Where is Mike Trout headed?
Mike Trout is a phenomenal ballplayer. His combination of speed and power at a young age is extremely rare. He’s been good for a while now and it appears that he will be able to play at a high level for years. Recently he became the youngest player to reach 100 homeruns and 100 steals.
He reached that milestone beating out Alex Rodriguez. And therein begs the question. Where is Mike Trout headed? Other players that had a lot of HR’s and SB’s at a young age were guys like Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr. Notice that all those guys are much better known for their homerun prowess then their speed.
Fun fact: seven of the last 10 times a player has joined the 30 HR, 30 SB club in one season it’s been done by a white guy.
It’s very common for a player who has power and also steals bases to gradually morph into a pure power hitter. In the old days teams paid players a lot more if they hit for power and even today you are going to make much more money off of 40 home runs then 40 stolen bases. It’s also much more physically demanding to steal bases, with the risk of injury going way up. No team wants their power hitter twisting an ankle stealing a base. A homerun is much more valuable then a stolen base by any measurement.
Many players that start out as pure base stealers switch to power hitters at the first sign they can hit for power. Alphonso Soriano and Curtis Granderson went from leadoff hitters to clean up hitters in the space of a couple years. Sammy Sosa had more stolen bases then homeruns for the first 5 years of his career.
So how long will Mike Trout continue to be a base stealer? Probably not long. In fact he may have already changed. His stolen base numbers have dropped from 49 to 33 to 16 last year, home run totals have been 30, 27, 36, during that time. He is at 11 and 8 so far this year so he’s still running. But for how long? What do you think?
Mike Trout is a phenomenal ballplayer. His combination of speed and power at a young age is extremely rare. He’s been good for a while now and it appears that he will be able to play at a high level for years. Recently he became the youngest player to reach 100 homeruns and 100 steals.
He reached that milestone beating out Alex Rodriguez. And therein begs the question. Where is Mike Trout headed? Other players that had a lot of HR’s and SB’s at a young age were guys like Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr. Notice that all those guys are much better known for their homerun prowess then their speed.
Fun fact: seven of the last 10 times a player has joined the 30 HR, 30 SB club in one season it’s been done by a white guy.
It’s very common for a player who has power and also steals bases to gradually morph into a pure power hitter. In the old days teams paid players a lot more if they hit for power and even today you are going to make much more money off of 40 home runs then 40 stolen bases. It’s also much more physically demanding to steal bases, with the risk of injury going way up. No team wants their power hitter twisting an ankle stealing a base. A homerun is much more valuable then a stolen base by any measurement.
Many players that start out as pure base stealers switch to power hitters at the first sign they can hit for power. Alphonso Soriano and Curtis Granderson went from leadoff hitters to clean up hitters in the space of a couple years. Sammy Sosa had more stolen bases then homeruns for the first 5 years of his career.
So how long will Mike Trout continue to be a base stealer? Probably not long. In fact he may have already changed. His stolen base numbers have dropped from 49 to 33 to 16 last year, home run totals have been 30, 27, 36, during that time. He is at 11 and 8 so far this year so he’s still running. But for how long? What do you think?