The Unknown Superstar – Mike Trout’s 2016 Season Review

Opinion

What more can he do? The question begs to know if it’s possible for a player to get any better than Mike Trout in 2016 and what he must do to gain recognition in Major League Baseball as the most valuable player in the sport.  Trout’s legacy is summed up in two sobering facts; he’s the most valuable player over the last 5 years by a long shot and his value has had no impact on the Angels playoff appearances.

Once again, Mike Trout is the best.  No qualifications.  His fifth year again put him at the top of the WAR leader board bringing in 10.6 wins over the average replacement player. A full game better than the next closest player.  No other player has led the league in WAR 5 straight years in a row since Babe Ruth. He led the league in On Base Percentage (.441), Walks (116), Runs Scored (123) and Runs Created (148). He once again found a way to increase his batting average and his on base percentage and decrease his strikeouts for the third year in a row. He is the ONLY player in American league history to hit at least 25 home runs, steal at least 30 bases and have an on-base percentage over .440. Not even Mike Trout had done that before.

Despite this historic level of production, the Angels find themselves outside of the playoffs. A string of season-ending injuries on a team that had no margin for error left Trout’s team in the position for a top 10 draft slot. It’s possible that without Trout, the Angels could have won fewer than 60 games. Because his team wasn’t very good, some baseball writers think his season lacks the proper narrative to recognize Mike Trout as the single most valuable player in the American League. Possibly making this the fourth time Trout was robbed of the award. It seems for Trout to be properly valuable he needed to make better management decisions for the Angels while he was still in high school.

Mike of course made some stunning plays in the field, at the plate and on the base paths. Check out this diving catch to save extra bases

And this leaping catch on this birthday to take away a grand slam.

And this stinging extra base hit that he ran down with almost perfect efficiency.

You must see these two physics defying slides against the Blue Jays to believe they actually happened.

Mike Trout is proving himself to not only be the best player in professional baseball, but perhaps on his way to being the greatest of all time. It’s up the the Angels front office to surround him with teammates worthy of his level of play so that we can eventually see him in the postseason once again.

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