"stats can be used many different ways"
That doesn't mean that they're all equally good. RBIs are heavily team-dependent, and so not much use for individual awards. The currency of baseball is the out - you only get 27 of them, and you need to spend them wisely. Although there are a few occasions when making an out is a good idea (sometimes you need a sac bunt), for the most part a batter's most important job is to avoid making an out. Batting average is a nice stat because getting hits is one way to avoid making outs. But it's not the only one, and the statistic that really does measure a player's ability to avoid making outs (on-base percentage) is one that Trout led the league in.
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