WAR Leaders Per 162 Games Since 2012

Data from Baseball Reference Play Index. For all guys with 20+ WAR since the beginning of the 2012 season. Through games of May 23 this year. If I only did 2013-2017 and look at guys with 15+ WAR, Trout edges Donaldson 9.72-8.02. Trout had 12.59 WAR per 162 games in 2012.

Player	WAR	Age	G	Per 162
Mike Trout	51.3	20-25	813	10.22
Josh Donaldson	33.1	26-31	713	7.52
Adrian Beltre	32.1	33-37	761	6.83
Robinson Cano	34.5	29-34	830	6.73
Joey Votto	28	28-33	696	6.52
Paul Goldschmidt	31.2	24-29	778	6.50
Manny Machado	25.5	19-24	651	6.35
Buster Posey	30.1	25-30	776	6.28
Miguel Cabrera	29.9	29-34	777	6.23
Nolan Arenado	22.7	22-26	607	6.06
Lorenzo Cain	21.9	26-31	595	5.96
Starling Marte	21.5	23-28	612	5.69
Giancarlo Stanton	21.6	22-27	621	5.63
Andrelton Simmons	22.8	22-27	670	5.51
Dustin Pedroia	24.6	28-33	723	5.51
Bryce Harper	23.7	19-24	698	5.50
Jason Heyward	24.9	22-27	738	5.47
Ian Kinsler	26.4	30-35	799	5.35
Anthony Rizzo	22.9	22-27	745	4.98
Andrew McCutchen	25	25-30	815	4.97
Freddie Freeman	23.1	22-27	769	4.87
Jose Bautista	20.2	31-36	680	4.81
Kyle Seager	23.9	24-29	836	4.63
Ben Zobrist	22	31-36	772	4.62
Alex Gordon	20.6	28-33	744	4.49
Edwin Encarnacion	21.1	29-34	771	4.43
Jose Altuve	22.3	22-27	817	4.42
Evan Longoria	20.5	26-31	762	4.36

Trout Off To The Best 40 Game Start Of His Career

His OPS so far this year is 1.223 (AVG .350, OBP .466, SLG .757). Starting with 2012, here are his OPS numbers through 40 games each year starting with 2012 with the league average in parentheses after:

2012) .977 (.731)
2013) .912 (.725)
2014) .888 (.706)
2015) .941 (.730)
2016) .975 (.744)
2017) 1.223 (.733)

(the league averages are for the whole season). Trout had 3 months prior to this season with an OPS of at least 1.200 (minimum of 75 PAs). But no one ever plays 40 games in a month.

So I used enough games from the months before and after to see if he had any 40 game stretches that at least match the 1.223 OPS of this year. There was one, which includes July 2015 when his OPS was 1.323 in 21 games. Adding in his last 19 games from June would give him an OPS of 1.239 (all data from Baseball Reference using player splits and game logs).

So this is probably his 2nd best 40 game stretch of his career.

In terms of OPS differential, the Cubs are having an historically large year over year decline

Last year, the Cubs had the 3rd best OPS differential since 1914 and best since 1939. See Cubs finish tied for 3rd best OPS differential since 1914 & tied for best since 1939. But so far this year, it is -.015 (.715 - .730).

I looked at the top 10 teams before last year in OPS differential (your team hitting OPS minus the OPS your pitchers allow) and how they did the following year. The lowest of the "next year" OPS differential for any of the previous top 10 teams was .043 (the 1940 Yankees). So none of them ended up close to negative.

The Cubs still have time to turn things around. But last year they were +.139. So their swing or decline is .154, much higher than any of the previous top 10. The biggest drop among them was .115 for the 1939-1940 Yankees. The drop of .154 would be the third biggest drop of ANY team from 1914-2014. The only teams worse are the 1915 A's, whose decline was .186 and the 1998 Marlins, whose decline was .157. And both of those teams lost many of their good players. The A's owner, Connie Mack sold some of his best players (if I recall correctly, it was because they got swept by the underdog Braves the World Series in 1914). The Marlins won the series in 1997 but did not want to pay to keep many of their good players in 1998.

Here is how those 10 did the next year

Team	Year	OPS DIFF	Next year	Decline
NYY	1927	0.196	0.094	0.102
NYY	1939	0.158	0.043	0.115
ATL	1998	0.139	0.086	0.053
BAL	1969	0.136	0.080	0.056
NYY	1936	0.131	0.121	0.010
STL	1944	0.130	0.044	0.086
STL	1942	0.127	0.114	0.013
CLE	1948	0.127	0.046	0.081
NYY	1998	0.126	0.089	0.037
SEA	2001	0.126	0.044	0.082