Remember Mike Trout? He was the runaway AL MVP until he tore ligaments in his thumb in May. At the time he was hitting .337/.461/.742 with 10 of 11 steals.
He's been back for three weeks and he's doing it again. It appears that the injury has sapped his power, as his slugging has dropped 100 points. He's now down to a desultory .368/.476/.646. He's only crushed five home runs in his 18 games back.
Trout is now back up to third in the American League in Wins Against Replacement, behind the Mutt and Jeff duo of Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge.* Altuve hit .485 in July, while Judge has cooled off since the All-Star break, as he inevitably had to.
*That's Fangraphs' WAR calculation. Trout is 9th according to Baseball Reference, 6th among everyday players. B-R also has Andrelton Simmons second, half a run ahead of Judge.
At this point, the MVP race is among Fangraphs' top three. Putting aside irrelevant considerations, like whether Judge reaches a milestone number of home runs, or how their teams perform around them, or whether one should vote for a player who misses a quarter of the season, it will be interesting to see if Trout can catch Altuve and Judge in WAR.
Fangraphs' projections suggest all three will finish the season with about 7.2 WAR. That means Trout will have contributed as much to his team in 120 games as Judge and Altuve contributed in 160. It takes the otherworldly comparison against Mike Trout to steal the shine from Aaron Judge's amazing debut and Jose Altuve's spectacular career arc.
Whoever is most valuable this season, Mike Trout is best. That race isn't close.
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