JustATroutFan

People have been in love with WAR (Wins Above Replacement) ever since 2012, the season where Trout became the player who he is today. We can all thank Trout for making Wins Above Replacement famous. I have never seen anyone say that Ward was a future star or anything. So people can have their doubts on his ability. And I mean, he's not exactly very young by MLB standards. There are players who are late bloomers like Donaldson. But that's rare. In Donaldson's first full season, 2013, he was posting All-Star numbers by the All-Star break. Ward? No. It's looking very, very unlikely for Ward to fall under that category.

Angels really need Trout against the teams with good records, especially against Oakland and Seattle. Trout, as we know, does major damage at Seattle. Who knows, they might have won their last series if Trout wasn't on the IL. I think it was Seattle who walked Trout intentionally with no one on base a few seasons ago, LOL. And he has a career .301/.395/.572 slash line against the A's. They can beat bad teams without him but they can for sure use him against the competitive/good teams in the second half.

And not drawing walks is a big reason why his slash line on the season is still .309/.336/.381. People would label his batting average up to this point as "empty". People would view his season differently if his batting average was .270, instead of .309. Old school folks might think he's having a great season because of his current batting average for 2021. OBP is very mediocre, slugging isn't too good either. His current slash line for this season is very average.

The so-called second best player (Betts) in all of baseball has a .256/.366/.472 slash ln the first half this season. I've seen many people from other sites say that he's the clear-cut second best player in all of baseball. That's overrating him a bit. There's no way that he was better than someone like Scherzer after 2017. After 2017, Scherzer had established himself as an elite starting pitcher for a few seasons, including 2017. Hell, even Kluber was better than Betts after 2017 with the 204 ERA+ that he posted during the 2017 regular season. Plus, like Scherzer, Kluber had multiple superstar seasons as a starting pitcher before 2018. And since 2018, deGrom has been more dominant as a pitcher than Betts has been overall as a player. He was never the second best player in the entire game. He might have a case for being the second best position player in the game but he also was the third best position player as well since Yelich was darn impressive for a couple of seasons before tailing off last season, as well as into this season. Pretty shocking that Yelich has only hit 5 home runs this season.

And it's looking like Baez has heated up a bit lately. He currently has a .238/.284/.493 slash line this season. He's just swinging his way to a massive contract. He has over 110 strikeouts and less than 20 walks. Someone is going to give him a big contract and he'll gladly accept it in a few months. I think it'll like about $180-$200 million with about 7 or 8 years attached to it. He'll be overpaid because that team will be looking at his WAR (Wins Above Replacement) from 2018-2019, as well as possibly this season. He had a 6.4 WAR in 2018, 6.7 in 2019, and 2.5 so far this season. Again, if it weren't for Trout's great all-around play in 2012, almost no one would know what Wins Above Replacement is. Alex Gordon and Jason Heyward both got paid superstar money but they were never superstar players in the first place. They got the big money because of Wins Above Replacement. We're going to see more and more good hitters get paid superstar money for just being good/really good at the plate but elite on defense. In addition of having the legacy of being the best player of his generation, Trout's legacy will also include the way he changed the game in 2012.

It's hard to see Trout ever heading towards putting up multiple 30 stolen base seasons in the future. If he wanted to, he would easily steal that many bags but the injuries are just piling up. It's looking like he's becoming more of a great hitter who hits for excellent pop but with declining stolen base totals and decline defense. And his strikeout rate has gone up a bit lately, a 28.0 strikeout rate in 2021. Then again, it's inflated with pitchers cheating with sticky substances. Until otherwise, I'll take his inflated strikeout rate this season with a grain of salt.

Bellinger currently has a .176/.291/.303 slash line this regular season. Wow, he's been even way more horrible ever since this thread was made. Bellinger probably misses the juiced baseballs from 2019 that made him look like Trout at the plate. Take away hs fluky 2019 season and he looks more like a worse version of Adam Dunn at the dish, not Trout-like at all. The juiced baseballs made so many guys, especially in the steroids era, look like Trout with the bat (like Richard Hidalgo and Tim Salmon in 2000). I really doubt that their real slash lines would have been like that if it weren't for the juiced baseballs. The baseballs were also juiced in 1987 and while they won't admit it, the league juiced the baseballs during the steroids era (1993-2009) because MLB is a business. They will do anything in their power to put fans in the seats. It's too bad that Trout's first full season didn't start in 1993. Could you imagine if 2012-2015, as well as 2018, were juiced baseball seasons? He might have about 50-60 more home runs to his career totals.

