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On His 33rd Birthday, Mike Trout Offers Another Comparison to Willie Mays

Maren Angus-Coombs

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
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Mike Trout has been compared to the late Willie Mays since he broke into the league back in 2011. Without playing a game this week, he offered more numerical proof that the two center fielders compare favorably.

According to a post on X by OptaSTATS, Trout is one of two players in the live-ball era (since 1920) to have a .975-plus career OPS and at least 200 stolen bases at the time of their 33rd birthday, along with Willie Mays.

When it comes to other statistics between the two, Trout is halfway to where Mays finished his career in just about every category. At one point, Trout was on a trajectory that experts saw ending in Cooperstown alongside Mays.

However, with Trout's injuries over the last four seasons, he might not catch up to Mays in most (if any) major categories.

It took Mays 2,992 games to achieve his career numbers. Trout is currently sitting at 1,518 games played. Trout played in at least 157 games in each of 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, but he's failed to top 140 since. He was active for 114 in 2017, 140 in 2019, 134 in 2019 and 53 of the 60 in 2020.

Those numbers wouldn't be such a big deal if the last four didn't look like this – 36 games in 2021, 119 in 2022, 82 in 2023 and 29 in 2024.

Matt Snyder of CBS Sports did a deeper dive into Trout and his comparisons to baseball legends and found that his path now is more like Mickey Mantle. Trout's career slash line of .299/.410/.581 is almost identical to Mantle's .298/.421/.557,

"Trout has a chance to end up alongside Mantle," writes Snyder. "He does not, however, have a chance to get up into the Willie Mays tier."

The 3,000-hit benchmark is not a requirement for enshrinement but it has defined some of the elite players of the game such as Mays. He recorded 3,293 hits in his career. Mantle did not reach that mark but he did finish his career with 2,415. Trout has 1,648 hits right now.

Trout reaching 3,000 is almost out the window.

"For example, he's signed through 2030. Let's give him 52 hits the rest of this season to get him to 1,700 so the math is easy," writes Snyder. "He'd need 1,300 hits through 2030, then, or an average of ... 216.67 per season the rest of his contract. His career high in a season is 190. He hasn't topped 150 since 2016."

Trout is an all-time great regardless of how he finshes his career but becoming the next Mays is definitely out of the picture now.

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Maren Angus-Coombs
MAREN ANGUS-COOMBS

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