It’s hard to have individual rivalries in baseball the way other sports do. The gold standard for any individual rivalry is Magic Johnson versus Larry Bird. For the bulk of their careers, they battled each other for championships and to decide who the best player on the planet was. In football, Tom Brady versus Peyton Manning is the most covered individual “rivalry”, but it is pretty one-sided in Brady’s favor. In 2012, Mike Trout and Bryce Harper each won Rookie of the Year in their respective leagues, making it one of the historically great seasons for two players winning the award. Although Trout did appear in 40 games during the 2011 season, he and Harper essentially came into the league together, which will link them forever and inevitably lead to a career’s worth of comparisons and contrasts. Really, baseball’s future is largely in the hands of these two stars.
Harper has been a known commodity in the baseball world since he was in high school, billed (perhaps prematurely) as the next great thing to pass through the National Pastime pipeline. Trout, although known by baseball “insiders” and those who follow the Angels organization closely, essentially made his presence known during his amazing rookie campaign. Moreover, Trout’s numbers in 2011, when he saw his first MLB action, were relatively pedestrian. In 135 plate appearances, he produced a .220 average, .281 OBP, .390 SLG, with 5 HRs, 16 RBI, and 4 stolen bases. Not exactly the most obvious making-of-a-superstar season.
It was in 2012 when Trout exploded onto the scene, and that Bryce Harper arrived. The latter was a brash, look-at-me guy who rubbed some people the wrong way with how he played and carried himself on and off the field; the former was everybody’s All-American, the blue-collar, hard-working second coming of Mickey Mantle. Thing is though, Trout’s rookie season remains his best. It’s hard to use the word “regress” with Trout, because he’s been consistently great, but the fact of the matter is he strikes out at an alarming rate for a player of his caliber, and his stolen base numbers have fallen off a cliff. In 2012, Trout hit 30 HRs and stole 49 bases. It seemed evident that he would be a threat to put up 40 in each category for the foreseeable future. (What made Trout’s 49 swipes even more impressive was that he was only caught five times.) The following season, Trout stole 33 bases and was caught on only seven attempts. In the 285 games Trout’s played since, he has only stolen 26 bags and has been caught nine times. It’s an exercise in hair-splitting, but Trout is now more of an all-world power hitter than he is an all-time, all-around great player. Trout could have a Hall of Fame career if he never stole another base, but his decline on the basepaths is noteworthy, to say the least.
While Trout’s rookie season belongs in the discussion of the great individual seasons in baseball history – by a rookie or otherwise – Harper’s career arc has taken a much more conventional path, more of a steady rise. The gap that once existed between the two in favor of Trout has now been reduced to a paper-thin margin in either direction. As far as the defensive side of the game, both are fantastic. Trout is probably better at tracking balls, but Harper might have the better throwing arm, so trying to determine any distinction between the two regarding their ability to man the outfield would probably end in a wash… or close to it.
At the moment, Harper is batting .329 with an incredible .458 OBP, while Trout is at .296 and .395 in those areas, respectively. Aside from an injury-plagued 2014 season in which Harper missed 62 games, his numbers get better and better while Trout’s numbers sort of hit a plateau (although it’s all relative, Trout’s “plateau” would be worthy of a career-making season for pretty much any other player). The two are now basically statistically identical, with Harper’s advantage being he strikes out less, and Trout’s edge being that he still is capable of stealing more bases.
Not all that long ago, it would have been fair to at least silently wonder if Bryce Harper was trending towards being an overrated player, and to declare Mike Trout the best player in the entire league without hesitation. While a case could still be made for Trout being the game’s best, the answer to the question of Harper’s place among the game’s best has now come into better focus, and he has put his name on the short-list (with Trout) of the best to button up a professional uniform. It’s a bit ironic that, for all the talk of baseball’s problems gaining the attention of the younger generation, two of its best players are under 25 years of age. One would think Trout and Harper can – and will – do the game a world of good in getting those younger eyes. The question “Who’s better: Trout or Harper” is now a legitimate debate worthy of all baseball fans’ attention going forward. Simply put: The future of MLB lies with Bryce Harper and Mike Trout.
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