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Now I know that one might think that this statement is blasphemous, and that there is no way that any player in the sport’s history that could be better than Mike Trout. But it really is not. Allow me to explain.
Mike Trout is clearly the best player in Major League Baseball as of this writing, and if he were to retire today, he is a first ballot entry into Cooperstown without any detraction. But let us remember something, where baseball fans are enamored with Trout is the supreme offensive production that he shows in the batter's box. Leading baseball in OBP% the last four seasons, having a career OPS of 1.000, and an unmatched ability to recognize pitches, this fandom is validated.
However, we seem to forget players in modern history who did it first. In other words, who was Mike Trout before Mike Trout? From a positional and offensive standpoint, we seek to find a player that is comparable to Trout. Our answer: Mickey Mantle. Now for the following analysis, accolades and postseason statistics will not be a focus. Instead, we look at them through analytical comparisons.
Given that Trout's career spans nine seasons to date, we will use the first nine years of Mantle's career 1951-1959) to provide an even playing field regarding timeline. This also fills the position prerequisite, as Mantle played center field for most of his career. We also acknowledge that we will present statistics where both players are similar, but Mantle has a small advantage in many of them. With the parameters set, let us dive in:
Analysis
Let us start with Trout. He has the edge on Mantle in terms of displaying raw power and putting the ball in play. Trout's career ISO and BABIP are 0.276 and 0.348 respectfully (Mantle's ISO and BABIP are 0.258 and 0.335). With that in mind, Mantle had a greater overall impact offensively, relative to Trout, as shown in the table below:
In the first nine years of Mantle's career (1951-1959), he had a higher wOBA, wRC and BB%. In this time frame, he was more effective at drawing walks at a slightly higher rate than Trout in the first nine years of his playing tenure. Based on wRC and wRC+, Mantle has the edge on Trout in terms of having had a greater impact on his team's production with his offensive output.
While one may argue that Mantle and Trout have the same wRC+, therefore they have had an equal impact at the plate, Mantle is better had reaching base in a myriad of ways, represented in a higher wOBA. Having the higher BB%, Mantle also had better pitch recognition generating walks at a rate that is 1.3% higher than Trout.
Conclusion
Again, Mike Trout is a future Hall of Famer. If he were to leave the game today, he would be in Cooperstown on the first ballot. With that said, Mickey Mantle was the original Mike Trout. Although the production levels are close, he was the better player.
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