It’s bold prediction time here at the BJOL….I’ll throw up some haphazard prognostications for the coming season sometime next week. I’d like to start things off with a bold prediction involving a player seldom talked about on these pages: Halos leftfielder Mike Trout.

As no one at all noticed last year, Mike Trout led the American League in runs scored, tallying an impressive 129 runs in 139 games. Does he have a chance to break the single-season runs scored record?

Okay… let’s back away from that question for a moment, and ask a slightly less intimidating one: can Mike Trout score more runs than games played? Can he score at least one run per game over the course of a season?

This is an astonishingly rare feat: counting full seasons it’s happened exactly once in my years as a baseball fan: Rickey Henderson’s 1985 season (146 runs scored, 143 games). It’s probably happened once in your years as a baseball fan: the last season before Rickey was Joe DiMaggio’s 1937 season (151/151).

There are, I suppose, five basic components to raking up a lot of runs scored:

-Getting lots of at-bats.

-Getting on base.

-Having speed so you can get around the bases.

-Having other hitters who’ll help get you around the bases, and,

-Having power so you can get yourself around the bases.

What makes Mike Trout so strong a candidate is that he has all five components covered. He’s the leadoff hitter for an American League team, and he gets on base at a respectable rate. He gets around the bases at a more-than-respectable rate. He hits a lot of homers, and he has Albert Pujols and John Hamilton hitting behind him if he doesn’t hit a homer.

To check on Trout’s chances, I thought I’d take a gander at how he compares to other notable members (and near-members) to the Runs Scored > Games Played club. Here a list of ten interesting players, with their baseball card stats:

Name Year Runs G PA H 2B/3B HR BB SB S.B. Hamilton 1894 192 129 679 220 40 4 126 98 Hugh Duffy 1894 160 125 606 237 67 18 66 48 Babe Ruth 1921 177 152 693 204 60 59 145 17 Kiki Cuyler 1930 155 156 741 228 67 13 72 37 Chuck Klein 1930 158 156 721 250 67 40 54 4 Lou Gehrig 1936 167 155 719 205 44 49 130 3 Joe DiMaggio 1937 151 151 692 215 50 46 64 3 R. Henderson 1985 146 143 654 172 33 24 99 80 Jeff Bagwell 2000 152 159 719 183 38 47 107 9 Mike Trout 2012 129 139 639 182 35 30 67 49

What’s interesting in this list is how drastically different all of these players are. Slidin’ Billy Hamilton is sort of an uber-Brett Butler: a leadoff guy who chopped singles, walked, and stole bases. He must’ve been fun to watch.

Hugh Duffy, Kiki Cuyler, and Rickey fall into the category of fast players who could also hit a few out: maybe Rickey belongs with Hamilton as the two ‘true-speed’ leadoff guys, but Rickey out-homered Kiki and the Duff-Man, so we’re counting him with them.

The other five non-Trouts are pure sluggers: they can be divided into the sluggers who also walked a ton (Ruth, Gehrig, Bagwell), and the sluggers who didn’t walk that much (DiMaggio, Klein).

Because Trout didn’t play a full season, it’s a tad more accurate to look at rate stats, rather than raw numbers:

Name Runs OBP 1B% 2B/3B% HR% BB% SB% BABIP Hugh Duffy 160 .502 25.1% 11.0% 3.0% 10.9% 7.9% .433 S.B. Hamilton 192 .523 25.9% 5.9% 0.6% 18.6% 14.4% .414 Babe Ruth 177 .512 12.3% 8.6% 8.5% 20.9% 2.5% .363 Chuck Klein 158 .436 19.8% 9.3% 5.5% 7.5% 0.6% .376 Kiki Cuyler 155 .428 20.0% 9.0% 1.8% 9.7% 5.0% .371 Lou Gehrig 167 .478 15.6% 6.1% 6.8% 18.1% 40.0% .322 Joe DiMaggio 151 .412 17.2% 7.2% 6.6% 9.7% 0.4% .314 R. Henderson 146 .419 17.6% 5.1% 3.7% 15.1% 12.2% .320 Jeff Bagwell 152 .424 13.6% 15.1% 6.5% 14.9% 1.3% .313 Mike Trout 129 .399 18.3% 5.5% 4.7% 10.5% 7.7% .383

Just to clarify: singles, doubles+triples, HR, walks, and stolen bases are all divided by plate appearances…how often did each players single? How often did they walk? How often did they steal a base? I threw in batting-average-on-balls-in-play, too, just for fun.

