Trout is reaching base more often through 116 games, and even has an OPS that is 34 points higher.

Let’s dig deeper; just from watching the 22-year-old, his plate discipline has grown as he has been flirting with in the top three spots in the lineup this season. As Howie Kendrick and Albert Pujols went, Trout has filled the roll of reaching base, striking out less, and most importantly – swinging at fewer pitches out of the zone. Through the same amount of games, Trout has struck out 20 times less this season as compared to last. He’s swinging at more strikes and making more contact on those pitches than he was a year ago by roughly 4%.

Though Trout has not been as successful or frequent with stealing bases, his speed on the basepaths is evident. He has already reached base nine times when the defense makes an error while having seven all of last season. This shows his speed is more of a factor and makes the defense rush and make mistakes.

Defensively, he isn’t as dazzling as he was a year ago (but honestly, it’s not easy to do better defensively than 2012 Trout, even for the man himself). Many of his sabermetric defensive numbers do show a decline in his throwing arm. The biggest decline defensively for him lies within his Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) which is an overall assessment of a player’s defensive ability. In all of his rookie campaign Trout had a UZR of 12 in centerfield, while this season he ranks a lowly -.04 in the eighth position, according to Fangraphs.

Trout’s UZR was so high in 2012, which mostly to do with all the home runs he stole, and that has a lot to do with opportunity to rob home runs (which he has had only a handful during his sophomore season).

So is Mike Trout a better overall player in 2013? Simply, yes. After reviewing the deep statistics, his offensive proficiency outweighs his defensive decline. He has created 119 runs while holding a bat as opposed to the 14 runs that he is projected to allow compared to the average fielder while wearing a glove. Trout is MVP caliber, we all know this. But the fact that his team has won 16 less games in 2013 over a 116 game stretch (through no fault of his own) puts his name out of contention of an AL MVP award.