are a little sketchy. Even the ones here are difficult to adjust backwards (which is part of the point of this article). But, we are now getting more objective measures that have nothing to do with other players on the field. EXACTLY how fast was that ball? How much did it spin and move going through the air? Exactly how fast do players move and how hard do they swing? So, 100 years from now, we can compare that data and really see if the base skill level has improved. 

Also, I'd say, yeah - if the average level of competition has risen and we are now playing aliens or whatever (or, I would imagine, genetically altered humans who are objectively superior to humans today), there is a good chance Trout really wouldn't be that impressive if he was put in that environment. Its like...two kinds of rankings: good for your era, and good historically. Both are interesting, and good for your era is probably more important. But, I think deep down everyone always wonders about the 'good historically' question.

[GrittyVeterans]

17 minutes ago, krAbs said:

https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/measuring-the-change-in-league-quality/

I'll just leave that here.

That's a pretty silly article for a couple reasons.

The main reason is because they aren't accounting for the gaps in resources. The competition is harder now, but diet, training, and information on the game is also better. Walter Johnson didn't have access to much of that. He grew up at a time where lifting weights wasn't main stream. Nutrition was more scarce.

Roger Clemens had access to all that stuff (and steroids)

[krAbs]

1 minute ago, GrittyVeterans said:

That's a pretty silly article for a couple reasons.

The main reason is because they aren't accounting for the gaps in resources. The competition is harder now, but diet, training, and information on the game is also better. Walter Johnson didn't have access to much of that. He grew up at a time where lifting weights wasn't main stream. Nutrition was more scarce.

Roger Clemens had access to all that stuff (and steroids)

Probably a combination of that and a bigger pool of players, yeah. Still, fact remains, baseball players are almost certainly preforming at a higher level than ever before, meaning its very possible that no one has ever been as good at baseball as Mike Trout is (though, that's a bit more than we can say at this point).

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

11 minutes ago, GrittyVeterans said:

That's a pretty silly article for a couple reasons.

The main reason is because they aren't accounting for the gaps in resources. The competition is harder now, but diet, training, and information on the game is also better. Walter Johnson didn't have access to much of that. He grew up at a time where lifting weights wasn't main stream. Nutrition was more scarce.

Roger Clemens had access to all that stuff (and steroids)

In 1917, a Bridgeport, Connecticut munitions laboratory recorded Johnson's fastball at 134 feet per second, which is equal to 91.36 miles per hour (147.03 km/h), a velocity which may have been unmatched in his day, with the possible exception of Smoky Joe Wood. Johnson, moreover, pitched with a sidearm motion, whereas power pitchers are usually known for pitching with a straight-overhand delivery.

[krAbs]

2 minutes ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

In 1917, a Bridgeport, Connecticut munitions laboratory recorded Johnson's fastball at 134 feet per second, which is equal to 91.36 miles per hour (147.03 km/h), a velocity which may have been unmatched in his day, with the possible exception of Smoky Joe Wood. Johnson, moreover, pitched with a sidearm motion, whereas power pitchers are usually known for pitching with a straight-overhand delivery.

Right, so like...Ruth trying to hit Ohtani would be like Trout trying to hit someone who can throw 110 mph on a regular basis, but has some brutal off-speed stuff that comes in at around 100. Can he do it? Probably, yeah. Can he do it well? Ehhh...probably not...

Assuming those numbers are right.

[GrittyVeterans]

6 minutes ago, krAbs said:

Right, so like...Ruth trying to hit Ohtani would be like Trout trying to hit someone who can throw 110 mph on a regular basis, but has some brutal off-speed stuff that comes in at around 100. Can he do it? Probably, yeah. Can he do it well? Ehhh...probably not...

Assuming those numbers are right.

Not to sound like too much of a nerd here, but the marginal return of an additional MPH of velocity is probably increasing for the pitcher. 

So Ruth hitting off Ohtani would be more like Trout hitting off a guy that sits at 105

For example, there is little difference between throwing 83 or 84 MPH, you get blasted no matter what usually (Weaver), but there can be a big difference between throwing 93 and 94 MPH

[floplag]

43 minutes ago, krAbs said:

https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/measuring-the-change-in-league-quality/

I'll just leave that here.

I'm sorry, but no, dont buy it.  

It isn't just a matter of blacks/hispanics/etc.... its a matter of baseball not attracting the top athletes it did in that time which none of the articles never seem to address. 

Yes, the pool is larger, and includes a much more diverse pool to choose from, but the simple fact of the matter to me is that the pool of American players is not the quality at the top it once was regardless of race or color.    The top guys for the most part in going for the faster money in the NBA/NFL over toiling in the minors for a few years, it doesn't matter what color they are, that's just the reality of it.  

That more than anything else is what has hurt the quality of the game in general, the rise of other professional sports.  

[AngelsLakersFan]

43 minutes ago, GrittyVeterans said:

That's a pretty silly article for a couple reasons.

The main reason is because they aren't accounting for the gaps in resources. The competition is harder now, but diet, training, and information on the game is also better. Walter Johnson didn't have access to much of that. He grew up at a time where lifting weights wasn't main stream. Nutrition was more scarce.

