Injuries are an unfortunate part of any sport. But this year, with the season Mike Trout was on pace to have–it’s heinous.
The Los Angeles Angels have held their own this season, even in Mike Trout’s absence, and have an outside chance of securing a playoff spot. Then again they don’t have much of a farm system to make deadline deals with and the teams they are chasing are either more desperate (Royals) or have better farm systems to pull from.
The injury to Mike Trout earlier this season that kept him out from May 28 to July 14 potentially robbed us of one of the best seasons in history.
With his current fWAR pace (3.7 WAR in 53 games) extrapolated out over 159 games, which is how many he had played in each of the past two seasons, we’d be looking at an fWAR of 11.1. You know how many times a player has had over an eleven-win season in baseball history? 25.
The most recent stretch of these seasons were all provided by Barry Bonds, who had three of them from ’01-’04. Babe Ruth is the leader with six eleven win seasons while Rogers Hornsby and Ted Williams have each had three such years. Add in two from Mickey Mantle and two from Ty Cobb, and single seasons from Lou Gehrig (’27), Honus Wagner (’08), Jimmie Foxx (’32), Carl Yastrzemski (’67), Stan Musial (’48) and Joe Morgan (’75) and you’re left with twelve different players that have accomplished this astounding feat.
All of those players, outside of Barry Bonds who will likely make it in before he is purged from the ballot, are Hall of Famers.
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There is still another set of elite company that Trout could find him self in when the season is over, however. Trout currently has a wRC+ of 205, and only 32 players in baseball history have ever held a wRC+ of 200 or above. The big issue here isn’t whether or not he can keep it up–he’s friggin Mike Trout, of course he can–it’s whether or not he’ll be able to accrue enough plate appearances before the end of the season to be deemed “qualified”.
According to Baseball Reference, “a player needs 3.1 bats, or appearances at the plate in each game of the season, to qualify for a Major League Baseball batting title. With a standard season of 162 games, each player vying for the MLB title is required to make 502 plate appearances.”
Right now Trout has 231, leaving him 271 plate appearances shy of that mark. The Angels have played in 98 games so far this season, leaving 64 to be played. If he were to play in every game for the remainder of the season, Trout would need to get 4.23 plate appearances per game to reach this goal. So basically if he got four appearances per game, every game the rest of the way, he’d still end up 15 shy of becoming a qualified batter.
It’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility that Trout could ultimately reach this mark. The Rangers are looking more and more like sellers with each passing day and the A’s have already started shipping pieces off, so there will be opportunities present for Trout to collect some extra plate appearances here and there. The biggest key, however, could be whether or not the Angels are still in the race. If they have nothing left to play for late in the season, he could be looking at a few days off in September, which would effectively end his shot at history.
Next: Midseason top prospect ranks
Yes it’s a weird piece of history to care about, but with such a select group of elite hitters being the only members, it’s definitely one worth being a part of.