There's a new Mike Trout roaming the baseball landscape early in 2015. And so far, he looks suspiciously like the old Mike Trout, who most everyone knew and loved as the game's best player.
That's the takeaway you get when looking at Trout's numbers. In 19 games, the Los Angeles Angels Angels center fielder is slashing .318/.432/.545 with four home runs, five stolen bases and a .978 OPS.
Among the game's elite players, numbers like these place Trout about where you'd expect. On Monday morning, he ranked in the top 10 in the American League in adjusted OPS and behind only three other players in Wins Above Replacement.
Because Trout led everyone in adjusted OPS and WAR between 2012 and 2014, it might be tempting to say his current positions in both categories were inevitable. But if you rack your brain, you'll remember that Trout being his usual self in 2015 wasn't supposed to be a sure thing.
Though Trout captured an overdue MVP award in 2014, it was a down season by his standards. His average fell from the mid-.320s to just .287, and his OPS fell to .939 from .988 the previous season. He went from being "easily" baseball's best player to "arguably" baseball's best player.
After a year like that, it was clear that making an adjustment or two would be in Trout's best interest. And that, naturally, brings us to where this "new" Mike Trout is coming from.
If you already know where we're going, that's either (a) because you can read headlines or (b) because Trout wasn't keeping any secrets in spring training about what he wanted to do in 2015.
In February, Trout told Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times that one of his biggest goals for 2015 was cutting down on his strikeouts after leading the AL with 184 of them in 2014. When asked in early March to elaborate on his plan, Trout made a point about being more aggressive.
"Throughout my career, I've been taking," he said. "I like to see pitches, but I'm going to get locked and loaded on the first pitch. If it's in the zone, I'm going to take a hack at it."
In theory, swinging at pitches that are good to hit instead of taking them makes perfect sense. And according to a person in the know, this was the right idea for Trout to pursue.
An advisor to an AL team told this to Anthony Castrovince of Sports on Earth: "The book on Trout is to get a first-pitch strike on him, because he usually takes on first pitches. ... So what I want to know is what happens when he starts swinging at more first pitches. How does that change everything else?"
As far as that last question is concerned, Trout hinted at what he could do with more early swings with his spring performance. He hit .441 with a 1.362 OPS, numbers that, as he told Bob Nightengale of USA Today, had a lot to do with his newfound aggressive approach.
But now we're in the regular season, and we don't need to take his word for it about what's behind his production anymore. We can see for ourselves.
Not surprisingly, what we can see is some pretty good stuff.
Trout is indeed being more aggressive. He's doubled his first-pitch swing rate, going from 10.6 in 2014 to 21.0 this year. And according to FanGraphs, his overall swing rate is at a career-high 41.7 percent.
Now, you'd think that these extra swings would be leading to shorter, easier at-bats. But actually, the opposite has happened. Trout is working on a career-high rate of 4.52 pitches per plate appearance and, according to Baseball Savant, seeing more two-strike pitches than ever before.
But this isn't to say Trout's extra swings have been wasted. It just means we have to go back to something else he said during spring training.
As told to DiGiovanna: "Being aggressive on that first pitch is getting me ready to hit better than just taking."
Or, translated: You can be a better hitter by swinging than you can by taking.
That Trout's strikeout rate has dropped from an ugly 26.1 percent last year to a more reasonable 19.8 percent this year says this new outlook is working for him, and it's no mirage. He has a career-low 5.7 swinging-strike rate, as well as a career-high 36.8 foul-ball percentage.
There's no need to explain the value of a low whiff rate, but don't underestimate the value of a high foul-ball rate. Many believe foul balls are a valuable skill, including former major leaguer Gabe Kapler:
That Trout has improved his whiff and foul-ball rates despite being more aggressive looks good enough on its own. But what can make these two strengths look even better is how they're stemming largely from an area that had previously been a key weakness.
One of the worst-kept secrets in baseball in 2014 was how much Trout was struggling against high fastballs. He saw a lot of them, and Baseball Savant says he hit a career-low .113 against them.
In 2015, Trout is seeing even more high heat. But he's handling it a lot better, as he's 6-for-22 (.273) against the high hard stuff. That's obviously a small sample, but there are good reasons for it. Though Trout has being similarly aggressive against high heat, his whiff and foul rates against it have improved dramatically:
As such, Trout's aggressiveness hasn't just helped him solve his strikeout problem. It's also helped him take away the best weapon pitchers had against him in 2014. More so than ever before, he's dictating his own at-bats.
And in a big-picture sense, it's not hard to see how this is benefiting him.
Easily the biggest benefit of Trout's new approach is something he hinted was coming: domination within the strike zone.
Given how much he killed pitches in the zone between 2012 and 2014 when he did swing, it was frustrating how infrequent Trout's in-zone swings were. But so far in 2015, he's drastically ramped up his in-zone swing rate (Z-Swing%) and, per Baseball Savant, is crushing in-zone pitches better than before:
Trout's increased aggressiveness and production against in-zone pitches accounts for the bulk of his overall production. Just as important, though, is how this transition doesn't come with the expected downside.
One thing you fear with hitters who are being more aggressive is that they might also be chasing more pitches outside the zone. But this hasn't been the case with Trout. His chase rate (O-Swing%) hasn't increased nearly as much as his zone rate (Zone%) has dropped:
When you mix good discipline and a small percentage of pitches in the zone like that, you're going to walk a lot. So it has been with Trout, who's working on a career-best 16.0 BB%.
Add it all up, and what we're seeing in 2015 is Trout at his very best as a hitter.
By becoming more aggressive, Trout has been able to fix things that were ailing him in 2015. And by mashing in the strike zone and still maintaining enough discipline to take his walks, he's enjoying the best of both worlds like never before.
Basically, he's answering the challenge that was issued in 2014. The league sent a message that Trout was going to have to get better if he wanted to remain the best. He's done that, and in the process, Trout has sent a message of his own:
How 'bout something a little harder next time?
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.
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