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Mike Trout’s Defense Could (Should?) Cost Him the MVP

Mike Trout’s Defense Could (Should?) Cost Him the MVP

Two facts have been almost universally accepted since the 2012 season: 1) Mike Trout is the best baseball player in the world, and 2) the Los Angeles Angels are a bad baseball team. There are fleeting exceptions in both instances, such as when he missed several weeks with a thumb injury in 2017 (and still finished fourth in the MVP voting), or when the Angels won the AL West in 2014 (and got swept in the Division Series by the Kansas City Royals), but most of the time they hold true.

2020 may buck a lot of practices and traditions, but the Trout/Angels paradigm seems to be carrying on—at least at first blush. The Angels are 23-30 as of this writing, three-and-a-half games out of the playoff field— even though it has been grotesquely expanded. Trout is clobbering the ball, hitting .293/.397/.619. His 174 OPS+ is a near-perfect match to his 176 career mark. As Beyond the Box Score’s Devan Fink describes in great detail,he’s hitting the ball harder than ever.

And so, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if Trout is so great and the Angels are so bad, explain this WAR leaderboard of Angels players on Baseball-Reference!

Anthony Rendon, 1.9 WAR

Dylan Bundy, 1.7 WAR

Andrew Heaney, 1.4 WAR

David Fletcher, 1.3 WAR

Mike Trout 1.3 WAR

If Trout is indeed having a typical Troutlike season, why are so many of his teammates on a fourth-place club ostensibly better than him!?!

There are caveats here, of course. WAR is not a be-all-end-all stat. It should be the beginning of a conversation involving further analysis, not the end of one. Secondly, the Baseball-Reference version of WAR is less precise than others; Baseball Prospectus’ WARP and Fangraphs’ fWAR respectively rank him second and fifth-best in the American League.

Nevertheless, we know his offense is on par with his usual standards of excellence, so if he’s anchored down in any way, it must be defensively. By any measure other than his perfect 1.000 fielding percentage— which doesn’t account for range whatsoever— he has let far too many baseballs drop in center field this year. Here’s a smattering of some of the advanced defensive metrics’ opinions of his defense in 2020:

Defensive Runs Saved: -11

Ultimate Zone Rating: -3.5

Fielding Runs Above Average: -3.7

Outs Above Average: 0

Statcast’s Outs Above Average appears to be the friendliest towards his glovework until we dig deeper. Center fielders have a higher threshold for defense than corner outfielders. When compared against the other 38 qualifying center fielders in MLB, his neutral Outs Above Average is tied for 26th. Only seven center fielders are worse than him and two of them were nearly exclusively infielders before this season (Nick Solak and Cole Tucker).

The somewhat difficult catches appear to be more than somewhat difficult for Trout. On three-star opportunities— which Statcast defines as 51-75 percent catch probability based on distance from the fielder’s starting position and hang time— he has only converted six of ten into outs. His 60 percent success rate is 60th out of 89 qualifying outfielders in 2020. On two-star opportunities— 76-90 percent catch probability— he has only converted six of eight, which is tied for 69th best with the likes of Kyle Schwarber and Avaisaíl García.

Here are two consecutive balls that fell in for singles in a game against the Mariners on August 5 with one out in the third inning.

J.P. Crawford:

Dylan Moore:

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com

There are no two ways about it; both balls should have been caught. Instead of a 1-2-3 inning, there were two on and one out. Two batters later, Kyle Seager drilled a three-run homer in a game the Angels would lose, 7-6.

Trout didn’t forget how to play center field. In fact, The mental aspect of his defense is exceptional. His routes are 1.2 feet more efficient than the average outfielder, which is among the best in the league. In 2019, he led the MLB with 0.9 feet of route efficiency. In his age-28 season, he hasn’t really lost a step either. His sprint speed is 28.8 ft/s, which is 94th percentile in MLB (albeit roughly average for center fielders). The problems lie with his reaction time and acceleration. His initial jump— defined by Statcast as the first three seconds after bat meets ball— covers 4.1 fewer feet than an average outfielder. That ranks in just the 2nd percentile in MLB. On both of those plays against the Mariners, an extra 4.1 feet would have converted a hit into an out.

There are no set criteria for the MVP award. The determinants have evolved over time but remain as hotly debated today as they ever were. One voter might ignore defense altogether and just rely on the traditional batting stats. Another voter might use some of the more advanced WARs on Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs. In both cases, Trout could receive first-place votes. However, other voters could go by Baseball-Reference WAR or heavily favor any of the advanced defensive metrics that have no love for his glove. Those voters could leave him out of the top five on their ballots— especially if they also consider the team’s win-loss record. There’s no right or wrong, but Trout’s defense tamps down the historically outstanding impact of his offense. More importantly, it’s costing the Angels in the standings and it’s something he needs to fix to remain in center field beyond 2020.

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