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Unlike some military historians (who seem to like to talk about mistakes and what commanders should have done) and the general readers who consume their works, I abhor counterfactual history. Counterfactual history is incapable of accommodating the infinite contingencies that could have effected events had they proceeded in slightly different ways, and there is simply no clean way to project alternative outcomes with any degree of certainty. That's why we try to anchor analysis in what we "know" did happen--it's already messy enough. However, I will make an exception for exercises that try to translate the statistical production of this generation's most transcendent baseball player into the video game atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Coors Field. Holy heck.
Ugh. Really, Jason? This may be true, or it may not. I understand that we all want to place Mike Trout in historical context and play "Let's plug him in X, Y, and Z eras/venues/teams" but seriously, you can't just add 9-10% for every stat like this article does and just call it a day. Keep in mind that Mike Trout, Player for the Ages, his below .300 last year with multiple good hitters hitting behind him. I understand that he hit above .300 in the couple years prior. His numbers may have been frightening at Coors field, or perhaps he would have swung for the fences and hit .250. 70 Home runs and hitting .250 sounds a lot like Mark McGwire to me. 70 home runs and .250 with some stolen bases sounds a lot like Sammy Sosa. Obviously Trout is a 5-tool player, so he fields and runs better than the above guys.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I know some of the above skips over the point you are trying to make, but I get frustrated with crowning Trout the best baseball player in the history of baseball players at this point in his career. Why doesn't anybody put the prime of Ken Griffey, Jr's career in the Coors bubble? Or Albert Pujols. Imagine Pujols the first three amazing years of his career there.
You are thus dubbed the official Mike Trout Fan-Boy. And yes, I know I am about to be dubbed the ultimate lame Albert Pujols/Aaron Rodgers fan-boy. So be it! Yay for fun argument on the blog!
Jeez, what a buzz-kill you are. Of course you can't plug and play, but it's fun to think about. I'd love to see somebody more adept with numbers than I am goof around with these kinds of things--I'd love to see Griffey translated into Coors. Then again, maybe some of these guys have altitude-related issues that would flare up in Coors but don't effect them when playing the majority of their games at sea level. Who knows.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how I got "dubbed the official Mike Trout Fan-Boy" for thinking this was a fun post, especially given that for sheer entertainment value I'd rather watch Billy Hamilton, Hunter Pence, Andrew McCutchen, Jose Abreu, Yasiel Puig, Aroldis Chapman...
I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. I take it all back except for the fan-boy part.
ReplyDeletewas this before or after the humador that coors uses? i do like to think what a player might have been or vice versa had they left for another team. jeter is a first ballot hof great player. what if he wasnt in the middle of a lineup with all star weapons? would he have had the great career he did.
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