Last week, I went in search of a Mike Trout regression. Signs, indications, revelations from his 2012 season that could lead us to conclude the possibility of slightly less as eye-popping stats in 2013. And for the most part, I failed.
Enter Dan Szymborski's ZiPS projections for the Los Angeles Angels. Recently released via Fangraphs, the projections reveal a bit of a regression of Mike Trout…kind of.
We're talking a regression in that Mike Trout still puts up an 8 WAR season.
Okay, so the predictions don't show much of a regression. However, as Carson Cistulli notes, it does have Trout hitting less home runs (29), stealing less bases (47) and posting a much smaller BaBIP (.322). Still superstar numbers but not as good as 2012.
Here's Trout's projected slash line: 282/.361/.501
Now here's his slash line from August through October in 2012: 287/.383/.500
The numbers are very similar and as a posted last week, maybe this is a closer indication of what Trout will post in 2012. Which, as I also noted, is still stellar.
Another interesting part of Trout's ZiPS projections is the considerably lower BaBIP of .322. In 2012, Trout's BaBIP was a very high .383. So we can expect some regression but that Trout will still stay well above the league average of .290 - .310. This is especially true considering that players with a lot of speed, like Trout, often have a higher BaBIP. It's also interesting to note that Bill James predicts Trout's BaBIP to remain at a extremely high .379.
So what does this all mean? It usually takes roughly 1000 plate appearances for a BaBIP to stabilize and so it is difficult to project Trout's for 2013. However, the lower BaBIP would cause a dip in Trout's batting average in 2012.
Regardless, the overall projections still foresee another productive offensive year from Trout and worrying about the ZiPS BaBIP projections probably means we all need baseball to start very very very soon.
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