I witnessed 56 & 57 in person last night. And as much as it pains me to say this as a lifelong Red Sox fan: Judge is the MVP, hands down. He actually has an outside shot at the Triple Crown (I think Goldschmidt is fading in his bid). Huge lead in HR and RBIs and only .009 behind in BA, but he has to pass three guys, including Arraez.
So I happen to be reading a detailed 20th century chronicle of baseball- a year by year history that someone gave (lent me as a baseball nerd). Starts in 1900- so interesting to read about the evolution of the game.
Regarding the MVP the original award was called the Chalmers award (after the Chalmers Motor Car company) that was to be given to AL batting champion leader in 1910. And the winner would get a brand new Chalmers car. It was an extremely close batting average race between Cobb and Lajoie. On the last day of the season the St. Louis Browns manager has his third baseman play in the outfield so that Lajoie got 7 bunt singles in the double header and beat Cobb out. The statistics were subject to controversy even without this. Result is that Lajoie got the car, the Browns manager was fired, the award was changed for following years to an award voted on by a committee of sportswriters for the most important and useful player in each league. And you could only win it once in your career. And the AL did not have the award in 1929. Neither league had it in 1930. In 1931 the writers created 2 committees to select a MVP in each league.
So ever since the very beginning the MVP has had some issues and controversies. I do love the “most important and useful” language. If that was still in effect perhaps the trash can lid banger for the Astros would have won the MVP as most useful. 😂😂
A few years ago -maybe 2018, I thought Trout had a chance to be considered the best player of all time. Since then he has missed a ton of games because of injuries and the pandemic- All right in what should have been his prime years. He’ll still be very highly ranked, but not a candidate for the best. Unless he has an unusual staying power thruout his 30’s like some players do (Hank Aaron, Randy Johnson among others). I wouldn’t bet on it. If anything I’d bet that his nagging game missing injuries continue as he gets older. And that his production tails off-ala Pujols. Hope I’m wrong.
I hardly ever get to go to a ballgame but finally got to see Trout this summer on a trip to Seattle after 4 years of trying. He actually hit a home run to win the game in the 10th inning. Glad to say that I saw him hit a home run. Along with two strikeouts with men in scoring position. But he comes across as boring. Both during games and off the field. That’s just his nature, I guess. Which is too bad for baseball. He just isn’t very marketable.
I think you are 100% right about what's going to happen with Trout.
In fact I was a bit surprised to see Joe write this about Trout. I was sort of expecting a different article about how it's almost the end of his 'time' as the best in the way he wrote a seminal article about Tiger Woods time being over in 2013/2014 time frame before anyone else realized it was over.
You look at his speed and his SB are essentially extinct. He has 1 SB this year and only 4 over the last 3 years combined. This for a guy who stole 49 his rookie year and 30+ 2 more times. You used to regularly see him robbing guys of home runs with over the fence catches or other great catches and I never see that anymore either. So once he could affect games with his ability to steal a base or make a spectacular defensive play and that's all but gone. What's left is just a high on base slugger.
The nature of his back injury means he needs regular time off for maintenance. But the Angels already have a professional DH in Ohtani so the games he sits, they lose either him or Ohtani from the lineup which hurts them. Either Mike is going to make a transition to 1B soon for his back or Ohtani is going to need to be able to play 1B or they have to trade (or let Ohtani walk) one of them.
Two comments relating to Angel Stadium, or whatever they're calling it these days. We had season tickets there for two decades. Most of that was before it was redone, but it's funny in that foul line to foul line, it's basically the same stadium with different colored seats. The fence length changed nominally, but not in any way drastically. People who haven't experienced it, cannot appreciate the cool, heavy ocean air that rolls in during the evening hours. And, how said ocean air is a killer for long fly balls. That can explain partially Pujols decline. He played in a very warm park in St Louis, and warm air in the summer really helps the ball carry. I think Angel Stadium can really get in a player's head. They can hit a ball, know it's gone, and watch it die in a fielder's glove on the warning track. That puts an exclamation point on Mike Trout, because Angel Stadium clearly doesn't bother him at all.... physically or mentally. Imagine Mike Trout at Fenway or Coors Field or practically anywhere else. Anyway, I'd like to see Trout and Ohtani anywhere else to see them play in a hitters park and for a team that makes the playoffs. Angel Stadium is a bone yard.
