Angels News: Expert Places AL Rival Ahead of Mike Trout in Player Rankings

If Mike Trout's health was never an issue, we would be looking at his career a lot differently and it's truly wild that that's the case. He's already had a legendary career with three MVP's and a number of Silver Sluggers and All-Star appearances.

On four different occasions, he has also led the AL in runs and base appearances. The only huge knock on him is that he hasn't sniffed the postseason since 2014, where he lost in the divisional series. However, he is still widely regarded as one of the best players in baseball next to his teammate Shohei Ohtani and that led to him garnering a deal worth $426 million over 12 years.

However, even though Trout is incredible, Bleacher Report's Zachary D. Rymer isn't ready to give him that number one spot without seeing him back in the playoffs just yet. He ranked every player making at least $25 million in 2023 and put Ohtani over Trout along with Yankees superstar Aaron Judge.

He mostly pointed to Trout's long injury history as the reason why he's number three.

"It's Mike Trout. Nobody needs to be sold on Mike Trout, right? Sure, there's the obvious point of concern that he's missed a lot of time with injuries over his last six full seasons, but he's continued to play like the three-time MVP and future Hall of Famer that he is when he's been healthy. Including now, as he's off to a perfectly fine start with a 183 OPS+."

(Via Bleacher Report)

Then, when looking at Judge, it was hard for him to ignore his historic 2022 campaign that landed him MVP.

"Judge is in this discussion mainly because he picked an opportune time to set an American League record for home runs and win the MVP, but to focus on 2022 is to obscure his big-picture excellence. Despite all the time he missed with injuries between 2018 and 2020, he's still second in rWAR and first in home runs since 2017. That's a transcendental slugger, folks."

(Via Bleacher Report)

As if he didn't need it already, this is certainly a wake-up call for Trout to reclaim his throne.