MLB: Can Mike Trout become the all-time WAR king?

Albert Pujols will soon surpass 100 career MLB wins above replacement. However, it’s his much younger teammate who will flirt with dethroning Ruth as the all-time leader in that esteemed category.

A recent article by Andrew Simon at Sports On Earth took a look at what active MLB players could next crack the lifetime 100 wins above replacement list. Though Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels might not be the closest to accomplishing as much, he has the potential to surpass everyone that came before him when his playing days are over.

As it now stands, Babe Ruth is the king of career WAR with a mark of 183.6 as per baseball-reference.com. It’s a unique number, because Ruth’s advanced statistics were accumulated both as a pitcher and a hitter. His lifetime WAR of 20.6 from his time as a pitcher is dwarfed by the 163.1 he put up as a hitter, but it’s still a decent amount to tack onto an overall total.

That said, should Trout — or any other hitter for that matter capable of surpassing Ruth — be considered the all-time leader in WAR as a position player if he beats the 163.1 mark, or is the 183.6 mark the one to zero in on? It’s an interesting notion to entertain.

Alex Rodriguez is the active leader in career WAR at 118.7 as of June 10, 2016. He turns 41 on July 27 and accordingly, will not be seeing Ruth’s mark his rear view mirror this lifetime.

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Albert Pujols is second on the active WAR list with a mark of 99.8. He’s rapidly declining at age 36 and offers less to a club every season in terms of his defensive skill set. Pujols hasn’t had a season with a WAR above 5.0 since his 2011 campaign. He will not flirt with history in the way his present teammate Trout could.

For as long as Trout is capable of playing center field at a high level, he will be an asset defensively. In time, his age and range in the outfield may not allow him to play there, thus necessitating a move to possibly one of the corner outfield spots. Or later on, as with most great position players, to designated hitter, assuming such a thing exists up until the last out is recorded in Trout’s finale.

Ruth was by no means a Gold Glove caliber outfielder after his time as a pitcher came to an end. A career dWAR of -2.3 was offset by his otherworldly talent as a hitter. Trout has a dWAR of 2.0 to date, so while he might not be Willie Mays in center field (career WAR 156.2, dWAR 18.1), he certainly isn’t hurting his cause at this juncture in time.

Trout’s 43.1 career WAR near the middle of his age 24 season is a true testament to the Hall of Fame resume he is building. To put things in perspective, A-Rod cracked a big league roster at age 18 and his lifetime WAR through is age 24 season was 38.0. Bryce Harper, half way through his age 23 season, has a WAR of 21.8.

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Los Angeles’ Millville Meteor averaged a WAR of 9.3 per season from 2012, his first full year as an everyday player, through to the end of 2015’s season. If we assume he stays healthy and maintains that pace, he could surpass Ruth’s 163.1 mark sometime in 2029, or Trout’s age 37 season.

However, it’s fair to acknowledge that Trout will not be as productive in his thirties as he was/is in his twenties, both in terms of ability and durability. If we’re looking at the bigger number, the trajectory to surpass Ruth shifts to when he’s 39, coming sometime during the 2031 season without his pace deteriorating.

Trout’s best WAR season came in 2012 at 10.8. Ruth had nine season with a WAR of 10.0 or greater. He posted his first as a 25-year-old and his final one as a 36-year-old in 1931. It’s certainly plausible to think Trout has more 10+ WAR seasons in him before he turns 30. Time is working in his favor right now and if he can drive his seasonal average above 9.3 over the course of the next half decade, it would permit for less productive seasons throughout his thirties.

Obviously, there are more factors to consider than strictly time. Ruth had the fortune of playing in a time when pitchers didn’t routinely throw over 90 mph. However, Trout has never had to hit in a ballpark like the Polo Grounds, which had a center field fence at 483 ft and where no one had hit more career home runs in their life than the Babe did at that particular venue.

Most, if not this entire hypothesis, rests on Trout’s health. He’s proven to be as strong and resistant to injury thus far as he has been astute at the plate and on the base paths. And if you’re judging a book by its cover, the 24-year-old appears to take very good care of his body.

If his pace right now is beyond where A-Rod’s was at the same age, it’s reasonable to think Trout can get to a WAR of 100 in his age 31 season. Pujols at 36 isn’t quite there yet, while it took Rodriguez (with the assistance of PEDs) seeing his 32nd birthday to get to 100.

Excluding Barry Bonds, the top WAR production for hitters aged 30 to 40 according to FanGraphs and their fWAR calculations are Ruth (89.1), Mays (82.6), Hank Aaron (67.1) and Ted Williams (59.9). The number is different than Baseball-Reference’s, but it does not deviate a lot.

If we change the age range from 20 to 29, Ruth’s number becomes 61.1, Mays is 65.0, Aaron’s is 68.9 and Williams is 67.2. It’s worthwhile to note here that Williams did not play his age 24-26 seasons due to military service, so his twenties should have been substantially more productive than his 67.2 WAR attests to.

It’s somewhat fascinating, because of these four Hall of Famers, Ruth and Mays were more productive in their thirties and that seems to be they key element with Trout’s quest, as Ruth and Mays rank first and third amongst hitters all-time respectively, while Bonds is second.

The MLB champ for WAR in his twenties is none other than Mickey Mantle, with an fWAR of 83.6 (84.3 on BBref). This is also interesting, because Trout has routinely been associated with and compared to Mantle both in his build and playing style. His nickname of being Millville Meteor even pays homage to Mantle’s Commerce Comet. If Trout’s thirties are anything like Mantle’s were (25.5 WAR), he doesn’t stand a chance of surpassing Ruth.

Nearly a century beyond when the Sultan of Swat bounced balls off the facades and bleachers of ballparks across America, no individual has been as much a threat to ousting him from the sabermetric equivalence of royalty than has Mike Trout.

With five and a half full seasons remaining in his twenties, even if Trout’s WAR drops a full point on average for those years to 8.3, he’ll enter his age 30 season with 87.7 wins above replacement. That measure would crush Ruth, Mantle and every other players production through history in their twenties.

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It will be a journey worth following for any avid fan of the game. Those young enough to outlive Trout’s playing days should consider themselves fortunate towards potentially witnessing history in the making.

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