I did a very quick and cursory look at ball park factors at ballparkpal, espn, and Fangraphs. All three showed Angel stadium more home run friendly than average and Busch Field less home run friendly. There may be year to year changes based on changing fence distances and heights. Not sure where you got your data from ( ballparkpal says wind blows out more often than in at Angel park) but from what I read Angel park is not hard to hit home runs in.
Alternate proposal to the mvp thing and whether it should only be for winning teams: what if rather than limiting the voting to playoff teams, voters voted for mvp AFTER the playoffs and were told to include playoff performance in their elections, looking at total performance over the year? That would give a boost to layers from teams that make the playoffs but if you’re still evaluating the whole performance sometimes it might go to a great player on a non playoff team.
All time team with no WS titles: DH: Barry Bonds LF: Ted Williams, CF: Mike Trout, RF: Ty Cobb, 3B: Adrian Beltre, SS, Arky Vaughan, 2B: Nap Lajoie, 1B: Jeff Bagwell, RHP, Phil Niekro or Nolan Ryan LHP, Rube Waddell (?). Now, I didn't have to dig very deep in the WAR chart to find most of these guys (except Waddell who is at #209 in bWAR but appears to be the best LHP not to win a WS) and there are great players not listed (Yaz is #33 in BWAR, Gaylord Perry is #46, Robin Roberts is #50)
You are right and more a part of that team than Dazzy Vance was for the '34 Cardinals (who is a much more interesting choice than Waddell, but there are those 1 1/3 innings in the WS for Vance, so I couldn't choose him).
I think it is between Neikro and Gaylord Perry. Also, the Left hander has to be Tommy John. Waddell only played like 9 od his seasons in World Series years.
Yeah, you are probably right about John. I missed him because I assumed with all those years with the Dodgers and Yankees he had to be on one of them when they won the WS, but sure enough he was on the Dodgers when they lost in 1977-8 and the yankees when they lost in 1981.
It's interesting that several of the position players are absolute inner-circle guys (e.g., 3 from Joe's own top 10, and I suspect Trout will land among that group when he's done), but the pitchers are a couple tiers down from that.
1. I saw the Cardinals are not scheduled to face a left-handed starter for at least the next three days. They're five and a half games back of the two-seed, so if they lock themselves into the three-seed even further, I wonder if they'll trot out Pujols every day regardless of who's pitching and try to catch lightning in a bottle.
2. You had that throwaway line about "even if the Angels had all these good players, they'd still lose!" but I don't think people appreciate how terrible the Angels are outside of Trout and Ohtani.
Last night, their 5-9 hitters had an average OPS of .592. That won't win you many games no matter who else is in the lineup.
For the entire season, the Angels not named Trout or Ohtani are hitting .218/.278/.342. That OPS is 6 points worse than the A's. The A's have an 82 OPS+ with a 96 park factor. Since the Angels have a 104 park factor, I think it is safe to say that the rest of the team besides those two are somewhere in the 70s.
They were and both were important. Not only is he hitting HRs right now, but VERY timely ones. The Cards were so smart in how they used him and really have saved his legs for the backstretch of the season (and post season)
Two legends doing legend things managed to drag the Angels to within shouting distance of the neighborhood of relevance (over a 21 game stretch). That's celebration-worthy for the Angels!
My wife and I are both in our mid fifties and do not have any children so no "telling the grandkids I saw so-and-so play." But there are three athletes I genuinely believe I am privileged to have seen: Barry Sanders, Messi and Trout. Despite becoming a baseball addict almost 20 years before Trout was born, I can no longer think of the game without immediately thinking of Trout in association. But I am always amused/perplexed/saddened by the lack of media coverage of him in SoCal. Today, for example, the writeup for the seventh consecutive game with a homerun is BURIED beneath the coverage for the Dodgers, Rams, Chargers, Trojans, Bruins. I suspect Jeanne Buss' Sunday brunch menu may get more attention around here.
