One city, two elite center fielders.

That’s the current situation in Los Angeles, where two of the game’s youngest and brightest stars reside.

Mike Trout plays for the Los Angeles Angels, and Joc Pederson wears blue and white in Hollywood with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

They are actually pretty similar players.  Both are 23-years old.  Both possess the rare package that is raw power and electric speed.  Both are dynamic players that were top prospects in the minor leagues and both made seemingly instant contributions to their MLB club.

However, simply saying that both are tremendous players does not do them justice, so let’s dig into their statistics and see just how good they really are.

Through June 30, Trout is hitting .303 with 20 home runs and 43 RBI.  Pederson, meanwhile, is hitting .244 with 20 home runs and 38 RBI.

The thing that probably sticks out to you is Pederson’s low batting average.  Don’t let that persuade you to think that Pederson is in any way overrated or undeserving of your appreciation.  That .244 can be more attributed to inexperience than an inability to hit for average.  His contact skills have been suffering through the first half of the season, but he hit over .300 in his minor league career, so there is a definite possibility that he will improve in that regard as he gets more and more acclimated to big league pitching.

Trout ranks fourth in MLB in weighted runs created plus (wRC+), Pederson ranks 12th, according to FanGraphs.  Trout’s .407 weighted on-base average (wOBA) puts him sixth in the league, Pederson is 12th in that category as well.

As far as FanGraphs’ wins above replacement (WAR) goes – which shows just how valuable a player is in all aspects of the game – Trout is the third-most valuable player in baseball, while Pederson is eighth.

They both hit the ball extremely hard, too.

Judging by exit velocity according to Baseball Savant – which measures how fast the ball comes off the bat – Pederson ranks second in the majors and Trout sits four spots lower at number six.  In other words, when these two hit the ball, it really jumps off the barrel.

Pederson leads the majors in average home run distance with a whopping 430 feet per homer, according to ESPN Home Run Tracker.

Confine the results to specifically center fielders, and the results are even more favorable to the two Los Angeles studs.

Trout is first and Pederson is second among center fielders in WAR, wRC+ and wOBA, per FanGraphs, evidence aplenty that they are the two best center fielders in all of baseball.

But as the league-wide stats show, not only are they elite players at their own position.  They are both elite players – yes, even Pederson with his .244 average – which forces me to amend the opening line of the article.

Los Angeles: One city, two elite MLB players.