In honor of hot starts to the 2024 season by the two greatest position players of this generation, I wanted to show a little love to Mike Trout and Mookie Betts, who, in my opinion, have already secured their spots in Cooperstown despite being just 32 and 31, respectively. Because the Angels have never won a playoff game in Trout’s career and Betts now has to play second fiddle to Shohei Ohtani at Dodger Stadium, these two living legends can get overlooked. Instead of making such a mistake, I’m looking at their substantial career accomplishments and evaluating their legacies accordingly.
Mike Trout is MLB’s active leader in career wins above replacement with 85.7. Neither Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw nor Max Scherzer — all guys with claims to be among the 10 best pitchers of all time — have generated that much value in their careers. The youngest of those three, Kershaw, is still four years older than Trout. Trout is a three-time AL MVP, 11-time All-Star and nine-time Silver Slugger. His career-adjusted OPS (OPS+) of 173 leads active hitters and is the eighth best in baseball history.
Not impressed yet? In his first nine full seasons in MLB, Trout never failed to finish outside the top five in AL MVP voting, winning the award three times and finishing runner-up four times. He led the AL in WAR in each of his first five full seasons in the league. Of the nine seasons where he’s played more than 100 games in his career, his worst was 2014, in which he slashed .287/.377/.561, led the AL in WAR (7.7), runs scored (115), total bases (338) and RBIs (111) and won MVP. In a DOWN YEAR.
For my money, Mike Trout has already established himself as a top 10 player in baseball history. His peak is right up there with the likes of Ted Williams, Albert Pujols and Mickey Mantle. While his rate stats will probably fall as he ages, he should have no trouble getting to 500 homers and can definitely get to 600 with consistent playing time. And those counting stat benchmarks do matter for players’ legacies.
Betts doesn’t have quite the bat that Trout does, but he does have six Gold Gloves to Trout’s zero, and he has been an exceptional hitter throughout his career. His career slash line is .295/.375/.530 with an OPS+ of 139. His 2018 AL MVP-winning season was one of the best in recent memory — in just 136 games, he amassed a monstrous 10.7 WAR while slashing .346/.438/.640. He’s also finished runner-up in MVP voting three times in his career, and his worst full season was in 2021 when he still managed an .854 OPS.
The consummate five-tool player and a model of consistent production, Betts’s 66.4 career WAR ranks fifth among active players despite being just 31, trailing only Trout among position players and leading several surefire future Hall of Famers like Joey Votto, Paul Goldschmidt and Freddie Freeman.
Mookie isn’t quite in Trout’s rarified air, but that doesn’t mean he can’t get there. He’s looked outstanding in his first several seasons as a Dodger, and having Ohtani and Freeman batting behind you in the order for the foreseeable future can only be a good thing. For right now, he’s already a top 50 player of all time, among the likes of Adrián Beltré and Miguel Cabrera. However, I can only imagine that ranking going up, especially if he can continue accumulating homers and hits.
