Los Angeles Angels’ outfielder Mike Trout is likely headed for another great year with no MVP award to show for it. Why does nobody like him?
Who is the best player in baseball? The answer to the question changes from year to year, month to month, and even week to week. Last year it was Bryce Harper, last month it was Kris Bryant, and last week? Well, who knows exactly who it was last week.
However, if we stretch the timeline a bit further than a single season span and (conveniently) start in 2012 and end today, then Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout has no doubt been the best player in baseball. Year after year he’s consistently been among the best players in not only his own league, but in all of baseball. And yet, Mike Trout has only won the MVP award once in his career.
Trout was able to win the 2014 award, despite having possibly the worst season of his career. In 2014 Trout posted a slash line of .287/.377/.561 while hitting 36 home runs. His power saved him from posting career worsts in all three slash line categories, but both his average and on base percentage were the worst of his career while his slugging percentage managed to be only the second-worst in his short career. The key difference in Trout’s 2014 season? The Los Angeles Angels reached the postseason.
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Perhaps it’s unfair to simply point to this as a reason why Mike Trout won the MVP in 2014 and not in any of the other three (and assuming a fourth) years, but there seems to be a heavy implication that this is the case. In 2012, Mike Trout’s rookie season, he finished second in MVP voting behind Miguel Cabrera and his shiny triple crown.
The argument could have been made for Trout to win the MVP, but only two players have ever won the MVP as rookies in the long history of baseball, and Miguel Cabrera did something nobody had done since 1967 when he won the triple crown. We’ll give a pass on that year.
Entering 2013, Mike Trout was very similar to Kris Bryant entering 2016. High expectations based on a great rookie campaign tempered by the idea of a possible sophomore slump. In both cases they not only met the high expectations, they exceeded them. Trout posted a .323/.432/.557 slash line with a slight decrease to 27 home runs. Once again similar to Kris Bryant’s 2016, he decreased his strikeout rate by 2.8 percentage points and raised his walk rate by 4.9 percentage points. He saw his wRC+ rise from 167 to 176 as proof of his increasing offensive production, while keeping his ISO similar to his rookie season. And yet, there was no MVP for Mike Trout like there likely will be for Kris Bryant. Once again he had fallen just short behind Miguel Cabrera, whose team was headed to the postseason.
When Trout’s team finally reached the postseason in 2014, he won the award. We’ve already discussed that. Fast forward to 2015, and we find another season where Mike Trout finished second place behind a player on a playoff team. This time, he had a .299/.402/.590 slash line with a whopping 41 home runs, .290 ISO, and 172 wRC+. It was perhaps his best offensive season, especially from a power standpoint. And yet, he finished second place for the third time in his career. This is, by no means, meant to detract from the season that Josh Donaldson had, but it appears as though voters gave Donaldson the slight edge between their very similar seasons because of his team’s success.
Baseball writers that are members of the BBWAA have had this predisposition for years. Despite it seeming illogical to many, it’s the way it’s been for as long as many can remember. Ken Rosenthal has admitted on multiple occasions that he has that predisposition, but he’s actually voting for Mike Trout this season. While Rosenthal has perhaps moved past his bias toward a player on a contender, Jon Heyman has doubled down on his position that the words “most valuable” have a meaning separate from “best player.”
Somehow, some way the idea that a player is more valuable if his team enters the playoffs became common among even the brightest of baseball minds. Is that actually the case? If we put Mookie Betts on the Angels without Mike Trout, are the Angels suddenly a better team? Does Betts’ value somehow drop if he has an identical offensive and defensive season? Common sense seems to point towards the answer being no. In the same way, we shouldn’t discount how well Mike Trout has played simply because the rest of his team has performed poorly.
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The only thing Mike Trout, or Mookie Betts for that matter, has control over is when he steps to the plate or has a ball hit in his vicinity. The former has plenty of statistics that make it easy to determine value, but the latter is a bit more difficult to discern. Defensive statistics and reputation say that Betts is the better defender, but center field is the more difficult position to field. For that reason, let’s only consider offensive production. Mike Trout has hit .315/.441/.550 with 171 wRC+, 29 home runs, and a .235 ISO. Mookie Betts in each of those same categories has hit .318/.363/.534 with 135 wRC+, 31 home runs, and a .216 ISO. Despite Trout’s large decrease in power from 2015 to 2016, he’s posted better power numbers than Betts while also getting on base at a much better rate. His offensive value, according to wRC+, is far higher as well.
Everything seems to point towards Mike Trout being once again the best player in the American League. And yet, he may not win the MVP. He will likely finish 2nd behind a player on a playoff team for the fourth time in his career.
Not only will the BBWAA likely snub Trout once again, but his peers seem to be doing the same. Last week, the finalists for the Players Choice Award for Player of the Year were announced. The finalists are Mookie Betts, Jose Altuve, and David Ortiz. Perhaps some sentimental value put Ortiz ahead of Trout, but those three names are certainly head scratching. If the players thought Altuve was deserving despite his team not reaching the postseason, why didn’t they include the player who had the best offensive season among all of them?
Maybe everyone just hates Mike Trout. That seems like a reasonable explanation, right? I joke, but the consistent discounting of Mike Trout’s ability will go down as one of the more interesting narratives in this era of baseball. Whether it’s because his team has failed to reach the postseason in all but one season, because he plays most of his games too late at night for east coast writers, or because everyone hates him, the story of Mike Trout’s numerous second place finishes will live on for a long time.
Mike Trout has posted a career line of .306/.405/.557, 168 wRC+, and .250 ISO. He’s been consistently the best player in baseball since his arrival in 2012. Even if the timeline is stretched to be under the constraints of 2010-2016 (includes two years where Mike Trout played 0 MLB games), Trout leads all of baseball by a wide margin in fWAR. During that time, Trout has compiled 47.7 fWAR while the next best player, Miguel Cabrera (played in 2010 and 2011 while Trout did not), has just 40.8. They play drastically different positions, and fWAR is a far from perfect way of evaluating players, but that’s incredibly impressive regardless.
Trout has been the best player in the American League since his rookie season. Mike Trout has won just one MVP award, while finishing in 2nd place each of the other three seasons. It looks like Trout won’t win the 2016 MVP award. Maybe everyone hates Mike Trout.
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