Hello Baseball Fans,
It is officially spring time! That means our thirty big league teams are about to break training camp and head home for real games that count! And that means less favorable weather than the Cactus and Grapefruit leagues too, which adds some flavor at times. But that is a story for another day. As the final preparations and predictions are made before the first pitch of what is planned to be a full schedule of 162 games in the 2021 MLB season, let us think about games played. Also simply known as ‘G’ on your baseball cards and www.baseball-reference.com pages, etc. Games played are important and thus listed as the first numerical item of each season, even before plate appearances (PA) for every day players.
Why are ‘G’ listed first? Because they are very telling. It’s a necessary precursor for anything else that player did in the associated season. If you read that a player appeared in 15 games, you know he is either a young guy who ‘had a few cups of coffee with the big club’ or an old guy who is on the path toward a coaching career, a role player on the team, or someone who sustained a significant injury. Just by reading that ‘G’, you have great insight into the player’s status and the accompanying stats as you scroll with your eyes to the right of the card or screen. If a player has those 15 games played and later you see his .416 batting average (5 hits in 12 AB in limited innings for example), you know that Ted Williams is safe as the last guy to bat .400 for a qualified batting season. Thus, very informative that ‘G’.
Major league ballplayers play the most of any sports star. Every day for years and years. One hundred sixty-two games in a regular season. A solid month of Spring Training. And with any luck, a couple more weeks or better in the post-season. Appearing in 180 games or more is feasible even with some days off due to being a bit more than dinged up or a planned rest day. It is an impressive feat that we’ve harped on before here at the VFTD. So let’s stop harping and start counting!
One thousand two hundred fifty-two games played (1,252 G). That is a bunch of games! Approximately 1,100 players, or roughly 5.5 to 6.0 percent of all 20,0000 players in MLB’s history have appeared in 1,252 or more career games. That is a small crowd that gets significantly smaller. Following the 2020 season, at least two players have played in exactly 1,252 games. The first is the all-time leader for games played by a pitcher. That would be Jesse Orosco, the lefty relief specialist who started a mere 4 games in his career. The other player with exactly 1,252 games played is none other than Mike Trout. And he is 33rd in games played among current players. Now, it was a pretty cool find that the game’s best current player has played the same amount of games as the all-time pitching leader for games played. That will change on Opening Day 2021 of course and that’s not why we’re here either.
We are here to compare Mr. Mike Trout to the Number Three 3 all-time leader in games played. That would be Mr. Henry Aaron. Hammerin’ Hank played in 3,298 career games. While there are many ways to compare Trout and Aaron to one another, we are going to do it based on their first….you guessed it, 1,252 career games. For Trout, it was easy, we just had to scroll along the bottom totals of his stats. For Aaron, we had to do some math and review of some game-by-game batting logs on the aforementioned baseball-reference.com website in order to know where exactly Aaron logged his 1,252nd game. We added up his stats totals from 1954 to 1961 and then his first 58 games of the ’62 season to make the 1,252nd game cut off point. As it turned it, Aaron played that 1,252nd game on June 10th, 1962 in the nightcap of a doubleheader (and yes, he of course played in the opener as well).
The results? Guaranteed to be interesting considering who we are even talking about! Ha! If you’ve wondered why current players tip their caps in unison to Trout as the best or you don’t really follow WAR values as they accumulate throughout a player’s career, these numbers will demonstrate why Trout does indeed measure up with anyone. Whether it’s the WAR or the old school ‘counting stats’ of hits, etc., Aaron is a great of greats no matter your tools of measurement and Trout is stride for stride with Aaron at the least to this point in their careers. Here’s the data:
Trout has actually gathered 66 more plate appearances, which is nearly a tie considering the sample sizes being about 5,500 each. Aaron has 395 more at-bats, but that is in part due to his advantage of a .318 to .304 batting average as well as Trout walking a whopping 416 more times than Aaron’s 422 BBs in this span. Hold on tight, it’s a heavyweight battle and the back and forth might make you dizzy!
Trout actually scored 72 more runs at 944 while Aaron pounded out 190 more hits at 1,570. Trout got himself into scoring position for many of those runs by stealing 140 more bags than Aaron while only getting caught stealing a miniscule 8 more times than Aaron at 37!
Hammerin’ Hank tacked on 17 more doubles and 23 more triples than Trout with 277 and 71, respectively. Aaron struck out 698 less times than Trout. And he also drove in 102 more runs at an even 900. However, Trout a.k.a. the Millville Meteor, actually outhomered Hank by a tally of 302 to 263. Didn’t see that one coming!
So out of the 13 categories of PA, AB, R, H, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, SB, CS, BB, SO, and Batting Average (BA), Trout was favorable in 6 and Aaron was favorable in 7 categories. And here’s a kicker: Aaron had 1,992 combined walks and hits in this span. Trout raised him by 226 to rack up 2,218 combined walks and hits. Also, Aaron had one season with an OBP of .399+ and three seasons of a Slugging Percentage (SLG) of .600+. Trout even countered both of those with an impressive 7 seasons of OBP of .399+ and four seasons with a SLG of .600+. WOW!!
As the ‘counting stats’ show here, Trout is in the running, conversation, and the picture or anything else one may look at. Aaron is a greatest of greats and always well respected. As we have said, he is the benchmark for a super talent to be compared with. Aaron maintained his high level of play for an extended time to say the least. Trout will have to have many more great seasons to maintain this pace. However, he is almost half way to 3,000 hits and in the 300 HR club already so it was deemed a worthy point to see how his stats measure up. Whether fans fully understand or agree or disagree with the hoopla or not when it comes to Trout, he is a great talent and consistently produces at the highest of levels. Tune in for his games when you can fans. And set the ‘old school’ DVR if necessary. You know we do!!
Later Baseball Fans.