Los Angeles Angels: Mike Trout has the best WAR yet again, but how?

There is no denying that Mike Trout is the greatest baseball player on the planet but it is hard to wrap your head around the Los Angeles Angels’ outfielder’s WAR.

Mike Trout is the best player in baseball, there is no denying it. Not only is he the best player right now, but the Los Angeles Angels are going to get the bragging rights of fielding one of the greatest players of all-time if he keeps up on his pace when it is all said and done.

Heck, the only player that might be able to say they were more impressive than Trout will be Barry Bonds, and we all know the controversy that has surrounded Bonds and the rest of the steroid era.

Throughout his carer, Trout has consistently led in wins above replacement (WAR) and has been putting up numbers as an unprecedented rate. As the figurehead of the new analytical movement, for those of you unaware, WAR essentially is the say-all be-all in deciding a player’s worth.

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And so we are clear, we are using FanGraphs’ WAR in this article, as WAR does differ slightly from source to source.

Trout is yet again leading the league in WAR but this year it is different. This year he has two other guys who are not only keeping up with him but putting up as good of numbers as him. They still have a long way to go to get on his level, but having two players produce like Trout would have seemed crazy three years ago.

Those players are Cody Bellinger and Christian Yelich, who are set to have one of the closest National League MVP battles of all time. You could legitimately make the case for either guy. Good thing the American League MVP is a runaway and will be once again going to Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels.

Trout still has a hefty lead on those two with an 8.4 WAR compared to Bellinger’s 7.0 and Yelich’s 6.4. It is refreshing for Angel fans to see Trout back on top, but it is a little confusing as to why he has such a significant lead.

To be completely transparent, I am not 100 percent comfortable with understanding how WAR is calculated. That is the point of this article and FanGraphs has an article that breaks it down great. The simple equation (which is broken down into more, complex equations) is:

WAR = (Batting Runs + Base Running Runs + Fielding Runs + Positional Adjustment + League Adjustment +Replacement Runs) / (Runs Per Win).

So it is how valuable a player is hitting, running the bases and fielding compared to their peers. Got it.

When looking at the numbers, though, on the surface Trout is very similar to those two guys. They are all separated by one home run, Bellinger has one fewer run, Bellinger has two more RBIs (Yelich has nine fewer), and Trout and Bellinger both have 10 stolen bases, Yelich has 24.

Trout walks 18.2 percent of the time, Bellinger 14.2 and Yelich 12.8. Yelich strikes out 20.6 percent of the time, Trout 20.2 and Bellinger 16.3. Trout has a 185 wRC+ while Bellinger and Yelich have a 174 and Trout has a .443 wOBA (a key stat to calculating WAR) while Bellinger has a .435 and Yellich a .444.

Finally, Yelich has a 1.117 OPS, Trout a 1.104 and Bellinger a 1.091. So the offensive numbers are very similar, yet Trout has a staggering 66.0 offensive rating while Yelich and Bellinger are both in the 50s.

Again, I am partially ignorant, but how is he that much better than them when the only real edge he has in walks and it is not a significant edge. Not only that, but Bellinger has a better defensive rating than Trout and the baserunning difference is not significant whatsoever.

The only answer I could conjure up is Trout’s position on the Los Angeles Angels. One of the factors of WAR is the difficulty of the position to field as well as the “average player” at the position. Centerfield gets a boost because of the difficulty while right field is considered one of the easiest to play.

But if you have watched Bellinger play, he is more than capable of being a Gold Glove center fielder, so he and Yelich are essentially being punished for being in right field and not center.

What’s even crazier is that they factor in the home ballpark and Angels Stadium gets less of a park factor boost than Dodger Stadium and Miller Park, which are both deemed to be more pitcher-friendly.

The center field answer is the only one that makes sense and in terms of the stats literal definition of wins above a replacement player then I understand why Trout would be higher. But maybe we should readjust how we look at WAR, then?

Next. How the Angels could field a much better rotation in 2020. dark

Either way, the Los Angeles Angels have the best player in baseball and I am in no way stripping him of that honor. But if you objectively look at the numbers you would realize that maybe Trout shouldn’t be getting as big of an edge as he is. And if you know why, please, educate us.

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