Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 261: Mike Trout and Becoming the Best Ever/Chase Utley’s Aging Outlook

Episode Date: August 8, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss Mike Trout’s chances of becoming the best player ever, then talk about how the Phillies’ Chase Utley extension will work out.

Yeah, take that, Mr. Volquez, on a nice little change-up. And Effectively Wild all game. Good morning and welcome to episode 261 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg. Ben, how are you? Okay, sounds windy there. It is windy. It's a little chilly as well. Yeah. Unless you're hearing the plane.

I'm hearing that also, but I heard, yeah. So, Ben, the Trevor Bauer trade, this is not a topic, but just real quick, the Trevor Bauer trade at the time was generally, I mean, Kevin Towers was mocked, right, for not getting enough? Yeah, and for comparing Gregorius to Jeter Oh wow, okay But basically nobody thinks that this is a bad deal From Arizona's perspective, right?

No, yeah, I alluded Kind of looks like a big success Yeah, when we talked about Amaro's moves the other day I talked about how the Diamondbacks moves Were believed to be also kind of crazy over the winter, and now they look a lot less so, at least some of them. I guess you could argue that, I mean, I guess the point with both that move and the Upton move

were not necessarily that they were going to turn out badly for the Diamondbacks, but that Towers had more lucrative trade chips move and the Upton move were not necessarily that they were going to turn out badly for the Diamondbacks, but that Towers had more lucrative trade chips than he cashed in, that he sort of undersold those guys. But I think, as we've said here, that seems like a leap to take from our perspective, and the players he's got are basically kind of doing okay except for martin prado yes um all right so what do you want to talk about uh i want to talk about mike trout a little bit okay and now i'll talk about chase outley okay um lots of lots of facebook group activity today

we have about 150 members and one of them, Troy Just Ben, this is not the time One of them just said, hey Ben This is not the time, Ben At the end if you need to Or at the beginning during the banter But once we exchange topics, it's on to baseball This is not the time to

I thought this was the banter This is not the time to flatter yourself, Ben The banter is before the topics i see we already exchanged topics okay all right i'll save it all right so go ahead and tell me about mike trout uh okay so mike trout uh it was i feel bad now i feel like now we have to hear the end of this story that you were telling about Facebook. So should we make an exception? Yeah.

Okay, go ahead. I just want to pass along Troy's insult. He says, hey, Ben, tell Sam his excuse for no Facebook is weak. He can just set up another account. There aren't any rules against it. He's not going to get arrested by the Facebook police. I actually have a second account. I also don't know the password, and I also don't have access to the email address. And I just don't want to be on it.

So how about that? Wow. You're just creating identities all over the internet and just leaving them behind. All right. Okay. So tell me about Mike Trout. So Mike Trout, it was his birthday, as you are probably aware. His 22nd birthday was yesterday, Wednesday. And I did a radio thing

earlier tonight. Max Kellerman had me on to talk about Mike Trout. And it was one of those things where you get a tweet, can you come on? And then five minutes later, you're on the radio talking about something. And so he put the question to me, which I hadn't really thought about or prepared for, what the odds were that Mike Trout would become the best player ever or have a strong argument to be the best player ever. And so I was recalling as I was fumbling for an answer when we talked about the odds that he would be a Hall of Famer not too long ago. And I remember that I lowballed it, in your opinion, and you gave him, what, a 50-50 shot?

No, no, no. At least more, right? I think I was 70 or 80. Yeah, that's right. You were 80, I think. I then went on to, I sort of started a piece that looked at playoff odds, and I actually, Hall of Fame odds, that I never finished. But I actually decided that I was, even I was probably low-balling him a little bit.

Wow. Okay. A little bit. Wow. Okay. A little bit. Okay. And certainly if you look at comparable players, I mean, there almost aren't any. Through his age 21 season, pretty much all the comparable people are all Hall of Famers, and he's kind of better than they are. So where then would you put his odds of becoming the best player ever? Like maybe one in 24. Huh.