One thing about baseball: even the best are under appreciated. Michael Jordan won five MVP awards. Trout and Pujols won three. Bonds won seven which is basically unprecedented. But Jordan isn’t alone in winning five and doesn’t even have the most
You can't really compare it to the NBA. There is simply more competition in Baseball. First, in the NBA, a star can carry a team, and because of that, MVPs are always from playoff teams and there are only 5 guys starting on a team. At the beginning of his career, Kareem (who has 6) had to compete with 39 other guys to get the MVP. By the time he won his last one it was about 59. The Kareem entered the league, an AL or NL MVP had to compete against about 100 guys, and now it is about 150. Even though there are more NBA teams now, it is still "easier" to get an NBA MVP than it was to be league MVP in baseball 50 years ago.
One way to calculate the MVP worthiness of great players on bad teams would be to count only the WAR or WPA points they accumulated *before* their teams were eliminated from playoff consideration. If a player were really head and shoulders above the rest of the league, he might still win; otherwise, the playoff-bound player would.
Interesting that even in this article, Joe talks about the ‘best’ player in terms of MVP.
By this logic Because we have now decided that bWAR is in fact flawless, we can just use that number to decide the MVP. No need to vote, we have an empirical answer that because it is based on a flawless algorithm, spits out an answer beyond reproach.
Which is ludicrous of course but that seems to be what every writer and commentator begins and ends the discussion of player performance and value with WAR.
I am no Yankee fan but to witness what Judge has done all year in the caldron of the beast, especially down the stretch as his team has faltered but he has not, is so much more impressive than what Trout or Ohtani are doing where losing is expected and fan base and media are resigned to mediocrity.
I witnessed 56 & 57 in person last night. And as much as it pains me to say this as a lifelong Red Sox fan: Judge is the MVP, hands down. He actually has an outside shot at the Triple Crown (I think Goldschmidt is fading in his bid). Huge lead in HR and RBIs and only .009 behind in BA, but he has to pass three guys, including Arraez.
So I happen to be reading a detailed 20th century chronicle of baseball- a year by year history that someone gave (lent me as a baseball nerd). Starts in 1900- so interesting to read about the evolution of the game.
Regarding the MVP the original award was called the Chalmers award (after the Chalmers Motor Car company) that was to be given to AL batting champion leader in 1910. And the winner would get a brand new Chalmers car. It was an extremely close batting average race between Cobb and Lajoie. On the last day of the season the St. Louis Browns manager has his third baseman play in the outfield so that Lajoie got 7 bunt singles in the double header and beat Cobb out. The statistics were subject to controversy even without this. Result is that Lajoie got the car, the Browns manager was fired, the award was changed for following years to an award voted on by a committee of sportswriters for the most important and useful player in each league. And you could only win it once in your career. And the AL did not have the award in 1929. Neither league had it in 1930. In 1931 the writers created 2 committees to select a MVP in each league.
So ever since the very beginning the MVP has had some issues and controversies. I do love the “most important and useful” language. If that was still in effect perhaps the trash can lid banger for the Astros would have won the MVP as most useful. 😂😂
Joe covers this story extensively in the chapter on Nap Lajoie in The Baseball 100. It’s one of the best in the book.
I knew I had read it somewhere else!🙂
Thanks joe. Just what we asked for.
A few years ago -maybe 2018, I thought Trout had a chance to be considered the best player of all time. Since then he has missed a ton of games because of injuries and the pandemic- All right in what should have been his prime years. He’ll still be very highly ranked, but not a candidate for the best. Unless he has an unusual staying power thruout his 30’s like some players do (Hank Aaron, Randy Johnson among others). I wouldn’t bet on it. If anything I’d bet that his nagging game missing injuries continue as he gets older. And that his production tails off-ala Pujols. Hope I’m wrong.
I hardly ever get to go to a ballgame but finally got to see Trout this summer on a trip to Seattle after 4 years of trying. He actually hit a home run to win the game in the 10th inning. Glad to say that I saw him hit a home run. Along with two strikeouts with men in scoring position. But he comes across as boring. Both during games and off the field. That’s just his nature, I guess. Which is too bad for baseball. He just isn’t very marketable.
I think you are 100% right about what's going to happen with Trout.
In fact I was a bit surprised to see Joe write this about Trout. I was sort of expecting a different article about how it's almost the end of his 'time' as the best in the way he wrote a seminal article about Tiger Woods time being over in 2013/2014 time frame before anyone else realized it was over.
