(FanDuel Insider)
Friendships have been ruined, marriages have ended, fights have started all over the one question of who is the better baseball player between Mike Trout and Bryce Harper.
Maybe none of those things occurred, but it’s always a fun topic to discuss. I’m not here to tell you who is better. I’m here to give projections on how long you can witness them playing. You guessed it, I’m once again using the favorite toy formula with their numbers to see how long they are projected to stick around.
When it comes to Mike Trout he’s projected to have 9.6 seasons remaining, putting him at the age of 33 if he decides to retire and listen to my formula.
For fun, I decided to see how long it would take for Mike Trout to join the 3,000 hit club. At the moment, he has 752 hits to his name. He needs 2,248 hits if he wants to join Roberto Clemente and others in this prestigious club.
Using numbers from his last three seasons, he’s projected to collect 1,052 more hits by the time his career ends. That’s 1,196 short of the goal. This also means he would have to maintain around 175 hits per season. He’s reached that amount twice in his career.
Of course, this is just a projection, but it goes to show how it’s not an easy milestone to reach — even for someone like Trout. It took Derek Jeter 20 years to accumulate 3,465 hits. Trout’s a phenomenal athlete, but there’s always a finish line we have to cross.
As far as Bryce Harper goes, I decided to use home runs for his goal. He was recently compared to Barry Bonds, and Bonds is known for hitting a lot of home runs. While Bonds holds that ridiculous record of 762 career homers, I took it easy on Harper. I gave him a goal of 500 bombs.
He’s projected to have a little over a decade left in Major League Baseball. Or if you are a decimal person, 10.2 years.
He currently has 99 home runs in five years, meaning he needs 401 home runs to reach this goal. With a phenomenal 42 home run season last year and numbers from two other seasons, it was projected Harper would only hit 172 bombs during the rest of his career. The 13 and 20 home run seasons prior to his 2015 season are probably a major reason why this projection is so low. Harper is also projected to hit around 28 home runs each season. With last season’s National League MVP performance, all of these numbers can be complete rubbish, but if he does retire at the age of 34, he will have a lot to brag about.
Stop comparing the two. We know you have a favorite, and if my math is right, you get to enjoy their talents for, at the very least, another 10 years.