Let’s see where Trout ranks among these luminaries:

Name OBP S.B. Hamilton .523 Babe Ruth .512 Hugh Duffy .502 Lou Gehrig .478 Chuck Klein .436 Kiki Cuyler .428 Jeff Bagwell .424 R. Henderson .419 Joe DiMaggio .412 Mike Trout .399

Trout ranks last in on-base percentage, which is a slightly auspicious start to this adventure. Getting on-base is centrally important to scoring runs. Trout is near DiMaggio and Henderson.

Name 1B% S.B. Hamilton 25.9% Hugh Duffy 25.1% Kiki Cuyler 20.0% Chuck Klein 19.8% Mike Trout 18.3% R. Henderson 17.6% Joe DiMaggio 17.2% Lou Gehrig 15.6% Jeff Bagwell 13.6% Babe Ruth 12.3%

Trout is comfortably in the middle of the pack in terms of his singles rate. Trout should do well in this category, because he’s extremely fast. He’s ahead of Rickey and the sluggers.

Name 2B/3B% Jeff Bagwell 15.1% Hugh Duffy 11.0% Chuck Klein 9.3% Kiki Cuyler 9.0% Babe Ruth 8.6% Joe DiMaggio 7.2% Lou Gehrig 6.1% S.B. Hamilton 5.9% Mike Trout 5.5% R. Henderson 5.1%

Trout is towards the bottom of this list, but within range of Rickey, Gehrig, and SBH. It’s worth noting that it was a lot easier to hit a triple in the 1930’s than it is in the 2010’s.

Name HR% Babe Ruth 8.5% Lou Gehrig 6.8% Joe DiMaggio 6.6% Jeff Bagwell 6.5% Chuck Klein 5.5% Mike Trout 4.7% R. Henderson 3.7% Hugh Duffy 3.0% Kiki Cuyler 1.8% S.B. Hamilton 0.6%

Trout is in the middle of the pack here. Side bar: the big question about Trout going forward is about his power…about whether he’s more of a mid-range power hitter, or a potential slugger. He hit 23 homeruns in 286 minor league games, and then hit 30 in 139 major league games last year….a lot of folks anticipate a regression there. I’ll just mention that Jeff Bagwell hit a paltry six homers in 206 minor league games.

Name BB% Babe Ruth 20.9% S.B. Hamilton 18.6% Lou Gehrig 18.1% R. Henderson 15.1% Jeff Bagwell 14.9% Hugh Duffy 10.9% Mike Trout 10.5% Kiki Cuyler 9.7% Joe DiMaggio 9.7% Chuck Klein 7.5%

Trout’s walk rate, which could certainly improve considering his age, is already respectable: he’s not in the category of the great walkers, but he’s holding his own.

Name SB% S.B. Hamilton 14.4% R. Henderson 12.2% Hugh Duffy 7.9% Mike Trout 7.7% Kiki Cuyler 5.0% Babe Ruth 2.5% Jeff Bagwell 1.3% Chuck Klein 0.6% Lou Gehrig 0.4% Joe DiMaggio 0.4%

What is startling is how seldom DiMaggio stole a base, for being such a well-rounded player. I guess I’d stay on first, too, if I had Lou Gehrig hitting next.



Speed is sort of the underrated metric: in addition to stealing 49 bases (in 54 attempts), Trout went first-to-third on a single 28 times last year. He scored from first on a double seven times. He went from second to home on a single twenty times. That’s 55 extra bases that Mike Trout tallied that aren’t reflected in his stolen base count. If there is a point where Trout excels, it’s in his ability to get around the bases once he gets on.

Name BABIP Hugh Duffy .433 S.B. Hamilton .414 Mike Trout .383 Chuck Klein .376 Kiki Cuyler .371 Babe Ruth .363 Lou Gehrig .322 R. Henderson .320 Joe DiMaggio .314 Jeff Bagwell .313

Unsurprisingly, Trout does well in the BABIP category. While a rate of .383 seems unsustainable, Trout has routinely had extremely high batting averages on balls-in-play throughout his career. Granted, the defense in the minor leagues isn’t as good as defense in the majors, but Trout should be able to post a BABIP north of .330 for a few years to come.

