One of the things I like to do every year near baseball’s opening day is take a look at where Angels outfielder Mike Trout is on the career WAR list (Baseball-Reference). He currently sits at 76.1.

Trout is coming off an injury year, which combined with the shortened 2020 means he has “only” added 3.6 WAR over the last two seasons. Before that, his worst year was 6.9.

So, last year, Trout passed Hall-of-Famers Paul Molitor, Old Hoss Radbourn and Sam Crawford.

Up next in the pecking order, among hall-of-famers. These are all within reach with an Average Trout year.

Bobby Wallace, 76.2
Ozzie Smith, 76.9
Robin Yount, 77.3
Luke Appling, 77.6
Arky Vaughan, 78.0
Brooks Robinson, 78.4
Dan Brouthers, 78.7
Joe DiMaggio, 79.2
Curt Schilling, 79.5 (Not HOF, I just like reminding him of that if he stumbles across this)
Pete Rose, 79.6
Jeff Bagwell, 79.9
Tom Glavine, 80.7
Rod Carew, 81.2
Nolan Ryan, 81.3
Mike Mussina, 82. 8 (yes, Mussina has more WAR than Nolan Ryan)
John Clarkson, 83.2
Ken Griffey Jr, 83.8
Pedro Martinez, 83.9
Fergie Jenkins, 84.1

As you can see, Trout can pick off a lot of HOFers once again this year. Of that list, the fewest years played was 13 (Dimaggio). Trout is entering his 12th. One name not on that list is Jim McCormick who put up 76.2 WAR in 10 years. Don’t remember him? Well, you might need to brush up on your 1880s baseball knowledge.