You look at his speed and his SB are essentially extinct. He has 1 SB this year and only 4 over the last 3 years combined. This for a guy who stole 49 his rookie year and 30+ 2 more times. You used to regularly see him robbing guys of home runs with over the fence catches or other great catches and I never see that anymore either. So once he could affect games with his ability to steal a base or make a spectacular defensive play and that's all but gone. What's left is just a high on base slugger.
The nature of his back injury means he needs regular time off for maintenance. But the Angels already have a professional DH in Ohtani so the games he sits, they lose either him or Ohtani from the lineup which hurts them. Either Mike is going to make a transition to 1B soon for his back or Ohtani is going to need to be able to play 1B or they have to trade (or let Ohtani walk) one of them.
You're absolutely right about his speed. The first time I saw him in person that's what blew me away the most.
I tried to get “two surgeries with men is scoring position” from context but failed. Clarify? Thanks
Changed to strikeouts. Swipe typing on a phone sure results in some weird stuff sometimes . I try to check for errors but never catch them all.
Two comments relating to Angel Stadium, or whatever they're calling it these days. We had season tickets there for two decades. Most of that was before it was redone, but it's funny in that foul line to foul line, it's basically the same stadium with different colored seats. The fence length changed nominally, but not in any way drastically. People who haven't experienced it, cannot appreciate the cool, heavy ocean air that rolls in during the evening hours. And, how said ocean air is a killer for long fly balls. That can explain partially Pujols decline. He played in a very warm park in St Louis, and warm air in the summer really helps the ball carry. I think Angel Stadium can really get in a player's head. They can hit a ball, know it's gone, and watch it die in a fielder's glove on the warning track. That puts an exclamation point on Mike Trout, because Angel Stadium clearly doesn't bother him at all.... physically or mentally. Imagine Mike Trout at Fenway or Coors Field or practically anywhere else. Anyway, I'd like to see Trout and Ohtani anywhere else to see them play in a hitters park and for a team that makes the playoffs. Angel Stadium is a bone yard.
I did a very quick and cursory look at ball park factors at ballparkpal, espn, and Fangraphs. All three showed Angel stadium more home run friendly than average and Busch Field less home run friendly. There may be year to year changes based on changing fence distances and heights. Not sure where you got your data from ( ballparkpal says wind blows out more often than in at Angel park) but from what I read Angel park is not hard to hit home runs in.
Alternate proposal to the mvp thing and whether it should only be for winning teams: what if rather than limiting the voting to playoff teams, voters voted for mvp AFTER the playoffs and were told to include playoff performance in their elections, looking at total performance over the year? That would give a boost to layers from teams that make the playoffs but if you’re still evaluating the whole performance sometimes it might go to a great player on a non playoff team.
All time team with no WS titles: DH: Barry Bonds LF: Ted Williams, CF: Mike Trout, RF: Ty Cobb, 3B: Adrian Beltre, SS, Arky Vaughan, 2B: Nap Lajoie, 1B: Jeff Bagwell, RHP, Phil Niekro or Nolan Ryan LHP, Rube Waddell (?). Now, I didn't have to dig very deep in the WAR chart to find most of these guys (except Waddell who is at #209 in bWAR but appears to be the best LHP not to win a WS) and there are great players not listed (Yaz is #33 in BWAR, Gaylord Perry is #46, Robin Roberts is #50)
Nolan Ryan won a World Series with the 1969 Mets.
You are right and more a part of that team than Dazzy Vance was for the '34 Cardinals (who is a much more interesting choice than Waddell, but there are those 1 1/3 innings in the WS for Vance, so I couldn't choose him).
I think it is between Neikro and Gaylord Perry. Also, the Left hander has to be Tommy John. Waddell only played like 9 od his seasons in World Series years.
Yeah, you are probably right about John. I missed him because I assumed with all those years with the Dodgers and Yankees he had to be on one of them when they won the WS, but sure enough he was on the Dodgers when they lost in 1977-8 and the yankees when they lost in 1981.
You'll need a catcher, otherwise you'll have a lot of dropped third strikes and maimed umpires. Carlton Fisk.
yeah, he would be the one.
It's interesting that several of the position players are absolute inner-circle guys (e.g., 3 from Joe's own top 10, and I suspect Trout will land among that group when he's done), but the pitchers are a couple tiers down from that.
