most successful career: Trout or Harper?

craig44

lets assume Philly wins the WS. I know it is far far from over, but play along. by the end of their careers, whos will be most successful?
Trout: 3 MVP only playoff failure
Harper: 2 MVP, 1 ROY, 1 WS

edit to add, Trout also won ROY in 2012

JoeBanzai

Both are multi millionaire's, from hearing retired players, winning a championship is very important.

Hard to do if your owner isn't signing good players.

What about if Trout makes the HOF and Harper doesn't, and Harper's team wins one WS but Trout's team never does?

craig44

@JoeBanzai said:
Both are multi millionaire's, from hearing retired players, winning a championship is very important.

Hard to do if your owner isn't signing good players.

What about if Trout makes the HOF and Harper doesn't, and Harper's team wins one WS but Trout's team never does?

While a lot can happen, Harper is definitely on pace for a HOF career. on pace for well over 500 HR, 600 2b, 3000 hits. he just played his age 29 season. he is still in his prime and could contend for another MVP or 2 before its over.

JoeBanzai

The key word in your OP is "successful".

While Trout's numbers are clearly quite a bit better than Harper's, if they both make the HOF and only one plays on a Championship team, that guy is more "successful" imo.

thisistheshow

@JoeBanzai said:
The key word in your OP is "successful".

While Trout's numbers are clearly quite a bit better than Harper's, if they both make the HOF and only one plays on a Championship team, that guy is more "successful" imo.

...
@craig44 Needs to define successful, right? If Trout retires and is considered the best hitter of the last few generations and maybe ever, and doesn't win a WS, and Harper wins one and continues on his pace, most will say Trout was more successful imo. I wouldn't agree.

craig44

I used the word, "successful" very purposefully. It is clear that Trout, thus far, has been better in the regular season. It is also, just as clear, that Harper has been better in the postseason.

I am assuming we are about halfway through their careers, although that may not be the case with Trout with all of the injury struggles.

Is it better to be fantastic during the regular season and not sniff the playoffs or have any playoff success the one time there, or to be very good/great during the regular season and be a big contributor during the playoffs/win a title?

I have not done a statistical analysis, but I wonder how the pressure of a playoff-bound player affects his numbers compared to a player who is not under the pressure of a playoff push.

I think most every of Trout's august/Septembers, the Angels have been nowhere near the playoff picture and he could afford to play "free"

Maywood

Too much goes into winning a WS to criticize an individual player for a team not accomplishing that. Mike Trout would most likely have a better chance of doing that anywhere else in MLB. The Angels have been a waste of his great talent and their management doesn't seem to know or care about how to build a team around Trout.

daltex

Ha ha ha.

Basis for comparison: https://stathead.com/baseball/player-comparison.cgi?player_id2=harpebr03&type=b&player_id1=troutmi01&sum=0&request=1#compare_batting_standard

Just for fun, I pretended this was 1952 and compared Ted Williams to Charlie Keller. https://stathead.com/baseball/player-comparison.cgi?request=1&sum=1&player_id1=kellech01&player_id2=willite01&p2yrfrom=1939&p2yrto=1952&type=b#compare_batting_standard

Harper and Trout are closer than Keller and Williams, but not by a lot. Example: OPS+ is 34 different compared to 38 and WAR is 39.9 different compared to 39.2. Not sure if it was clear Keller was done in 1952. Williams was even worse than Trout in the postseason (he'd never get another shot), while it's difficult to compare Harper to Keller because there are so many more games in a "successful" season now, but the rate stats are similar. So a little older, but roughly the same point in their careers, would anyone pick Keller over Williams?

1951WheatiesPremium

Ted Williams is a great comparison - the best hitter in the league won nothing, owing mostly to incompetence of ownership.

No one thinks Ted Williams sucked.

It’s very clear that people have strong opinions of Mike Trout - in both directions - but he is a generational talent.

As for Harper, he’s also a special talent and has also had his fair share of injuries. The Phillies haven’t won anything yet and both players are on a Hall of Fame trajectory but both of them have enough career left to potentially impact the final opinion.

Right now, I would say it’s Mike Trout by a decent margin but there’s enough race left for Harper to pull even and maybe even pass him…