The Mike Trout Wager: First Quarter Report

Mike Trout was the subject of much discussion and debate this offseason, and the debate culminated in a wager between me and Bill.  I'm actually not 100% sure whether or not Bill agreed to the wager in the end, but it's still fun to talk about, and perhaps Bill can confirm now whether he still wants to do it.  I'm certainly still agreeable to the original terms.

To review, the wager was an over/under bet on Trout's performance in each of the 5 roto categories, with the winner being whoever is on the right side in more categories.  Bill took all the unders, and I took all the overs.  The over/unders were set at 124.5 runs, 27.5 HRs, 80.5 RBIs, .3045 AVG, and 44.5 steals.

Mike Trout now has 40 games under his belt, so I thought this would be a good time to check in and see what he's on pace for.  Here are his numbers last year, so far this year, the over/unders, and what he's on pace for:

	G	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG
2012	139	639	129	30	83	49	.326
2013	40	187	27	8	29	7	.293
O/Us			124.5	27.5	80.5	44.5	.305
Pace	162	757	109	32	117	28	.293

I'm looking very good in RBI, looking kind of good in HR, but Bill has the other 3 categories and thus is winning.  Trout is off to a great start by normal human standards (#2 on Player Rater right now, behind Miguel Cabrera), but he has certainly fallen off a bit from last year's insane production.

Bill was right to try and increase the RBI O/U, although at Trout's current pace it probably won't end up making a difference.  The main change here that came a couple weeks into the season was Trout getting moved to 2nd in the batting order.  That's a big plus for RBIs but means fewer PAs and fewer runs.  Trout's run production has also suffered relative to last year, thanks to a 35 point drop in OBP, not having a .313 hitting Torii Hunter next in the order, and both Pujols and Hamilton majorly underperforming.

Here's a look at some of Trout's peripheral stats this year and last:

	OBP	SLG	BB%	K%	BABIP	HR/FB	ISO
2012	.399	.564	10.5%	21.8%	.383	21.6%	.238
2013	.364	.549	10.2%	17.6%	.317	19.0%	.256

Slugging and walk rate are pretty much steady.  The slight uptick in ISO, despite a small decline in HR/FB, I think bodes well for Trout's overall production.

If I were Bill, I'd be concerned by that 4.2% drop in K%.  The sample size is still small at this point, but if Trout can keep his strikeouts this low while continuing to hit home runs at the same rate, he really won't need all that insane of a BABIP in order to beat the .305 batting average O/U.   During the pre-season discussion, Caleb pointed out that we might see a significant skill improvement like this with Trout, since he's only 21.  So far, it looks like Caleb was right.

Bottom line:  So far the pace numbers are in Bill's favor, but the peripherals offer hope for Trout to make me the winner by taking AVG, if Trout can get his BABIP up to the .330-.340 range.