Among the players who have scored a lot of runs, Trout can generally hold his own. That said, there is one metric where Trout needs to make up some ground: contact rate. Simply put, he strikes out a lot more than these other guys:

Name K% Hugh Duffy 2.5% S.B. Hamilton 2.5% Joe DiMaggio 5.4% Lou Gehrig 6.4% Kiki Cuyler 6.6% Chuck Klein 7.0% R. Henderson 9.9% Babe Ruth 11.7% Jeff Bagwell 16.1% Mike Trout 21.8%

I suppose that Henderson is the closest ‘match’ to Trout: I don’t know that Trout will develop into a pure power hitter of the Ruth/Gehrig/Bagwell variety, and he’s not a singles hitter like (the elder) Billy Hamilton. DiMaggio seems a logical fit, but DiMaggio and Trout have drastically different approaches at the plate. DiMaggio excelled at making contact, and ended up walking about twice as often as he struck out. Trout will probably exceed DiMaggio’s single-season high in walks (80), but Trout is already halfway to DiMaggio’s strikeout record. So Rickey Henderson, the last player to average more than a run per game in a season, seems Trout’s closest comparable.

Trout’s actual comparables are players like Eric Davis, Mickey Mantle, and Vada Pinson: fast outfielders who could hit for power and get on base at a young age. Of the three, Mantle put up the most impressive tallies of runs scored, leading the AL five times in seven years.

Trout’s biggest issue is his strikeout rate, which reduces his ability to get on base. His strikeout rate increased slightly during the second half of the season (from 19.7% to 23.5%), but his walk rate also increased (from 8.6% to 12.0%). In spring training, Trout has drawn seven walks to six strikeouts, and though we’re talking about small sample sizes, there are a few indictation that Trout’s on-base percentage will improve in 2013.

* * *

Could Trout break the record for runs scored?

The ‘modern’ record is Ruth’s 177 runs scored, from 1921. Ruth had a season best described as ‘Ruthian’: he out-homered every team in the league, and posted an on-base percentage of .512. It is unlikely that Trout will out-homer, say, the Blue Jays (unlikely: not impossible), and it is unlikely that Trout will make outs in fewer than half of his plate appearance.

That said, Trout has a few edges over Babe Ruth. For one thing, Trout will be hitting leadoff for a team that will play 162 games in 2013…while Babe Ruth tallied an impressive 693 plate appearances for the Yankees in 1921, Trout could eclipse that by twenty or thirty appearances. And while Ruth has an edge in power and walks, Trout has a distinct advantage on the bases: Trout is more likely to score on a single or a walk than Babe Ruth. Ruth was backed up by Wally Pip and Bob Meusel…Meusel was excellent in 1921, but Wally Pip, the cleanup hitter in most of Ruth’s games, was a little less than league average as a hitter. This should’ve put aside any talk about ‘protection’ a century ago, but it didn’t.

Billy Hamilton’s record, whether you want to credit him with 192 or 198 runs scored, is a magnitude harder. Hamilton notched his record playing for the 1894 Phillies, a team that averaged 8.9 runs scored per game, but finished just fourth in the NL. Baseball-reference has Hamilton as appearing in 132 games in 1894, which is strange considering that the Phillies record (71-57) adds up to just 128 games. Whatever the math, the team was deep with hitters: Lave Cross hit .387, which was good enough for fifth on the team (Ed Delahanty, Sam Thompson, and Hamilton all topped .400, as did half-time outfielder Tuck Turner). Hamilton, who posted an on-base percentage of .521, was aided around the bases by seven batters who got on-base at a clip better than .400. Not that he needed help: he stole 100 bases.

Hamilton’s record, set in a tremendously high-offense era, is unlikely to be broken. Ruth’s 177 mark is similarly distant, though Trout has a few advantages over Ruth that make him, at least, an interesting candidate. I doubt he’ll pass either player.

The record that Mike Trout could threaten is the post-WWII tally for runs scored: 152, collected by Jeff Bagwell in 2000. And Trout could be the first player to score more runs than games played since Rickey Henderson accomplished the feat in 1985.

My first bold prediction for 2013? That he does one or the other. Mike Trout with either score 152+ runs in 2013, or he’ll score more runs than games played.

The rest of the predictions are coming.

David Fleming is a writer living in Wellington, New Zealand. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com. He’d like to give a shout-out to the New Zealand Black Sox, who won the Fast-Pitch Softball World Championships in Auckland last week.