Atlanta Braves Hank Aaron Award : Who Cares?

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Mike Trout should have won the Aaron Award four times.

Sep 27, 2016; Anaheim, CA, USA; Los Angeles Angels designated hitter Mike Trout (27) hits a RBI single against the Oakland Athletics in the first inning during the game at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Mandatory Credit: Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports /

The Winners?

Hitting is about offense and the best hitters produce the most offense. It doesn’t matter much what your favorite offensive metric is – unless it’s total home runs, total hits or batting average – it’s usually easy to see who is best.

Home runs aren’t a determinant, Mark Trumbo hit 47 this year and is clearly not a great hitter.
BA has to be high but averages can be hollow. Hitting when it means something is important.
Having a lot of hits is essential but adding a high on base percentage and having fewer strikeouts makes for a better offensive player and therefore better hitter.

Atlanta Braves /

Atlanta Braves

The measures commonly used these days to judge offense are wRC+, wOBA, Baseball Prospectus’ Total Average (TAvg), Fangraphs Offense and BBR’s OWAR. All seek in different ways put a number on a hitter’s offensive value.

Using those measures I went back to 2009 and compared the winners named with the rest of their league to see how well the voters did.

In 2011 and 2013 the nailed it. Choosing Miggy over Trout in 2012 is understandable based on traditional counting stats though Trout swept all but one of the advanced stats.

In the remaining four seasons the voters got it half right with the NL voters selecting correctly in six of seven years.

The most egregious award was in 2009 when Derek Jeter won. While he He had the most hits but was way behind Joe Mauer and in fact was at best third in the AL

Herewith the results.

Year	LG	Player	H	HR	RBI	BA	WRC+	wOBA	FG OFF	Tavg	OWAR
2009	AL	Derek Jeter	212	18	66	.334	130	.385	29.6	.288	6.2
2009	AL	Joe Mauer	191	28	96	.305	170	.438	50.8	.338	7.6
2009	NL	Albert Pujols	186	47	135	.327	180	.447	70.5	.373	7.9
2010	AL	José Bautista	148	54	124	.260	165	.442	51.6	.321	7.2
2010	AL	Josh Hamilton	186	32	100	.359	175	.445	55.3	.336	7.5
2010	NL	Joey Votto	177	37	113	.324	175	.437	57.0	.362	6.6
2011	AL	José Bautista	155	43	103	.302	181	.443	66.3	.357	8.3
2011	NL	Matt Kemp	195	39	126	.324	168	.413	59.9	.357	8.6
2012	AL	Miguel Cabrera	205	44	139	.330	166	.417	46.4	.326	7.7
2012	AL	Mike Trout	172	30	83	.326	167	.409	64.2	.351	10.0
2012	NL	Buster Posey	178	24	103	.336	164	.406	41.8	.346	7.3
2013	AL	Miguel Cabrera	193	44	137	.348	193	.455	62.4	.372	9.1
2013	NL	Paul Goldschmidt	182	36	125	.302	156	.404	43.7	.325	5.7
2014	AL	Mike Trout	173	36	111	.287	167	.402	58.1	.352	8.7
2014	NL	Giancarlo Stanton	155	37	105	.288	161	.403	43.7	.342	5.9
2014	NL	Andrew McCutchen	172	25	83	.314	168	.412	51.4	.350	7.7
2015	AL	Josh Donaldson	184	41	123	.297	154	.398	48.4	.324	7.7
2015	AL	Mike Trout	172	41	90	.299	172	.415	59.5	.353	8.9
2015	NL	Bryce Harper	172	42	99	.330	198	.461	77.6	.386	8.9

All in all the voters didn’t do badly but the misses were clearly based on team success and name recognition.

The most egregious oversight came in 2009 when Jeter won the award but Mauer was clearly a superior offensive player.

Hamilton was clearly a superior offensive producer but Bautista hit 54 bombs in 2010. It seems chicks and dudes still love the long ball

Stanton’s prodigious home runs didn’t do a lot or run creation for the Marlins but they were on every highlight real. McCutchen was a huge run producer for the Bucs and should have won in 2014. Another long ball highlight reel driven vote.

The Angels were awful in 2015 the Jays were in the post season thus Donaldson over Trout.

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