The stats are similar, the comparisons are there ... and hard to ignore.
Mike Trout and Mickey Mantle.
The face of baseball in an Angels uniform, who can win the game with his bat or glove, a humble hitter who'd rather hunt or fish in New Jersey than put the attention on himself ... someone who always wants to be a good role model for the kids.
"The Mick," a Yankees legend and MLB Hall of Famer, the greatest switch hitter in history, owner of 536 career home runs and seven World Series titles ... just a shy kid from Oklahoma who, at times, got lost in the bright lights of New York City.
Following Trout's back-to-back All-Star Game Most Valuable Player awards, a question was recently posed to Mark Gubicza of FOX Sports West ... which player does Trout best compare too? Gubicza said, for his era as a player (1984-1997), that Rickey Henderson best reminded him of Trout.
But, Gubicza added "there is no doubt Trout is our modern day Mickey Mantle" and that "Mantle was the man and so is Trout."
With that, here's a statistical breakdown of Trout and Mantle through their first three full MLB seasons.
Mickey Mantle (1952-54): 71 HR, 281 RBI, 470 hits, 328 runs, 308 strikeouts and a batting average of .303.
Mike Trout (2012-2014): 93 HR, 291 RBI, 545 hits, 353 runs, 459 strikeouts and .311 average.
Both were elected to the All-Star Game in those first three seasons. Trout won the ASG MVP in 2014 (and again in 2015), something Mantle never did, though the award didn't exist until 1962.
Trout's first American League MVP award came after the 2014 season when he was just 22 years old; Mantle was named MVP for the first time at 24 after a 52-homer, 130-RBI season in 1956, also a season New York won it all.
Biggest difference? By the end of his third MLB season, Mantle had already been part of a trio of World Series-winning Yankees teams. Trout has only made the postseason once (2014) and the Angels were swept by the Royals.
The stats are similar, the comparisons are there ... and hard to ignore.
It's hard to not see Trout making the Hall of Fame as a first-ballot selection, as Mantle was in 1974, when Trout's playing days are over.
And, whenever the end comes for Trout (hopefully, not for many years), those of us who witnessed his amazing acts at the plate and on the field in an Angels uniform will count ourselves lucky.
