Mike Trout: Just the Numbers

Major League Baseball has been rising in popularity, attendance, television ratings, and global reach in recent years. However, one of the great dark clouds about this surge is that baseball fans have been unable to enjoy a truly healthy and elite superstar: Mike Trout. From 2012 to 2020, this outfielder from Millville, New Jersey, was the American League MVP three times and never fell below fifth in the voting. He was indisputably the BPIB for about a decade.

Since 2021, injuries have limited this good-at-everything LA Angel to only 396 of 810 possible games. For those of you numerically challenged like me, that is less than 50%. It is a shame that during one of MLB’s most prosperous periods, fans old and young alike have been robbed of seeing a generational talent like Mike Trout at his best. At one point in time, #27 was on a greatest-to-ever-play-the-game trajectory.

There are countless hot takes on Trout’s health and a scant amount of team success. The exercise here is to just delve into the numbers of a sure first-ballot Hall of Famer. As succinctly as possible, we will appreciate the past, opine about the present, and project for the future. This is Mike Trout … just the numbers.

A Meteoric Run

Since space is at a premium, let’s try to spotlight the past stats without getting too statistically nerdy. We will focus on Mike Trout’s prime years (2012-2019). During that period, he led the AL in OPS+ six times, WAR five times, runs four times, OBP four times, OPS four times, slugging % three times, and walks three times. That’s with us excluding a few other categories. In that stretch, he was also good for about 35 home runs, 92 RBIs, and a .307 batting average every season.

For historical perspective, just look at Mike’s WAR numbers. At 87.5 right now, he is by far the active leader and is already 32nd in MLB history for position players. In those prime years, Trout twice had 10.4+ WAR seasons and never slipped below 6.9. If you use a 5 WAR season as the baseline for an All-Star, you can truly see his dominance compared to his peers. Other players that had similar WAR runs like that in MLB history include Bonds, Mays, Mantle, Williams, and Ruth.

A sizable reason those WAR numbers were so high was Trout’s baserunning and defense. He led the AL in stolen bases in 2012 (49), one of five times he swiped 20+ bags. Although he has never won a Gold Glove and his defensive WAR numbers aren’t glowing, Mike has patrolled center field solidly for the Halos. There have been several angelic moments.