Mike Trout’s 162-game pace is by no means normal, even for him

Mike Trout is on an insane pace so far in 2020

Is it possible that Mike Trout, even after three American League MVP Awards, eight All-Star Game appearances, and a $426 million contract, is only getting better?

The stats seem to suggest that he is, a scary proposition for the rest of the league considering he was already universally regarded as the best baseball player on the planet.

Trout added to his lofty totals in the Angels’ 10-9 win over the Oakland Athletics on Monday night. First, he hit a two-run home run 428 feet to left field off J.B. Wendelken in the fourth inning. Then, with the score tied at nine in the bottom of the eighth, Trout took a hanging curveball from Yusmeiro Petit 426 feet to left for the go-ahead home run. He finished the game 4-5 with three RBI and is now hitting .333 this season, which would be the highest mark of his 10-year career.

Is Mike Trout getting even better?

Trout now has seven home runs in 13 games this season. In a 162-game season he would be on-pace for 69 home runs and 133 RBI (22 more than any other season of his career), and that’s even with missing four games to attend the birth of his first son. Since returning from the paternity list a week ago he’s batting .367 with six home runs and 10 RBI in seven games, slugging .967 with a 1.373 OPS.

Turning 29 last Friday, Trout is still in his prime and enjoying a power surge like he’s never experienced in his career. He’s hitting a home run in 12 percent of his plate appearances so far in 2020. Even last season, when he hit a career-high 45 home runs, he was at just seven percent. His .741 slugging percentage this season would rank 14th all-time, behind only Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Mark McGwire, Jeff Bagwell, and Jimmie Foxx; all of them, except for the PED-linked Bonds and McGwire, are in the Hall of Fame. More than 52 percent of his batted balls this season are classified as hard-hit, 10 points better than any season of this season. His average exit velocity of 92.7 is his second-best in the StatCast era (he was at 92.9 in 2015).

Over his last 162 games dating back to the 2018 season, Trout has 58 home runs and 129 RBI. His dominance of the sport is so total that he’s the leader in WAR over the last 15 years, despite not making his MLB debut until 2011. Since 2012, his 73.6 WAR is 25 points better than any other batter. He’s the only batter in the league over that span with an OPS above 1.000.

Even opponents like the Athletics’ Matt Chapman, who has been competing against him in the AL West since 2017, are in awe of what he is doing. “You think you’ve seen it all, and then he just keeps doing it,” Chapman told MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger on Monday. “He can change the game with one swing of the bat. It’s always awesome to play against him. He’s, in my opinion, the best player in the big leagues and maybe the best to do it.”

With his two home runs on Monday, Trout moved past Hall of Famer Craig Biggio on the all-time list with 292. He’s just seven away from equaling Tim Salmon’s franchise-record of 299 home runs. It took Salmon 14 years in an Angels uniform to reach that mark. Trout is in his 10th year and, as he’s shown so far in 2020, just getting warmed up.