Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Ranking The Best Players At Ages 20 & 21 Combined

Here are the top 10 in Fagraphs WAR for ages 20 & 21 combined. The first numbers games played. Trout has alot more WAR than anyone in alot fewer games

Mike Trout 250 17.3
Mel Ott 298 14.9
Rogers Hornsby 284 14.5
Alex Rodriguez 287 13.9
Ted Williams 293 13.8
Al Kaline 305 13.6
Ty Cobb 300 13.2
Jimmie Foxx 267 12.9
Frank Robinson 302 12.4
Ken Griffey Jr. 308 11.9

Now the same thing from Baseball Refernce. Trout seems like the greatest 20-21 year old ever. Willie Mays had 3.9 WAR (again Baseball Ref) at age 20 and at 21 spent most of the year in the Military. Not sure, but it looks like Ruth had 14.9 combined hitting and pitching at 20-21 (again Baseball Ref)

Mike Trout 250 16.9
Alex Rodriguez 287 14.9
Al Kaline 305 14.9
Rogers Hornsby 284 14.7
Mel Ott 298 13.8
Frank Robinson 302 13.4
Ted Williams 293 13
Ty Cobb 300 13
Jimmie Foxx 267 12.6
Ken Griffey 309 12.3

According to Bill James, Trout has 26 Win Shares so far this year. That is a pace to get about 38, the same total he had last year. So let's call this 76. Also according to James, these are all the position players with 30+ Win Shares at age 20 (that is the first number-the second is at age 21 and then the total of the two years)

Ty Cobb 41 + 36 = 77
A-Rod 34 + 22 = 56 
Mickey Mantle 32 + 26 = 58
Ted Williams 32 + 30 = 62
Al Kaline 31 + 26 = 57  
Mel Ott 31 + 28 = 59 

Trout has 64 Win Shares combined at the two ages in just 250 games. My guess is that the other guys played more. Once this year is over, Trout will have played about 300 games over these two years. Cobb had exactly 300. Trout could be just about tied with Cobb and way ahead of everyone else.

2 comments:

Andrew said...

Good stuff. Did you happen to look at players with the highest WAR over their first 250 games? So a player who made their debut at 23 could be included.

Cyril Morong said...

Thanks for dropping by and commenting. I am not sure I know how to do that by games played. I will look into it