Angelsjunky

You didn't quote the best part: "I think I’m going to stop putting a ceiling on what Mike Trout can do. The best 20-year-old ever might end the year as the best 21-year-old ever. We should appreciate what we’re seeing. No one has ever seen this before." This is quite a statement coming from the usually very stoic Dave Cameron, someone who has gone on record as supporting Bryce Harper as having more upside than Trout.

Do you mean Baseball Reference? Anyhow, their defensive metric doesn't like Trout this year - his dWAR is -1.2 with an oWAR of 4.2 and a total WAR of 3.0. I'm not exactly sure why BR doesn't like Trout - hopefully one of the more statistically savvy folks can let us know.

On a different note, among all major leaguers with at least 130 PA, the Angels have three in the top 20 in batting average: #4: Bourjos .345 #10: Kendrick .330 #19: Trout .317 Of course Peter won't stick up there for long, but it would be nice to see him pull off a .300 BA season. I think all three should be able to hit over .300. If we could only get Pujols and Aybar up there we could have five .300 hitters by season's end.

Make WAR not RBI

One more. Even more amazing is his WAR total over 2012-13: 14.3 Trout 11.3 Cabrera 11.1 Wright 10.5 Posey 9.7 Cano 9.7 Molina 9.7 McCutchen 9.5 Braun 9.0 Headley 8.8 Votto In other words, Mike Trout has been almost 27% better than any other major leaguer - according to WAR - over the last two seasons, almost a year and a half of play.

Anyhow, Mikey's been hanging around in the #5-8 range for awhile now but has been pushing upward recently. Looks like its only a matter of time before he surpasses Miggy. He probably won't have another 10 WAR season, but 8 seems probable and 9 possible. Amazing.

Because I know you all love WAR, here's the latest Fangraphs leaderboard: 4.4 M Cabrera 4.3 Trout 4.2 Gomez 4.2 Davis 4.1 Longoria 4.0 Machado 3.9 Tulowitzki 3.9 Gonzalez 3.7 Wright 3.6 E Cabrera Other Angels (of 158 qualifiers): #31: 2.3 Kendrick #39: 2.0 Trumbo #121: 0.5 Pujols #146: -0.2 Hamilton

Garret Richards is one of the most overrated prospects in recent Angels history - thanks to ScottyAllen.

Green and Middleton both seem like steals for when they were drafted. Would love to hear why Green fell so far.

I'm still waiting for Brian Specht to make it.

Its premature to try to answer this question. Let's see where the Angels are record-wise (and in terms of the wildcard) in 3-4 weeks and then decide. Cosidering that Howie's been the second best position player on the team, trading him for prospects sends the message that management is giving up on this season; even if chances are slim that the Angels make the postseason, they can't send that message...yet. If they're 10 games out of the wildcard a month from now, sure.

I think its time to accept that Albert is no longer an elite .950+ OPS hitter. His last three years have just been too similar (assuming he follows suit this year). He now seems to be an .850-.900 OPS hitter, which is pretty good but means he's being overpaid by about $10 million per year.

No, jason. No.

I'm guessing Max is proud.

Nothing like a Barney McCosky comp to inspire greatness.

12-22 (.545) in his last five games. Not bad. I'm going to be optimistic and say that Albert's finally warming up and he'll end up with numbers similar or a bit better than last year. He's not the player he was in 2010 and before, but he should still be good for .280+ and 30 HR.

He's in a psychological rut. Obviously his religion is related to his psychology, but correlation doesn't equal causality. He could be a practicing Buddhist meditator and still be in a funk (although I think the tool of meditation itself, not religion but the practice, would decrease the chances of this sort of rut). Time to bring in Phil Jackson.

You are off in two ways here. First of all, the Angels were never up 13 games in 1995. The most they were up was 11 games. Secondly, that lead was in early August. By September 1 their lead had diminished to 6.5 games. All that said, I agree with you. It isn't over yet. It looks grim, but I'm not cashing in my chips yet.

Thanks, Lifetime, for an actual response (although Angels Never Die's was pretty funny). I agree that small samples of WAR, especially for defense, aren't very reliable. Any idea why his defense hasn't been as sharp? Is he actually running slower as some have said? Or maybe its changing from LF to CF and back again? Or just further adjustments for a young player in his second year?

Before you get in a tizzy about how baseball is played on the field and not in some basement-dwelling nerd's brain, bare with me. WAR - either the Fangraphs or Baseball Reference version - doesn't like Trout's defense this year. Check it out: Fangraphs: 3.3 overall (7th in the majors), with -1.0 Fielding Runs Baseball Reference: 2.2 overall, -1.1 dWAR BR is particularly negative - -1.1 dWAR reduces his oWAR of 3.2 to 2.1. To put that in context, last year Trout's oWAR was 8.8 and his dWAR was 2.1, with a total of 10.9 (Fangraphs had him at 10.0). So what gives? I've probably watched a half dozen games this year so can't make a clear judgment. Is his defense notably worse? Or is this just a statistical anomaly or even a whole in the use of WAR for defense?

I maintain that they'll have a great second half and be too far from contention for it to matter, but play just well enough to not get a top 10 draft pick. I voted 81-83, although I'd prefer a larger 75-85 win range.

George R.R. Martin is writing the script: MOD EDIT: Pic not appropriate due to language

I don't know about you, but I've had the sense that Mike Trout hasn't fully found his stride this year. Or rather, he's found his stride, his plateau level if you will, but he hasn't gotten really hot like we know he can - and he's still hitting .304/.373/.561 after tonight's game, on pace for something like 90 extra base hits. I don't expect him to get that much better, but he's already outperforming my projection (which was something like .300/.380/.530) and I think can get better - at least in the BA department, which will bring his overall numbers up. .320/.400/.580 by the end of the year? So at least we get to watch Trout play, put up gaudy numbers and cement his identity as the best overall player in the game - which I think he is (with nods to Miggy and Tulo).

If anything Aybar is underrated. Before this year three of his last four seasons had WARs of 3.6 to 3.9, which while not being a true star makes him a very good player. As Mark68 pointed out, he started slowly last year as well and had a very good season. That said... Good point. I think the "Segura Situation" is another example of poor talent judgment on the part of the Angels. Segura has already started to cool off (a bit) and my guess is more of a .300/.850 player than the .340/.950 player he's been so far. But that's still very, very good - and better than Kendrick and Aybar. If you have a star prospect who is more talented than your regulars, why extend the regulars and trade the prospect? I know, I know - how could Dipoto have known Segura would be this good? But the problem, again, is that time and time again Dipoto seems to miss the mark.