How long do you think a Major League Baseball player should perform at high levels before he starts being considered for the Hall of Fame?
I’m asking because of Mike Trout. Trout is, without a doubt, a phenomenal player. You’ll get no argument from me on that topic. But … for some reason, I just get a little bit irritated when I listen to my Mariners’ games on the radio, and every time the Mariners are playing the Angels, I have to hear announcer Rick Rizzs repeatedly say, “… future Hall of Famer, Mike Trout”.
The thing is, he’s in only his 5th full season. He could suffer a career-ending injury next week. Or he could, unlikely as it seems, suddenly nosedive and never recover. I just feel like five seasons, no matter how great, aren’t enough to justify calling him a “future Hall of Famer”. Pretty much everybody I’ve seen inducted over the last 20 years had careers of 10+ years.
Anyway, that’s just my opinion. How do the rest of y’all feel?
As running coach notes, if there were to be “special circumstances” (i.e., death or some horrible disease or accident), the 10-year minimum could be waived.
But, if it were to be just a matter of his productivity declining, then, I think it could be hard to justify. I point to former Braves outfielder Dale Murphy, who was one of the best players in baseball from about 1980-1987 – a period which included 2 MVPs, 5 All-Star Games, 5 Silver Sluggers, 4 Gold Gloves, and two NL home run titles.
But, his production declined rapidly about the time he turned 30 (I may be misremembering, but I don’t think it was due to injuries), and he’s never been seriously considered for the Hall.
Thing is, Dale Murphy was nowhere near as good over his peak as Mike Trout has been over his first five full years. Murphy’s league rank in WAR position players - 4th, 8th, 2nd, 9th, 3rd with two non-rankings in seven years - Trout’s league rank in WAR position players - 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st. This isn’t a knock on Murphy - you could also say something similar about 90 percent of the players in the Hall of Fame.
Well, first of all, when people say “future Hall of Famer” about a five-season player, it’s generally understood that there’s an unspoken acknowledgement, along the lines of “…assuming he continues to play like this.” With Trout, that’s a pretty safe assumption.
Yes, he might suffer a catastrophic injury that drastically curtails his career. But that’s something completely beyond our ability to predict, and could happen to any player. so there’s no point dwelling on it. He might also, suddenly and for no apparent reason, lose his ability to mash the ball. But that seems incredibly unlikely, especially given how young he is.
Mike Trout is basically the best player in baseball and he’s still two years younger than the age when most players reach their peak. If there’s any single player in the whole of baseball that i would bet on to continue being awesome, it’s Mike Trout. He’s as close as there is to a sure bet.
Yep.
How many players can you think of who were basically the best player in baseball for five years in a row? And how many of those players had been the best player in baseball for five seasons when they were barely 25 years old?
He has never once in his career ranked lower than 2nd in MVP voting for a full season of play, and he won’t rank lower than second this year either. To be quite frank, i think he should have won the award more than once already.
It’s no coincidence, i don’t think, that Trout’s only MVP award came during the only season he’s played where the Angels made the playoffs. And it’s also no coincidence that the guys who beat him in the other years were on playoff teams. MVP voters, in evaluating players, seem to focus too closely on whether or not the team makes the playoffs. It sometimes seems to me, given the way voters think, that they should rename the MVP to MVPDWT (Most Valuable Player on a Division-Winning Team).
By the way, one area of baseball i don’t follow very closely is the minor leagues and up-and-coming players. I focus only on the Majors. I pay basically no attention to the draft, because i have no idea who is coming up, or how good they are. I was pretty surprised, though, to see that Trout was taken as the 25th overall pick in the 2009. Was it at all clear how good he was going to be, before he joined the Angels? What was the scouting report on him during the draft?
He played high school ball in New Jersey, which isn’t a huge hotbed of talent. So basically he was strong and fast and had dominated some weak competition in high school.
I was looking up a bunch of random inner-circle hall of famers, and some of the really great ones haven’t had 5 straight years in 1st; Ted Williams didn’t (even if you skip the war years), and neither did Barry Bonds (he was 2nd in '94 when Jeff Bagwell had his amazing career year).
Sure, but some places (Texas, California, Florida) are more heavily scouted than others, so it’s more likely that a scout will have seen the player actually play and get a chance to see something that sets him apart. (And of course it’s all pretty much guesswork when they outclass their opposition by that much anyway).
On the one hand, knowing what we now know about Trout, the report seems pretty lukewarm. On the other hand, scouting reports on Trout were good enough that a Major League ballclub was wiling to take an 18-year-old hitter in the first round of the draft.
Apart from a few complete standouts that everyone agrees about, like Strasburg, it seems that scouting high-school players really is something of a crapshoot. Considerably more prone to wide variation than scouting the minor leagues.
Being compared to Mike Trout is probably the greatest compliment that Aaron Rowand has ever been paid as a baseball player. I also love the persistence of the old-school, almost completely subjective ideas about effort: “Like Rowand, Trout is a grinder who always plays the game hard.” Translation from scout-speak: “He’s no standout, but he’s a solid and competent white ballplayer.”
Bryce Harper did win the MVP Award last year, and I think Trout might win it this year; there is not really clear choice for a playoff team. Mookie Betts will split votes with Big Papi.
As to the OP, quite clearly the assumption is being made Trout will keep playing okay. Consider, according to Similarity Score, who Trout most resembles at this point in his career:
1, Mickey Mantle
2. Frank Robinson
3. Ken Griffey, Jr.
4. Hank Aaron
5. Miguel Cabrera
Pretty good company.
The most comparable player who never made the Hall of Fame was Vada Pinson, and Trout is a much better player than Pinson was.