Like 90% of those home runs that he's hit as a Dodger have been garbage time home runs. In all of his years with the Angels, I can only recall one home that he hit that was a walkoff. That was that one game against the Red Sox back in 2014 that lasted like 18 innings. At least he could have been a great performer in the clutch/high leverage situations, He was neither. Useless trash.

Some people just don't know when to retire. Take Kobe for instance. Legend for what he did as an NBA player. But his last few years in the NBA was rough after he tore his Achilles. I thought that maybe, just maybe, Kobe could still be somewhat productive because he didn't rely on his athletic ability much once his athleticism began to decline. Dude was deadly in the mid-range game, which was a big reason why he was still great after so many years and many minutes in the league. But he should have called it quits after 2014-15. He just bombarded his shooting percentage and points per game during his last season. Plus, he was getting paid too much by then At least Kobe helped the Lakers win five championships, two as Batman. Him being the Robin to Shaq's Batman from 2000-2002 was undeniable. Shaq was still in his prime and at his peak. Kobe was just getting started on being that guy that we eventually know of, not even in his prime at the time yet. So he'll always have a special place for the Lakers' franchise. But this Pujols chump, on the other hand, didn't do anything with the Angels. If he had helped the Angels win even one World Series, he would have a special place with the Angels. Instead, he couldn't win jack. Is he a selfish player? I would say so. This is the same guy who left the World Series champions Cardinals, who established themselves as a great team for some time. And he still chose to leave the Cardinals. This is a guy who is clearly focusing on his personal achievements. Couldn't adjust even when teams started shifting against him, didn't let Trout steal bases when he was hitting behind him, etc. He'll be up there with the likes of Hamilton, Gary Matthews Jr., Vernon Wells, CJ Wilson, and Mo Vaughn when it comes to the most hated players in Angels history.

We're talking about the Twins, right? The same team that has been horrible in the postseason for years now. Even if we give him a lot of credit for managing the Angels to a series win over the Yankees' series in the 2002 postseason, that's just one series. 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2014, what happened in the postseason for every single one of those seasons? Terrific pitching staffs, even had a superstar in 83% of those seasons. Still had a lot of early exits in the postseason. And how about those seasons when the Angels didn't make the postseason? Made a few decisions that people can immediately picture in their head like batting the bum Pujols in the cleanup spot and taking his pitchers out too early.

No way is Scioscia even in the discussion of one of the greatest people to wear an Angels' uniform. You're lying if you think he's better than a once-in-a-lifetime plater in Trout (doubt we will ever see someone who has Trout's accomplishments at that age in MLB history) as an Angel. Was he ever even a great manager with the Angels despite "leading" the Angels to a World Series win in 2002 or was it more of Dusty's fault that the Giants lost game six of the 2002 World Series? Many people would blame Dusty for that loss and I wouldn't even blame them. He was given so many superstar players (like Vlad, Trout, and Ohtani) when he was managing the Angels and the best he could do was win a World Series where it was more because of Dusty's fault than him being the reason why the Angels won.

Who in their right state of mind, would think that a manager is the best thing that this franchise has ever had? Angels were once up there with scouting/drafting players. Erstad, Salmon, Anderson, Glaus, Percival, just to name a few. If anything, the Angels' front office should be way ahead of the guy who was once the manager of the team and deserves "credit" for wasting Trout's great years with the team when he was his manager.

A lot of it has to do with coaching. There are coaches out there who will try to make a pitcher into someone that he is not. It would not be shocking if Harvey goes to the Astros and out of nowhere, he finds his old form and pitches to a 2.50 ERA and 0.85 WHIP with 250 strikeouts in 230 innings of work next season. And people will be screaming, "He is cheating!" I'm going to sit back and laugh if that happens.

I wouldn't judge hitters only on batting average since it's a very flawed statistic. It's the second most overrated statistic for a hitter behind RBI (get rid of it, so don't include it as a Triple Crown stat). Hitters should be judge by their OBP over their batting average. Old school folks might look at Mantle or pre-1999 Bonds' career batting average and might say, "They're just very good hitters because their batting averages were both under .300." And those same old school folks would look at Trout's .287 batting average in 2014 and wouldn't even put the label "elite" next to him as a hitter even though he was still great with the bat (while playing in a season without the juice baseballs and a season ere pitching was dominant overall, as well as playing all of his home games in a pitchers' ballpark) for that season for new school folks. I would classy Fletcher's slash line with the bat in 2021 as "average". The guy doesn't know how to take a walk, nor can he hit for any power, which shows in his empty .298 batting average this season. Slash line this season is .298/.326/.354.

Interesting that Rendon's slash line is excellent and looks a lot like his 2019 season since the league started cracking down on pitchers using sticky substances.