See that? Okay. That seems... I'm trying to figure out. I guess that seems low to me given how high you are on his odds of becoming a Hall of Famer. Well, there's 20 years left that you have to keep doing this. And guys, I mean, to do this, basically all of these sorts of achievements,

breaking the all-time home run record is a good example. But really any longevity achievement, you don't win it in your first decade. You win it in your second decade. longevity achievement. You don't win it in your first decade. You win it in your second decade. And the second half of players' careers, it doesn't always match up with the first half. It doesn't reliably match up really at all. And so I would say that on something like that, you're not betting on his true talent level. Because as great as Trout is, there probably have been a lot of guys who are within the margin of error of how talented he is. It's about not hitting any obstacles and having those skills persist. You don't get to be the greatest

player of all time unless you do this for 20 plus years. I mean, you don't get to be the greatest player of all time unless you do this for like, you know, 20 plus years. And it's really hard to do that. And I don't think we've seen, I guess what I'm saying is, I don't think we've seen anything about Mike Trout that tells us with any reliability how good he's going to be when he's 38. And so, you know, the odds are that he will suffer from attrition just like every, you know like almost every ball player.

And Bonds isn't the best player of all time because of anything he did before he was 34. He was great. He was a superstar. He was one of the best. But he's the greatest hitter of all time because of what he did from 38 to 42, which was entirely unpredictable. Yeah, I guess that's true. You are confident that he is going to age well, though, clearly, if you're predicting that there's a very high chance that he'll make it to the Hall of Fame. I mean, to make it to the Hall of Fame at all, you...

Nope, not really. Pujols is aging terribly, and he's going to make the Hall of Fame. Yes, that's true. I am trying to find... Yeah okay so okay uh i i ultimately concluded 82 about a month ago this is what that was my final answer um but uh no i mean he doesn't need to do he doesn't need to do anything after age 30 to be a hall of famer at the you know at the rate he's going, he basically is going to have – once he reaches 10 years, he'll be in. Just like Griffey and just like Albert. I mean Albert had 10 good years and he's in for sure.

I think that Trout right now is on a pace where it seems very unlikely to me that he won't be. So here's what I, I might be steering this off topic, but I'm going to, after we talked about this, a guy named Steve emailed us. You read this email, I think you might have replied as well. And he said, I hate to be a downer, but I think you guys are overstating Trout's haul chances. Are his first one and a half seasons any better than nomar's and i really liked this email because it really hammers home just how good trout is and why his case is so strong um so trout is 22 today right i wrote i i this steve wrote this a month ago though so he was 21 and 11 months old. When Nomar was 21 and 11 months old, he was hitting 267, 338, 384 in AA. And so Trout has a 15-win head start on Nomar already. Like already. And this was

when Nomar was in AA. So it was two more years before Nomar became a regular. Trout is very likely going to have 30 wins under his belt before Nomar and his career paths even meet. I mean, that's a 30-win head start, okay? And also— That's like half of a Hall of Fame career almost. It is exactly half. I mean, 60 is the shorthand in my mind.

So it is half of a Hall of Fame career by the time Nomar got a starting job. And furthermore, he actually was better in his first two years than Nomar by quite a bit. Not a huge – I mean Nomar was a superstar. But in Nomar's first two years, he produced 13 warp. Trout had produced 15 and it was only halfway through his second year. And so he actually was better than Nomar. And then furthermore, this is what I think really drives it home. Garcia Parra is like the cautionary tale in this case.

He's like the worst case scenario. He had this brutal injury history. Brutal injury history. He had this extremely fast decline. He is the worst. Like he's being held up as the scare quotes, right? And he produced 47 wins in his career, which is like kind of almost borderline Hall of Fame. There are guys in the Hall of Fame who were essentially Nomar's level.

So if Trout from this point just matches snakebit Nomar Garciaparra and just matches the thing that we're supposed to be scared of, plus the 15 warp he already had banked, he would have more warp in his career than Roberto Alomar, more than Craig Biggio. And I mean, this is what we've kind of agreed upon is like the bad scenario. So that's why I think 82% is just pretty much, you know, it doesn't seem radical to me at all. And it might actually be, I mean, given the month that has happened since, it just edges up, right? I mean, maybe now I'd say 85 or 86. Sorry for that Michael K. autoplay that started on my computer just now. Yeah, so Mike Trout is really good, is what you're saying.