Roger Clemens had access to all that stuff (and steroids)

Im not sure if I get your point... The methodology was based around comparing players performance from one year to the next - so if (collectively) players played worse that is an indication of the league's talent pool increasing. I don't think anyone has suggested that players from 80 years ago didn't have the same level of innate talent available to them as todays players, only that the difficulty level of the league has increased (due to the reasons you listed).

There was an article on FG recently about the increase in fastball velocities leading to a reduction in offense for a couple years, only for hitters to ultimately adjust to the point that they are now hitting 97 mph fastball at the same rate they had been hitting 94 mph fastballs a few years ago (or something like that). Point is competition fosters improvement. We are driven to beat the top score, no matter what that score is.

[krAbs]

25 minutes ago, floplag said:

I'm sorry, but no, dont buy it.  

It isn't just a matter of blacks/hispanics/etc.... its a matter of baseball not attracting the top athletes it did in that time which none of the articles never seem to address. 

Yes, the pool is larger, and includes a much more diverse pool to choose from, but the simple fact of the matter to me is that the pool of American players is not the quality at the top it once was regardless of race or color.    The top guys for the most part in going for the faster money in the NBA/NFL over toiling in the minors for a few years, it doesn't matter what color they are, that's just the reality of it.  

That more than anything else is what has hurt the quality of the game in general, the rise of other professional sports.  

Maybe, but 1. The US population has almost doubled since the 60s; 2. today's players of color grew up watching non-white baseball players, and are much more likely to have grown up playing baseball than a non-white person born in the 40s; 3. We have a large influx of talent from other countries that didn't exist in the same way back then; 4. People are larger and stronger now then ever before (you can look back at average height of baseball players over time and this becomes very obvious); and 5. Nutrition, routines, etc are better today than ever before, and likely lead to stronger/better preformance on the margines.

 

Even beyond all that, the fact that you can run the 'talent level over time's analysises that were done in this article means almost certainly, there has never been a team of 25 Mike Trouts.

[AngelsLakersFan]

27 minutes ago, floplag said:

I'm sorry, but no, dont buy it.  

It isn't just a matter of blacks/hispanics/etc.... its a matter of baseball not attracting the top athletes it did in that time which none of the articles never seem to address. 

Yes, the pool is larger, and includes a much more diverse pool to choose from, but the simple fact of the matter to me is that the pool of American players is not the quality at the top it once was regardless of race or color.    The top guys for the most part in going for the faster money in the NBA/NFL over toiling in the minors for a few years, it doesn't matter what color they are, that's just the reality of it.  

That more than anything else is what has hurt the quality of the game in general, the rise of other professional sports.  

You aren't addressing the methodology of the article... What is incorrect with the method? 

[krAbs]

Sorry for hijacking the thread, @Chuckster70...

[floplag]

12 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

You aren't addressing the methodology of the article... What is incorrect with the method? 

As said i didnt see where he addressed the fact that the overall pool has been lessened by the rise of other and currently more popular pro sports. 

[floplag]

10 minutes ago, krAbs said:

Maybe, but 1. The US population has almost doubled since the 60s; 2. today's players of color grew up watching non-white baseball players, and are much more likely to have grown up playing baseball than a non-white person born in the 40s; 3. We have a large influx of talent from other countries that didn't exist in the same way back then; 4. People are larger and stronger now then ever before (you can look back at average height of baseball players over time and this becomes very obvious); and 5. Nutrition, routines, etc are better today than ever before, and likely lead to stronger/better preformance on the margines.

 

Even beyond all that, the fact that you can run the 'talent level over time's analysises that were done in this article means almost certainly, there has never been a team of 25 Mike Trouts.

Well im not going to try to argue that, BUT, im pretty sure that none of those teams had as little quality as some do today.

[eligrba]

Mike Trout's ability and disposition will make him a fricken' legend.......

Honestly, how many people do you know who do their job at a level equivalent to Trout and who are also humble and hardworking? You can exclude Eligrba from consideration...he is an elite free-rider focused on complicating the simple and defying the laws of thermodynamics..

[Chuck]

1 hour ago, GrittyVeterans said:

That's a pretty silly article for a couple reasons.

The main reason is because they aren't accounting for the gaps in resources. The competition is harder now, but diet, training, and information on the game is also better. Walter Johnson didn't have access to much of that. He grew up at a time where lifting weights wasn't main stream. Nutrition was more scarce.

Roger Clemens had access to all that stuff (and steroids)

Fangraphs writers have been lacking in talent, but I'll take the love they give.

Btw, Sullivan who is a Mariners fan is awful on podcasts. Take notice.

Some have neither a face or voice for radio.

[Second Base]

2 hours ago, SuperTroopers said:

I’m totally kidding, I think it’s all nonsense, but we actually have people on here who believe that.  

Turns out a majority are operating under the belief that major leaguers now are better than they were 100 years ago.

Yeah that's weird. 

But yeah, your belief that Babe Ruth is better than anyone ever despite being fat and never training holds up. 

If he faced Shohei Ohtani he'd hit a 700 foot 6 run homer while eating a hot dog and if he pitched against Trout he'd strike him out in one pitch while drinking a beer.