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With Major League Baseball’s 2019 season nearing the two-thirds mark, Los Angeles Angels OF Mike Trout is on his way to what might well be the best year of his career, barring injury. His is currently batting .298 with 78 runs scored, 33 home runs and 80 RBIs. He also has 8 steals and is playing great defense in the outfield. If he continues at his current rate, he’ll record 53 home runs and 128 RBIs, which would both be career highs.
Statistically, he will be closing on Hall of Fame numbers by the time he hits 34 years of age. In what amounts to 7 full seasons, he already has 871 runs scored, 273 home runs and 728 RBIs and a career average of .306. All of these numbers are in spite of missing 40 games in 2017 and 14 games in 2018 due to injury. If he plays until 38 years old, he’ll have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 600 home runs and 1,800 RBIs. Throw in 350 stolen bases and 2,000 runs scored and he is a first ballot Hall of Fame inductee. If anyone doing online mobile sports betting could get odds on this, the number would be somewhere around -2000.
To really appreciate just how good Trout is you have to watch him over a dozen or so games. Within that timeframe, he will put all five tools on display. For any of the younger baseball fans who never got to watch baseball Hall of Fame players like Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Willie Mays and Stan Musial, it’s difficult to comprehend just how good Trout has been playing over his career. It’s amazing to think he is worthy of mention is such an elite group.
For a little more prospective, Trout is only 27 with his 28th birthday coming before the end of the season. He was called up from the minors late in the 2011 season at the age of 20. He never left. He has made the All-Star squad for the American League all 8 full seasons in the majors. He already has 2 Most Valuable Player awards under his belt and might well be in line for his 3rd this year even if the Angels don’t make the playoffs.
Here’s the scary part. At 27 years old, he is likely just entering his prime. The Angels are in the process of building a very good club around him, which translates to the aforementioned numbers being on the low end of the spectrum. The only thing that could stop him is him. He plays the game with an intensity we haven’t seen since the 1970s. There is a chance he will run into a few walls along the way, which might make him injury prone. Absent injuries, he’s a lock for greatness.
If there any doubt about what the Angels think about their superstar, Trout signed a 12-year, $426 million contract with the Angels before the start of the 2019 season. That makes him the highest paid athlete in North America, bar none. If he stays healthy and plays out his new contract, this man has a realistic chance of going down in history as one of the top 5 players of all-time, if not the best.
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