Debby Wong-USA TODAY Sports
The Los Angeles Angels, founded before the 1961 season, are a young franchise by baseball standards. Accordingly, a perusal of the Angels’ record books shows that they lack names like Ruth, Cobb, Bonds or Aaron, and their records are not quite as impressive.
Even so, impressive is a huge understatement when describing the dent Mike Trout has already made in several Halo records. Both his averages and totals are listed alongside the highest single-season and career achievers to ever take the field in Anaheim.
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To be fair, Trout has played in only 300 regular season games with the Halos, which doesn’t quite amount to two full seasons worth of games. Thus some of his especially lofty averages are bound to come down to earth before his Angel career is through, but for what its worth Trout’s 363 hits are the most of any Angel through his first 300 games.
If the following numbers tell us anything, it’s that Trout is already one of the all-time great Angels at the youthful age of 22. One gets the sense that if he keeps up his current pace (or slightly below) over the next five years, Trout will be unanimously acclaimed as not only the greatest Angel of all-time, but at a mere 27 he will be considered one of the greatest major leaguers of all-time.
Through his first 300 games, Trout has the highest average of all Angels ever in the following categories: OBP (.400), SB percentage (90), Slugging percentage (.548), and OPS (.948). Those numbers may well come down in the next several years, then again, would you really be surprised if Trout maintained his current pace in OBP, Slugging and OPS?
After his miraculous rookie season and equally impressive sophomore campaign, Trout’s single season records already rank very highly among Halo legends. He has a team single season record for WAR (10.9), Runs Scored (129), Adjusted Batting Runs (57), Adjusted Batting Wins (5.5), Offensive Win percentage (.786), Situational Wins Added (6.0), and Base-Out Wins Added (6.1). By the time the 2013 campaign is through, look for him to be near the top for team single season records in Extra Base Hits, Runs Created, Walks, Total Bases, OPS, and OBP.
Yeah, I know, that doesn’t leave a lot of other categories.
Trout has already been transcendent and will continue to demolish Los Angeles records in the coming years. The real question is how long he can ride this wave of brilliance? Will we still be comparing him to Mantle, to Henderson, to DiMaggio by the time 2020 rolls around? Only time will tell, but right now it’s sure looking like that.
Tony Baker is a Los Angeles Angels writer for Rant Sports. You can follow him on Twitter at @tonloc_baker and on Google.