I am, yeah. But, I mean, I wouldn't bet on, you know, like my, if you, okay, so let's rephrase this question. Over under on Mike Trout's value at 39, if I set it at two and a half wins above replacement and you have to bet your, how many kids are you gonna have by then 13 13 kids uh sure all right you have to bet all 13 of your kids on this over or under on whatever i said uh if i have 13 kids i will probably be happy to get rid of them um so in that case uh but i would take the under regardless. Yeah, and just trying to think through.

I don't even know what went through your head just now, like what evidence you tried to summon up, but surely your brain realized what a farcical question it is. I mean, what is Mike Trout going to do in 16 years? You're trying to answer with any certainty whatsoever is absurd. So, yeah, I mean, there's a, like, obviously, I think that Mike Trout is spectacular. I am obsessed with his career. It's a beautiful thing.

But, you know, baseball basically manages to break down most of the guys who are really good. And that's the reason when we were talking about Raul Abanez and how from age 31 on, he's better than the median Hall of Famer. And when we were talking about how Omar Vizquel, I don't even know if I mentioned this, but one of my all-time favorite factoids, which I don't remember the specifics of,

but Omar Vizquel is something like 25th all-time in total bases after age 31. It's not that Omar was good. He was terrible. And it's not that Raul Abanez has been great. It's not that Omar was good. He was terrible. And it's not that Raul Abanez has been great. He's been okay. He's been an okay player. It's that everybody else sucks. The very best players, they all just suck.

They get to a point where they start sucking. I mean, go cry about Eddie Matthews for like a week and a half someday. I mean, it's the saddest thing to watch what happened to Eddie Matthews. Yeah, okay. All right, what do you want to talk about? Chase Utley.

I have actually been, I just glanced at this Facebook thing. You're right, there was a lot of activity today. Yeah, it's a bustling Facebook group. It is, it is. All right, so Chase Utley, I guess, gosh, are we just going to talk about another player's Hall of Fame chances? So Chase Utley signs the

extension with the Phillies. You know, I think the consensus is that this is a good deal. He's going to get, I don't know if we saw the official, but it was going to be something like $25 to $30 million for two years, which basically means that he has to be a two-and-a-half win player or so

for the next two years. He's easily cleared that. It's between $20 and $25 guaranteed with plus vesting options. Heyman says $27. Okay. So he's been, you know – he's clearly better than that, worth more than that right now when he's healthy. He hasn't played really a full season in four years. He's got – if he stays healthy the rest of this year, he might get 130 games,

which would be the most he's played in the last four years. So you could sort of see some reason to wonder about him. He's 34. He plays demanding position. But basically, Chase Utley continues. This contract, you might argue, continues the Chase Utley narrative, which is that he is one of the true great players of his generation and never really gets his due. I did an annotated box score one time for the score in which I created a Venn diagram of all the reasons that players don't get into the Hall of Fame even when they're deserving. And in the center of it, these like four overlapping circles, there's Chase Utley.

center of it, these like four overlapping circles, there's Chase Utley. Um, and you know, his, his, his, he's, you know, he's never gotten any sort of real MVP consideration and, uh, you know, and yet he's arguably been, you know, maybe the second best player or third best player in the game over the last like eight years. Um, so anyway, uh, I guess the question with Utley is A, how worried are you about his position? And B, do you think that the Phillies should be signing Chase Utley for a two-year deal, given where they are? or, you know, and I guess the third question that I might have as well is that people, I think, tend to downplay the advantage that teams have in signing their own players. So like the Phillies didn't, we talked about this actually, the Phillies didn't trade Utley at this deadline. And we talked about why teams, you know, whether teams should be trading their free agents even if they want to re-sign them because they could always re-sign them.

And you wonder whether the Phillies could have gotten, A, could have gotten Utley to re-sign, but B, could have gotten Utley to re-sign at what seems to be somewhat below market if they had. I mean, there does seem to be some value to keeping a player and there does seem to be somewhat below market if they had. I mean, there does seem to be some value to keeping a player, and there does seem to be some value to probably trading for a player like Utley. Like, there probably is some benefit, some advantage that the team that trades for him has in re-signing him that we don't necessarily calculate when we're doing the math about whether these deals are good. So anyway, you can go anywhere you want.

