Steamer and I: Mike Trout – A Review

Today, I start my reviews of my Steamer and I series that happened to cover mainly outfielders (not by design). The series compared my Pod Projection to the Steamer projection, as I discussed the players I was either significantly more bullish or bearish on compared to the system. We start with Mike Trout, who I was far more bearish on than Steamer. It was an interesting exercise for me since I had no idea I was in that position to begin with. Diving it to determine why was an enlightening activity.

For the projection comparison, all 2015 and Steamer counting stats have been extrapolated to the same number of plate appearances I forecasted. I was more concerned about performance rates than who could do a better job of projecting playing time. Besides, all the players I discussed had full-time jobs locked up anyway.

It’s nice that I nearly nailed the plate appearance projection so we don’t have to mentally adjust the counting stats. Trout ended up hitting 32 doubles for the second straight year, and both Steamer were two and one off with our forecasts, respectively. Despite a jump in Spd, Trout hit just five triples this year, which set a new career low. His triples total has now dropped a second straight season after peaking at nine in 2013 and 2014.

The home runs is where we had the biggest disagreement and what led to the wOBA discrepancy. In 2015, Trout set a new career high in HR/FB rate at 25.3%. My xHR/FB rate equation suggested that this was a fluke and highly unsustainable. So I figured decline, projecting a HR/FB rate of 20%. I basically nailed it, as Trout’s actual mark fell to 19%, meaning Steamer was way too high. I would guess that Steamer took his 2015 home run surge more seriously because of his age, but I had access to the underlying components driving the power and they simply didn’t line up with a mid-20% HR/FB rate. I think a high teen HR/FB rate is definitely where Trout’s true talent level lies right now.

We were both far off on Trout’s walk rate as he set a new career best and finished second highest in baseball. But looking at his Plate Discipline metrics, it’s hard to figure out what drove the higher walk rate. Usually it’s either swinging less often (decline in Swing%), fewer strikes seen (lower Zone%), more swings and misses that extend the at-bat (jump in SwStk%), or some combination of the three. While his Zone% did fall to a new career low, it wasn’t a significant drop, and his other metrics were right in line with his career averages. He was also intentionally walked two fewer times than in 2015, so that’s not the explanation. Obviously, it would be silly to project a repeat regardless of what the Plate Discipline metrics suggested, but since they don’t seem to support such a spike, I’m taking the under on Steamer’s 2017 15.6% walk rate projection.

After a jump in strikeout rate in 2014, Trout improved some in 2015, and while I projected another round of improvement, Steamer projected even more, and Trout actually beat us all. Surprisingly, Trout actually doesn’t swing and miss all that often, so his league average strikeout rate has more to do with his extreme patience at the plate (below average Swing%) than an inability to make consistent contact. He’ll probably again be in the low 20% range unless he consciously decides to change his approach and become more aggressive at the plate. That would reduce his walk and strikeout rates in tandem.

It’s rare that Steamer projects a high BABIP, and 95% of the time, my BABIP projection is seemingly higher. But sure enough, it forecasted a higher mark for Trout than I did, but not by much. Trout ended up getting back to his heyday of 2013 and 2013 with a vastly inflated mark, though there wasn’t much change in his batted ball profile to support the rebound from his 2015 low.

So between the higher ISO fueled by a heftier home run total and a slightly higher BABIP, Steamer projected a wOBA 0.021 points higher than me, which is pretty huge for a veteran like Trout. And Steamer ended up nailing the wOBA on the head! However, the process was wrong so I can’t give them full credit. The inflated walk rate and BABIP were enough to offset the miss on ISO. At least I was right about the ISO and homers, even if I was wrong about most everything else!