Keep in mind that this article was written on July 21st, not August 5th.
You might be familiar with the GOAT of basketball debate between Michael Jordan and LeBron James (by the way, it’s Jordan and it’s not even close). However, I decided to take a different and more intriguing route. I’m going to make my case for who’s the GOAT of baseball. Some say that names like Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Babe Ruth should be the GOAT. For me, I don’t even need to go that far back. I have two players on my radar, and they both played within the last 3 decades. Those two players are Mike Trout and Ken Griffey Jr. Now, in order for me to determine if one of these greats is the GOAT, I need to do two things. Just like the Luka article I did the other day (and most of my articles, to be honest), I’m going to break them down based on their highlights and their stats over the course of their eminent careers. Now, without further ado, let’s get into it!
First, let’s get into Trout’s case for the GOAT of baseball. When you watch his highlights, it feels like you get lost in how good he really is. He can really do everything. He can hit for contact, hit for power, make crazy catches look like the easiest thing in the world, throw out someone from another state, and can steal with ease. Oh, and by the way, he can be super clutch when a manager needs him too. He’s most definitely a once-in-a-generation type of talent. Let’s shift over now to his stats, and they’re looking just as good as the highlights.
Over the course of his career, he hit for a .300 or more batting average 5 times. He hit 30 or more home runs 6 times, including two 40+ homer seasons. He had three seasons where he hit 100+ RBIs. He led the American League and the Majors in OPS (which is on-base percentage + slugging percentage) 4 times, including three straight 1.000 seasons. Basically, he’s reached pretty much every single-season milestone there is to reach. Last but definitely not least, he’s spent 8 seasons in the top 10 of wins above replacement (WAR), including 4 seasons at the top. WAR is basically a stat to determine a player’s value to a team by calculating how many more wins he’s worth than a replacement. In short, it decides how valuable a player is, and Mike Trout is nothing short of that. He’s been in top 5 of the MVP voting 8 times, including 3 times where he won the award. He also won a Rookie of the Year, a Silver Slugger a whopping 7 times, and was an All-Star Game MVP twice. Let’s face it, Mike Trout is a very valuable player.
Let’s travel on about a two and a half hour plane flight to Seattle, Washington to talk about someone who was also a once-in-a-generation player and was very valuable to his team. That man is Ken Griffey Jr.
Like Mike Trout, he came into the Majors as a teenager and put the sports world on notice. The reason why I say the sports world was because in a MLB Network special about Griffey Jr, LeBron James (ironically) was featured in it and he said that he made the game of baseball cool. James couldn’t be more spot on. He was hitting balls to the moon with his unforgettable and sweet swing. Additionally, he would make impossible catches look as easy as trying to catch a routine fly ball. He was basically a replica of Trout in terms of highlights, but were they the same for stats and accolades.
He hit for a .300 average 8 times. He hit for 30 or more home runs 9 times, including 5 40+ homer seasons and 2 50+ homer seasons. He hit for 100+ RBI’s 8 times, including 2 seasons where he had 140+ RBIs. He had an OPS of 1.000 4 times. Finally, he spent 6 seasons in the top 10 of WAR (see above for explanation), including 1 season at the top. Now, let’s go into his accolades. He won 1 MVP, was a 13x All-Star, a 10x Gold Glove award winner, a 7x Silver Slugger winner, and a All-Star Game MVP.
In my opinion, the GOAT of baseball is………..Mike Trout! It was really close, but the thing that separated the two was the accolades. Trout got his awards way faster than Griffey did. Although these two are some of the greats of baseball, Trout just barely edges out Griffey for me.
Sources: baseball-reference.com, youtube.com, mlb.com