Yeah, there probably is. I think it was Rani and Joe, Rani Jaserly and Joe Sheehan, were talking about how maybe that calculus is kind of different with a player who's never played for another team, like Cano and like Utley, who've been just lifetime Philly, lifetime Yankee. Maybe they would be less willing to play somewhere else, sign somewhere else because they've never experienced that

and they're so comfortable in the one place they've always played. And if you do trade them and expose them to some other city and they like it, then maybe they'd be more likely to sign somewhere else or maybe they'd feel less appreciated or like their legacy as a lifetime Philly is already compromised. So it's not a consideration anymore. Um, so that probably varies by player, but yeah, I would like to see that more. Uh, so anyway, Utley, um, I mean, he's, he's been for a few years now, uh, really since 2009 I guess, was the last time he had a full season.

He's been one of those injured or effective guys. And I love those guys. And I feel like you like those guys too. The guys who are either on the DL or they're playing at an extremely high level. they are playing at an extremely high level. I really like those guys, but it only lasts for so long because eventually all of the injuries that lead to those disabled list appearances start to affect your skills. And then at some point you become healthy and not so effective, and then that's sad. Yeah, I kind of feel like the healthy, whatever you said, healthy or injured.

How did you, what was your ampersand? Injured or effective or injured or elite or something like that. Yeah, yeah. I kind of feel like it's one of those things where by the time you notice the trend, it's too late. Yeah, it's coming to an end probably. Right. It's this awesome stock that you've noticed how awesome it is just about the time that everybody else did too. And then it tanks. So, yeah, I mean I don't know that I would bet on Utley to be injured or effective going forward. I feel like it's going to be either or.

There comes a point, particularly for a 35-year-old middle infielder, it seems like there comes a point where you commit to one or the other. So you are kind of betting on his health. I mean, Beltran has managed to be healthy or effective. Sorry, injured or effective. Yes. And I don't know, maybe Berkman did for a while. But it seems to me that there comes a point

where you are betting on his health. You can't count on him to be great if he's continuing to battle injuries. And so I guess you do have to sort of wonder how many games you think Utley's going to play in the next two years. Yeah. So what has he, he's averaged over the last three seasons.

So the last three seasons, he's basically averaged 100 games. And it looks like he will, he'll top that unless he gets hurt again this year. looks like he will he'll top that unless he gets hurt again this year uh but i mean i guess you can't really expect him to play more than that as as a 35 36 year old but uh it's i guess like you were saying with ben zobris the other day that even if he had a hundred game suspension you'd still you'd still pick up a seven million million option for him just because you thought he'd be worth it in the other 62 games. So, I mean, I guess at, I don't know, at $12, $13 million per year, if Utley plays 100 games, he could be worth that, even if he doesn't play at the same level that he has historically.

He does need to play at the same level that he has historically? If he does, he does need to play at the same level. That's the thing. If he only plays 100 games, he has to stay just as good as he is. If he plays 140 games, then he can decline. I don't know. I mean, 2011, he played 103 games. He was worth over three wins. 2012, 83 games.

He was worth three wins. This year, 83 games worth over three wins already. So I don't know. So if he played 100 games and was slightly worse than he's been, he could be still an average or maybe slightly above average player, and maybe that's kind of worth it. All right, so there's room there. There's room there for some decline,

and there's room there for some injuries and for the Phillies still to get their money's worth and there's obviously there's a route where he doesn't decline in the next two years which is totally possible and then he stays healthy for two years which is possible he's basically done it this year and the Phillies get a uh you know an MVP candidate for the next two years who doesn't make much it kind of that would be kind of awesome yeah uh and maybe then he would have a decent hall of fame case because as it as it is right now i mean if he if he just tacks on say i mean he's just we have him at 45 wins uh above replacement yeah reference has him at 58 uh So I don't know.

