Mike Trout is widely regarded as the best player in baseball. But at just 23-years-old, the Los Angeles Angels' superstar center fielder is already in Hall of Fame company.
In crushing a home run off Zack Greinke's 94-mph fastball — just the fourth pitch of the All-Star Game on Tuesday night (July 14) — and going on to become the first player in Major League Baseball history to win back-to-back All-Star MVP awards, Trout put himself in elite company. Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Cal Ripken Jr. and Gary Carter and stud first baseman Steve Garvey are the only other players to win All-Star MVP ... but none of them were younger than 29 when they did it. Trout's 23.
Sure, you might be thinking the All-Star Game is too laid-back of an affair to be used as an accurate gauge for Trout's early-career accomplishments, but then consider the following — the superstar center fielder is the youngest to accomplish a lot of feats in baseball.
In addition to the back-to-back All-Star MVPs, Trout was also the youngest player ever to join the 30-30 club (30 home runs and 30 stolen bases) at the age of 21 in September 2012, the youngest to hit for the cycle and the youngest to record 100 home runs and 100 stolen bases.
About the home runs, Trout has a career 124 homers, including the 26 he's sitting on at the All-Star break, tying him with Angels teammate Albert Pujols for most in the American League. With this being his fifth season in the Majors and Trout easily expected to surpass 30 home runs, if he goes on to play 16 more years and averages 30 homers per season, he'll wind up with upwards of 600 homers for his career.
Only eight players (Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Alex Rodriguez, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Thome and Sammy Sosa) are in that club. Accompanying that will likely be a 3,000-hit career, with Trout having already recorded 673 hits before the completion of five seasons.
It's downright scary to think about the assault on the record books that Trout can potentially have, barring any injuries. Right now, his trajectories across many categories are going straight up.
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