Ernie Banks?
yeah, him too. Vaughan was a little better, if less known. Arky at least got to play in a WS, as an old player for the Dodgers in '47.
So joyful seeing Trout being Trout again. I hope he can maintain for the rest of his career and his career lasts more than 10 more years.
This is the truth of MVPs - "The best player cannot make his team win, no matter how good he is."
Two notes:
1. I saw the Cardinals are not scheduled to face a left-handed starter for at least the next three days. They're five and a half games back of the two-seed, so if they lock themselves into the three-seed even further, I wonder if they'll trot out Pujols every day regardless of who's pitching and try to catch lightning in a bottle.
2. You had that throwaway line about "even if the Angels had all these good players, they'd still lose!" but I don't think people appreciate how terrible the Angels are outside of Trout and Ohtani.
Last night, their 5-9 hitters had an average OPS of .592. That won't win you many games no matter who else is in the lineup.
For the entire season, the Angels not named Trout or Ohtani are hitting .218/.278/.342. That OPS is 6 points worse than the A's. The A's have an 82 OPS+ with a 96 park factor. Since the Angels have a 104 park factor, I think it is safe to say that the rest of the team besides those two are somewhere in the 70s.
I believe the last couple he hit were against righties.
They were and both were important. Not only is he hitting HRs right now, but VERY timely ones. The Cards were so smart in how they used him and really have saved his legs for the backstretch of the season (and post season)
“ It goes without saying that the Angels are 10-11 in those 21 games, by the way.”
Me: Wow, that good?
Damn, why bother rubbing the salt in? Just liquify it and inject it directly into my wound.
Two legends doing legend things managed to drag the Angels to within shouting distance of the neighborhood of relevance (over a 21 game stretch). That's celebration-worthy for the Angels!
Great piece. Gabrielle Starr is awesome!
My wife and I are both in our mid fifties and do not have any children so no "telling the grandkids I saw so-and-so play." But there are three athletes I genuinely believe I am privileged to have seen: Barry Sanders, Messi and Trout. Despite becoming a baseball addict almost 20 years before Trout was born, I can no longer think of the game without immediately thinking of Trout in association. But I am always amused/perplexed/saddened by the lack of media coverage of him in SoCal. Today, for example, the writeup for the seventh consecutive game with a homerun is BURIED beneath the coverage for the Dodgers, Rams, Chargers, Trojans, Bruins. I suspect Jeanne Buss' Sunday brunch menu may get more attention around here.
One thing about baseball: even the best are under appreciated. Michael Jordan won five MVP awards. Trout and Pujols won three. Bonds won seven which is basically unprecedented. But Jordan isn’t alone in winning five and doesn’t even have the most
You can't really compare it to the NBA. There is simply more competition in Baseball. First, in the NBA, a star can carry a team, and because of that, MVPs are always from playoff teams and there are only 5 guys starting on a team. At the beginning of his career, Kareem (who has 6) had to compete with 39 other guys to get the MVP. By the time he won his last one it was about 59. The Kareem entered the league, an AL or NL MVP had to compete against about 100 guys, and now it is about 150. Even though there are more NBA teams now, it is still "easier" to get an NBA MVP than it was to be league MVP in baseball 50 years ago.
One way to calculate the MVP worthiness of great players on bad teams would be to count only the WAR or WPA points they accumulated *before* their teams were eliminated from playoff consideration. If a player were really head and shoulders above the rest of the league, he might still win; otherwise, the playoff-bound player would.
Interesting that even in this article, Joe talks about the ‘best’ player in terms of MVP.
By this logic Because we have now decided that bWAR is in fact flawless, we can just use that number to decide the MVP. No need to vote, we have an empirical answer that because it is based on a flawless algorithm, spits out an answer beyond reproach.
Which is ludicrous of course but that seems to be what every writer and commentator begins and ends the discussion of player performance and value with WAR.
I am no Yankee fan but to witness what Judge has done all year in the caldron of the beast, especially down the stretch as his team has faltered but he has not, is so much more impressive than what Trout or Ohtani are doing where losing is expected and fan base and media are resigned to mediocrity.
Judge is the MVP and it’s not close.
Doesn’t Judge lead the league in bWAR? Sometimes the “narrative” matches the stats.
Object lesson: Pujols should have never left St. Louis.