Millville, NJ, Alum Mike Trout Named 15th Greatest MLB Player of All Time
When baseball fans are asked who are some of the best players of all time, they will immediately say names like Babe Ruth, Will Mays, Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds, Lou Gerhig, Mickey Mantle, Kenny Griffey Jr., or Stan Musial.
Now they have to include South Jersey's own Mike Trout.
The 2009 Millville high school graduate is a nine-time American League All-Star, three-time AL MVP, and is an eight-time winner of the Silver Slugger Award.
He was rated the 15th best player of all time in ESPN.com's recent ranking of the 100 greatest MLB players of all time.
Trout turned 30 during the 2021 season, so the text on his eventual Hall of Fame plaque is yet to be composed. Few players have ever burst onto the big league scene with more splendor. Twenty-four players were selected before Trout in the 2009 draft, but three years later, the product of Millville, New Jersey, recorded perhaps the best rookie season of all time. His 10.5 bWAR that year (2012) is the record for a position player. He already has won three MVP trophies and finished in the top five of MVP balloting for nine straight years, a streak that ended last season because of injury. Injuries and being on a franchise that has kept him out of the October limelight seem to be the only things standing in the way of Trout entering the greatest-of-all-time discussion.
For his career, Trout is a .305 hitter with 310 HR and 816 RBI. In 2019, he signed a 12-year, $426 million contract to remain with the team that drafted him with the 25th pick of the 2009 MLB Draft, the Los Angles Angels.
While the players mentioned above were all ranked higher than Trout, who was the highest-ranked active player, he was ranked higher than players like Joe DiMaggio, Mike Schmidt, Rickey Henderson, Rogers Hornsby, and Frank Robinson who finished in the Top 25.
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