Catching the Best Trout Yet
Stats through 4/17/19
I’m not entirely sure we can quantify the biggest Mike Trout, since he looks about the same as he always has. However, this might be the best Mike Trout we’ve seen. People have said that before, specifically for the last three years but this is truly a different version of the player we’ve been lucky to watch for the last eight-ish seasons.
The most important thing to remember is the number 14. That’s how many games Trout has played. Somewhere, someone is screaming “SMALL SAMPLE SIZE” and I get it, but I choose to ignore it because then there wouldn’t be anything to write about in the first three months of the season. Please, take a look at Trout’s 2019 stat line in bold below:
There’s a decent amount to break down, starting with his plate discipline, which I think really drives the bus for his year. For his career, Trout has a K% of 21.6% and has never struck out less than 17.8% in a season. His current K% would set a new standard for him. For one, it would be his first K% under 10% and it would be significantly lower than the current league average of 23.2%. For reference here’s league averages since Trout entered the league:
Until about 2016, Trout was either inline with league averages for K% or above average (in this case being above average is not that good). Since then? Trout has kept his strikeouts steady while the league averages have grown. Safe to say that Trout has really worked to limit his strikeouts and even if he was merely average in the past, we can see a huge jump in 2019.
In terms of BB%, Trout has always been above average. The most terrifying part? Since 2014, Trout has raised his BB% at least 1.5%, with 2019 yet again showing another huge jump. His current BB/K ratio is 3.20, 16 walks to 5 strikeouts. I’m really not trying to be hyperbolic when I say that you can compare his plate discipline to that of Barry Bonds in 2002 when he posted a 4.21 BB/K ratio. So is there any explanation for this shift in his plate discipline?
There are a couple factors contributing to this. The first being that pitchers are throwing pitches in the zone less often this year than they have in the past, by about two percent compared to 2018 (down from 49.8% to 47.8% by Pitch Info and down 42.4% to 40.5% by Baseball Info Solutions). Trout has responded simply by not swinging. For simplicity I’m going to use Pitch Info stats. His overall Swing% is down to 32.8% about a five percent drop from his career average of 38.2%. He’s swinging at pitches in the zone at the same rate, the difference comes when pitches are out of the zone. He’s only swung at pitches outside the zone 10.7% of the time, almost a 13% drop from his career average and a nine percent drop from 2018. I’m pretty confident that’s why we’re seeing Trout drawing more walks than he ever has.
One thing I’m curious to watch throughout this season is the relationship between Trout’s contact rates and his BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play). Trout has always been good at making contact, with a career rate at 81.8%. Once again, he’s just at another level in 2019. He has made contact 92.1% of the time and when it comes to pitches in the strike zone, that number jumps to 96.4%. His contact rate with pitches out of the zone is also up to 80%, about 11% higher than his career average. I’d expect that out-of-zone rate to stabilize closer to 69% like it has in the past and thus dropping his overall contact%. The reason I brought up BABIP at the beginning of this paragraph is that despite (or because) of this increase in contact, his BABIP has actually dropped to .310 compared .353 BABIP for his career. To me that means he has room to possibly increase his batting average and on-base percentage, especially if he maintains his BB%. I think we can expect his BABIP to increase a bit more because of his proven history of posting above average BABIPs.
Plate discipline stats are notoriously volatile in small sample sizes. I understand why it’s difficult to believe this will continue, but I have one argument for you. Trout has regularly improved his O-Swing%, Z-Contact% and Contact% year over year since 2015. He also has regularly cut down his swinging strike% since 2014. His 2019 swinging strike% is 2.5%. I truly believe that Trout is simply taking his plate discipline to his peak. If Trout is spitting on pitches out of the zone and punishing them in the zone as he has (his hard hit% is currently a career high), then pitchers are going to go out of the zone more often and Trout will simply take the walks he’s given. If he stays healthy, which given the last two years and and early scare this year isn’t a guarantee, then we might be seeing the best Mike Trout yet.
