Mike Trout Is In Elite Company

Mike Trout is unstoppable and, in turn, I can’t stop writing about him. It’s almost an addiction. Trout’s July wasn’t just amazing, it was record breaking and tying.

Before we compare him to other 20-year-olds, let’s just recap the jaw-droppingness of his July. Trout hit a rookie record 10 home runs and scored a rookie tying record of 32 runs. He started 24 games and didn’t get a hit in just three of them. Trout’s .392/.455/.804 slash line was Bondsian. Plus he stole nine bases without being caught and was intentionally walked for the second time this season.

Going into August, there has been one other player in the history of baseball to have a .350 average, 15+ home runs and 30+ steals. Rickey Henderson. After sporting baseball a 20 game head start, Trout is leading the sport in runs, stolen bases, wOBA, wRC+, fWAR, rWAR, the AL in average and restraining orders filed against me.

Okay, so how historically good has he been this season compared to other 20-year-olds? He has a 6.6 rWAR (Baseball-Reference wins above replacement) headed into the final TWO months of the year. The following is the list of 20-year-olds who managed a WAR of 6.5 or higher. See if you recognize any of the names…

So, four guys in the Hall of Fame and Alex Rodriguez with a Hall of Fame career. If Trout keeps up his ridiculous pace, and there’s no indication that he won’t, it’s easy to imagine he’ll have the second best 20-year-old season of all time. Had he started the year in the Majors instead of hitting .403/.467/.623 in 20 Triple-A games, we could be talking about the best rookie season ever (Albert Pujols and Mickey Mantle had 6.3 WARs).

Trout has already locked up the AL Rookie of the Year. The AL MVP is probably coming with it. Enjoy this Angels fans, players like this don’t come around too often.