At SportsOlogy, we write about the Washington Nationals' Bryce Harper quite a bit. We even have an entire section of our site devoted to the astonishing talent and brashness that is Bryce Harper. And why wouldn't we?
But on the other coast, the LA Angels' Mike Trout has been equally impressive, even if he's gone about his business far quieter than Harper.
The 19-year-old Harper and the 20-year-old Trout are the two best and most exciting rookie tandem to enter Major League Baseball together since two young shortstops -- a 22-year-old Derek Jeter and a 20-year-old Alex Rodriguez -- played their first full seasons for the Yankees and Mariners in 1996.
Mike Trout
The beginning of the big league careers of Mike Trout and Bryce Harper have been remarkably similar to one another.
Trout has played in 40 games for the Angels, seeing time at all three outfield positions, and he's affected games in almost every possible. He's hitting .359 and already leads the American League with 15 steals, despite spending the first month of the season in triple-A. He has wowed us some unbelievable catches in the outfield. He's hit six home runs. He works counts and takes walks. He bunts for hits. And when he steals bases, the play at the bag usually isn't close.
His manager and teammates can't believe what they're seeing him do.
"Mike in the batter's box is as advanced as any 20-year-old I've ever seen," Angels manager Mike Sciosia said last night after Trout was the player of the game in a 3-2 Angels win.
"He goes out there and plays hard every day," said teammate Albert Pujols. "Dive for a ball, stealing a base, getting his walk, bunting. Everything you can ask for from a perfect player, he has it. He's just amazing."
A perfect player? High praise from a Hall of Famer.
On Saturday against the Rockies, after starting the game 2-for-2 with two runs and an RBI, he singled again in his third at bat. After a Torii Hunter fly out, he stole second base on the first pitch of Pujols' at bat. On the second pitch of the at bat, he stole third. He later scored on a Mark Trumbo RBI groundout.
Trout plays the game with aggressive abandon from the leadoff spot, and the Angels don't plan on trying to settle him down any time soon.
"I really think that when you play aggressively, you have a natural mechanism that protects you," Scioscia said of Trout, after he crashed into the outfield wall trying to catch a Carlos Gonzalez double Sunday. "If you try to put a governor on him, try to have him slide gingerly or not go as hard, I think that puts him more at risk. You can get in an awkward position if you try to take your athletic ability out of the equation."
Bryce Harper
Harper doesn't have quite the blazing speed Mike Trout has, but his outfield arm already looks like one of the best in the league.
Harper has played in 39 for the Nationals this year, one fewer than Trout. Like Trout, he has six home runs. He has impacted games from the batter's box, on the base paths and from all three outfield positions, where both his glove and his arm are weapons. His youth and his brash, aggressive play flusters opponents, and even smarmy broadcasters. Since his call up to the big leagues at the end of April, he's among the NL leaders in runs scored. He currently leads the Washington Nationals in batting average (.295), on base percentage (.381) and slugging percentage (.527).
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Unlike Trout, who played (and mostly struggled) in 40 games last year, Harper is brand new to the big leagues this season. A reporter recently asked Harpers' Nationals teammate Adam LaRoche if he'd ever seen anything like Harper.
"Has anybody?" LaRoche said. "I don't think you see many 19-year-olds come up and play period. Much less be hitting two-hole on a first-place team and doing the things he's doing. Just unbelievable."
Veteran Instincts
The thing that makes both Trout and Harper truly remarkable is they don't excell on talent and energy alone, as most successful rookies do. They each play the game with the instinct and attention to detail that you expect from 10-year MLB veterans.
If they are this good at 19 and 20 years old, it is almost unimaginable how good they may become. Their learning curve hasn't been steep, like it is for most rookies, because they are already so baseball savvy. So maybe they won't make the drastic improvements to their games over the next five years that you see from young players as they acclimate to MLB. Or maybe they will. And that's scary.
At some point this season, both Harper and Trout will struggle, as all ball players eventually do. It will be interesting to see how they handle a slump, but nothing we've yet seen from either player or personality suggests that they won't be able to handle it.
Derek Jeter And Alex Rodriguez
Jeter played 15 games as a 21-year-old in 1995, before coming on for a full 157-games season in pin stripes in 1996. A-Rod had cups of coffee with the Mariners in 1994 at age 18, and again in '95. In 1996 he played 147 games, and led the American League in runs (141), doubles (54), total bases (379), in addition to winning the AL batting title with a .359 average. He finished second in the AL MVP voting, behind the Rangers' Juan Gonzalez.
In Jeter's Rookie of the Year first season he hit .314 and won a World Series ring. Then he won three more in the next four seasons.
Jeter and A-Rod's careers were always going to be linked, even before they became teammates in New York. Jeter was the smooth operator, the leader, the Captain. He did everything well on the ball field, he handled everything with class, both on and off the diamond. Rodriguez was the pure talent with the puzzling, almost vacant personality. He chased contracts and choked in the playoffs. People never seemed to like him much, even as he tried as hard as he could to please everyone. He also did steroids, and has aged less gracefully than Jeter.
What Awaits Trout And Harper?
Two months into their young careers, Trout looks the Jeter to Harper's A-Rod. But Bryce Harper isn't much like A-Rod, at least not in persona. In the way he carries himself both on and off the field, Harper is much closer to Pete Rose. You love to hate him because he's brash, he plays hard and physical, and he's not afraid. And he beats you any way he can. But unlike A-Rod, he doesn't give as crap whether people like him or not.
In terms of personality, Trout has been a more typical rookie -- humble and quiet and not drawing attentiom to himself, except with his outstanding play. He was asked recently if he thought about making the All-Star team this year.
"No," he said politely, but emphatically. "I don't look at that stuff."
"He has got talent, and is smart, doesn't try to do too much, and he plays the game the right way," said Bobby Abreu, who was released by the Angels, essentially to make room for Trout. "He is a very humble guy, too, a nice kid."
But he has transformed the Angels. When Trout was called up on April 28, the Angels were suffering miserably at 7-14, in last place of the AL West. With Trout's help, they've turned the season around, climbing back into second place with a 33-29 mark. It's helped that Albert Pujols got hot, and Mike Sciosia figured out the right batting order (featuring Trout at the top), but Mike Trout has been the shot-in-the-arm and the MVP.
Harper and Trout will have long careers in the big leagues, and like Jeter and Rodriguez, they'll always be linked to one another.
Let's just all hope they don't end up together in the same Yankees outfield.
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Follow Bison Messink on Twitter: @BisonMessink
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[MLB.com: Trout's star rises as Halos win in Hollywood]
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