Scioscia reverses stance on MVPs from losing teams, endorses Trout

Mike Scioscia still believes the MVP winner should come from a contending team. Unless that player happens to be Mike Trout.

The Los Angeles Angels manager fully endorsed his superstar center fielder - in the midst of perhaps his most spectacular season yet - for American League MVP despite his team's woeful record.

"What Mike does and what Mike has accomplished this year has more impact than the fact that we're a sub-.500 team," Scioscia told Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times. "His numbers are incredible. You can't deny that they're a notch above anybody else that's there."

The praise for Trout marks a major shift in thinking by the veteran skipper, who suggested earlier this season that the "value" part of the award's equation is bigger than individual performance - meaning someone like Trout, the lone bright spot on an Angels team that's been headed for a top-10 draft pick since Day 1, should be ineligible.

"I definitely think there needs to be a value on how you've affected a team's performance," Scioscia said in August.

While Scioscia made sure to note that "I haven't changed at all" when it comes to his stance on the MVP coming from a winner, watching Trout's brilliance every day - he leads baseball in walks, on-base percentage, and runs scored, and is one great weekend away from baseball's first 30-homer, 30-stolen base, 100-RBI season since 2012 - has made him the exception to this rule.

"You look at Mike's numbers and they are so incredible,” Scioscia said. "They've been incredible for a long time, but they're so incredible that this year there's no doubt in my mind he should be the MVP. The way I'm going about analyzing this hasn’t changed one bit.

"If there was somebody with Mike's numbers, exactly Mike's numbers, and a first-place club, I think that would be a determining factor to vote for him."