If he just had a couple compiling years and just tacked on a little bit, I don't know if he gets there. I mean, he might deserve to get there, but I don't think he gets there. Yeah, I don't think he gets there either. I don't think he gets there. I mean, unless he plays for seven more years at this level,

I just don't think he gets there. Sad. Yeah, I don't know if he needs seven. Maybe, well, I don't know. Well, I think there's a perception of him that he's not even really that close. He's never finished higher than seventh in MVP voting. And, you know, he had basically, he had a run where he was an all-star, but he hasn't been an all-star in three years.

And, you know, I've got a pretty convincing Venn diagram here, Venn. I should note, drawn by hand. In paint? Or freehand? Freehand, colored with colored pencil. If anybody wants to see what my handwriting looks like, I wrote it by hand. All the text is written by hand. It's really kind of embarrassing

what were the four circles that he fit into uh yeah I'm looking at it right now he's got the the short career I guess he started late has kind of tailed off he's he's got the well-rounded player who doesn't lead the league in anything I guess of? The four that I did were short career because, yeah, he started late because of Policito Polanco and he's probably going to end early because he's a second baseman.

He's overshadowed by a teammate slash similar player in his career. In his case, by Ryan Howard, who was getting all the MVP awards, all of them. He played a position that is underrepresented, which is second base and third base are way underrepresented. And he has most of his value derived by walks, defense, or other overlooked stats.

Right. Yeah. His only black ink on baseball reference is he led the league in runs in 2006, and he led the league in hit-by-pitches for three years in a row, and that's it. So, yeah, if he had a few more good years, then I guess he'd be a popular sabermetric candidate, but I don't know how much mainstream support he'd get. I think he's got a really incredible peak. If you're looking at reference, his five-year peak, five consecutive years, 40 war.

There was only one player in the game better than him. And I think he's basically Tim Raines, except started later, where he was the, you know, basically for a decent portion of his career, he was the second best player in baseball. So I think he's a sabermetric darling just if he plays out this Phillies contract. I think in two years, he'll be over 60 on baseball reference. And I think he'll be a sabermetric darling for the Hall of Fame. That is quite a peak. From 2005 to 2009 they have him at 7, 7, 8, 9, 8.

That's not bad. And he never finished higher than 7th in MVP voting. While playing on winning teams while playing on winning teams that produced two different MVPs. Two different teammates won MVP awards instead of him. So you can't even be like, oh, he was playing for a lousy team.

He was playing for, yeah, whatever. We will have plenty of hot takes to come when he's actually eligible. Yes, I'm sure. All right, any more Facebook talk you want to get in? I did have a brief banter point that I forgot to bring up, not Facebook related. I wanted to ask you what your stance is on team Twitter account trash talking.

Oh, I'm all for it. Me too. I love it. When I see the AL East teams dumping on the Rays because the Rays are kind of brash, I just don't. I mean it's super fun. And like especially if you appreciate like the people who are doing these, they're not like – this is not some like super calculated corporate ad campaign. It's basically like an intern like you just have to think that this is like a some guy who you would like in real life probably somehow somehow got access to it relations right he somehow got access to this twitter account like like with like millions of followers with millions

of followers i know like just it's i think it's a i think it's a beautiful thing i love it did you see the the nationals braves one no uh so this came yesterday, I guess, after Tehran hit Harper. And the Braves started it. The Braves account said, clown move, bro. Which, yeah, I know. I just turned. I've changed my opinion. Shut them all down.

But then the Nationals account responded, which part, giving up the home run or drilling the 20-year-old on the first pitch his next time up? Yeah. But I was sad to see that Frank Wren apologized for this Twitter behavior. He said, I think it was simply an inappropriate attempt at humor from our social media department. It doesn't reflect how we feel or how we want to do business or who we are. You shouldn't be directing anything unless it's positive or uplifting to another team or an opponent. I think that is plain and simple. I disagree.

Well, it was an inappropriate attempt at humor. Well, yes. That particular attempt at humor was a lame yes. That particular attempt at humor. It was a lame joke, but I approved this. It's just a little touch of WWE in baseball, but not involving the players. And that's good because if players started doing this stuff, maybe it could get ugly and there could be brawls and people getting hit and no one wants that. But this is harmless, just fan-based baiting and I'm all for it. All right. Okay.

We've got one more show tomorrow and we're done with this one.