Monday, August 12, 2013

All I know about him is that he is from New Jersey. Not exactly a "Hot Bed" for Baseball development.

We never get to see this guy play. How did he get so good? Where, in New Jersey, is he from? Who were his mentors? I guess all this stuff is answered in your subscription to Sports Illustrated, Baseball News, etc, but I have no clue about him! And I am a "general public" senior citizen fan.

1. Mike Trout ($510,000), which should be no surprise. Trout is the best player in baseball, and he makes $20,000 over the league minimum. As Alex Rodriguez makes $29 million and Johan Santana$24.6 million and Vernon Wells $21 million (IS  VERNON WELLS STILL AROUND?) and Barry Zito $20 million and countless others stupid amounts of money, Trout is one of the lowest-paid players in the game and continues to set himself up for a historic raise at some point in the near future.
(Thanks to Cot's Baseball Contracts at Baseball Prospectus, the invaluable clearinghouse for all baseball salary information, for the previous and forthcoming dollar values.)
As magnificent as Trout was last year during his age-20 season, he has been even better this season, a staggering achievement seeing as he entered the year peerless already. Batting average? At .330, four points ahead of last year. On-base percentage? A mere .425 after his excellent .399. Slugging percentage? Just .572, up eight points from '12. Trout is walking more, striking out less, still excellent in the field and a terror on the basepaths.

2 comments:

Willy said...

He is from Millville Pea. I was just having a conversation about him when Seana and I were at the shore. Dude can play!

Joe Stats said...

My kind of ballplayer. As for comparing salaries..one of life's joys...statistics, performance, renegotiating contracts, timing, skills, drug testing...and only 21? what an exciting time..doncha love major league baseball? and let's not forget, Pat Burrell got $9 million to sign a major league contract at the same age...J.D.Drew got overe $10 million to sign.. if I had a child with skills and interest, I'd stear him to baseball. Trout is sooo underpaid.