Today marks the ten year anniversary of Trout's MLB debut in 2011, which would be the last season when Trout wasn't busying contending for the AL MVP nor making the All-Star team. And that was the last season in which not many people knew what WAR (Wins Above Replacement) was.

At least both Ohtani and Walsh has been putting up great numbers at the plate without steroids like the steroid boys Manny and Ortiz. To me, Manny was the scariest hitter in the Red Sox lineup for the whole time that he was there. I just felt like every single time that he was up in a big spot that Manny would get that big hit. Too bad he couldn't stay out of trouble once he got to Boston because I think his best season came with the Indians. Dude was a dangerous hitter even in Cleveland. But I do like what I am seeing from Walsh. He's adjusted and has come a long way as a hitter over the past season. Obviously, pitchers will make an adjustment on how to pitch to him but as of right now, the Angels have a nice story in Walsh. I like feel-good stories. The Angels had one just a couple of seasons ago in Goodwin, who was let go by the Royals but eventually put up a nice season with the bat for the Angels in 2019.

How did you "hurt" my feelings? You're the idiot who responded to one of my posts. You're dumber than a cow, fool. If I were you, I would stop posting on here 24/7, just from looking at the amount of posts that you have on here. Your parents would not want you spending your "life" on here all the time.

Someone's feelings is hurt because I stated that Glaus was on steroids. So was Bonds, Ortiz, Manny Clemens, and Sosa.

Just because a player didn't get suspended for steroids doesn't mean that they were never on them. You know that, right? Sosa was never suspended for steroids but basically everyone knew that he was on the juice. Same for Clemens. Some people just know how to get away with crime(s) but that doesn't mean that they never did it. I think you're the one who is not making sense. And about Cora, it's very suspicious that Betts' two best seasons with the bat, in term of slash lines, came when Cora was his manager. Take away those two seasons and the 60-game season from 2020, and his best season at the plate is 2016, a .318/.363/.534 slash line. I've never thought of Betts as an elite hitter and he's very overrated because of WAR (thanks Trout for making it famous).

Should MLB take away Glaus' 2002 World Series MVP trophy because of his use of steroids? Or have steroids Manny's home run off K-Rod in the 2007 postseason not count and have the Angels play the Red Sox once again? It is what it is.

People are still obsessing over something that the Astros did over three years ago. No one would even care about the Astros cheating that season if they never won the World Series. They're not the only team that got busted for cheating. The Red Sox got busted for cheating that same season over Apple Watches. And the Cardinals cheated against the Astros (funny) in 2015 when they were hacking the Astros' information. There has been a lot of cheaters in MLB history. I guess we should put an asterisk right next to the 2004 Red Sox's title because of their two former steroid boys (Manny and Ortiz), as well as their 2007 title, steroids Troy Glaus' "outstanding" 2002 postseason performance, A-Rod's 2003 AL MVP season, Bonds' last four MVPs, cheater/girl beater/rapist Bauer's 2020 and 2021, etc. And besides, the Angels might not have won the 2002 World Series if they didn't have steroid users Glaus and Donnelly.

Most hated Red Sox players for Angels fans? The steroid boys Manny and Ortiz? Dave Henderson is up there. Now Ottavino is up there.

The thing about the 2014 Angels was that they had a lot of things go their way. They had guys who were surprising many people and put up good seasons and had career seasons like Richards, Shoemaker, and even Cory Rasmus (LMAO). If they didn't contribute a lot that season, I don't think the Angels would have been in the postseason. No doubt the offense was pretty good but it wasn't like the 2015 Blue Jays or anything. That was Trout's "worst" full season up to this point. It's funny looking back at it but people were really worried about Trout's future as a hitter. A .287/.377/.561 in another "Year of the Pitcher" when the baseballs weren't juiced led people to being worried about him, think about that for a second. it's too bad that non of those guys ever put up good seasons again, which is not shocking that the Angels fell back into playing mediocre baseball, at best. Richards is fighting for his career at the Major League level, Shoemaker was DFA by the Twins like last week, and Rasmus isn't even playing at the big leagues nowadays. If Richards or Shoemaker had performed well in 2015 like in 2014, the Angels probably would have made the postseason in 2015. If I remember correctly, the Angels would have made the postseason in 2015 if they had defeated the Rangers on the last day of the regular season.

Bauer didn't even make the All-Star squad for the NL. Cheater (Bauer) didn't cheat enough. Just put the asterisk right next to his season, same with Glasnow for cheating. Do pitchers really need to cheat with the sticky substance because the league stopped juicing the baseballs before the season. How many more advantages do they need? This is a lot like the steroids era (1993-2009) with hitters using steroids and the league were juicing the baseballs to put fans in the seats to make money.