Fastballs up. Mark it down.

And here I thought it was Jay Hook. Who knew?

His other weakness are his teammates!

Don't forget about that noodle arm of his...he can be run on.

Then Hamilton's weakness is anything around the plate.. guys that hit .340 don't have weaknesses.. It was one AB.. He was trying to park it ..

@619

Guys that hit .340? He has played in 108 career games, lets wait a while before we lable him consistent. Granted he might just be that good. For the Rangers sake I'm hoping he isn't... Your weakness is you think a guy has no weaknesses after 68 games.

I thought you were going to say Cookie talk.

where's the "like" button

I hate the Angels, but there is no doubt in my mind that he is a top 5 player in the Leauge for the next 8-10 years. With that speed and athleticism, and as he gets stronger, my God look out. Good thing is that Profar could be the same type of player, plus he should be surrounded by much better talent than Trout for the duration of his career.

i'll bet that trout produces more wins above replacement in the next ten years than jurickson profar. and that's no knock on profar; trout is just an elite, once in a generation type talent. trout steals more bases, and will hit for more power than profar.

profar is going to dominate in a different way. and based off the mere fact that jon daniels isn't going to write off on contracts as ludicrous as the albert pujols one, i agree that profar will be surrounded by more talent.

that said, trout > profar. but i hate to compare the two, because they are each special, just in different ways.

I don't think anyone is wrong to say Trout > Profar. Good for Trout and LAA. What I like is that the Ranger system is going to continue to produce top tier players like Profar for years to come while LAA will cling to Trout and the dearth that is the rest of their crappy farm.

In about 5 seasons Trout will be the only thing the Angels have as Weaver will be on the wrong side of 30 and with his unorthodox throwing motion he will be injured more often than healthy. They will have a shell of a hitter in Pujols; Trumbo will probably already be gone with a huge contract that LAA can't match and they will look up at the still AL West Champs(Rangers) who continue to reload and make run after run at ANOTHER WS championship and wonder where they went wrong...

@raskolnikov

Wow, you're either a scout or 10 years old. Have you watched Profar play? Trout is elite after 68 games? Trout will steal more bases & hit for more power? Quit comparing careers of players when one has a whopping 108 games under his belt an the other has none.

If you hate to compare, then don't unless you have a crystal ball. Everything you just typed is baseless and wishful thinking on your part, nothing more.

@ reagan

Actually, it's not "baseless" to think that Trout will be an elite player. That opinion is based on pretty much every scout that has ever seen the kid play...PLUS his dominant first half of 2012...plus his dominant MiL numbers.

There is a difference between comparing careers of players who are yet to have much of a career and projecting how a player will perform moving forward. Obviously, Trout could flame out and never be heard from again. But there are plenty of objective metrics that indicate that Trout is one of a kind talent that will dominate for the foreseeable future.

I'm pretty sure this a Texas Rangers forum and I have no problem with reagan's 'analysis'. Biased as it may be.

If that's the kind of 'analysis' we are looking for, we should all just start reading Evan Grant.

We should always read Evan Grant, but only because we need to know what we are up against.

Trouts true weakness like all heroes will be his hubris. If he can stay humble he will be fine. My hate for him is directly impacted by how much he helps the Angels. If he sucked I wouldn't give two shits about him, but sadly he is the exact opposite of suck.

That's a very low blow, utb.

I think the rest of you are more like EG in such effusive praise over a small sample size than the kid who doesn't want to hear it.

Regarding Trout vs Profar (vs Harper, while we're at it):

I suspect Profar will produce borderline HoF-worthy career WAR totals, and still ultimately trail the other 2 in career WAR. However, he has 1 distinct advantage over the other pair, and that is that he plays SS. Playing SS will get him a positional adjustment to his offensive numbers that, IF he hits his offensive ceiling the way Trout seemingly is, it could be hard for even an all-time great to produce more RAR.

And therein lies the keyword - 'ceiling'. Scooby hit the nail on the head. It seems as if Trout is already hitting his ceiling (esp. in terms of ISO) so I can't realistically project him to have a much better season than the one he's currently on pace to have this year. He just may - but IMO his ceiling is just below Henderson MINUS the power.

Besides, I say enjoy/curse the guy for now and quit rushing to anoint the kid. Especially on a Texas Rangers forum. That gets pretty annoying.

I guess it depends on your definition of a small sample size. Trout has over 1300 MiL PAs in which he dominated at every level, despite being one of the youngest players at each stop.

He has continued that domination throughout 310 PAs this season.

If you only want to consider his ML experience, then sure, it's a small sample size. But if you believe that posting a line of .342/.425/.516 during 1300+ MiL PAs before turning 21 is significant, then you probably don't think that his production this season is an anomoly based on a SSS.

I'm not ZiPS; rather, I don't agree with how they project production based on minor league numbers for rookies. I'm more of a zero confidence in minor league numbers guy. I don't agree that it translates as well as it one would like to believe that it would in theory. You seem to forget that Trout (as of right now) is a .308 major league hitter. Do I believe that's where he winds up for the rest of his career? Do I think he is going to have a career ISO of .200+? Absolutely not.

You have to be careful what numbers you use. Just because you're 'excited' about a player (that I'm not particularly fond of because of the flag he flies), doesn't mean you should anoint him based on his VERY short production matching his scouting profile (and exceeding it in other ways).

I can't stand Trout for the following reasons: he plays for LAA.

But, he has shown he can hit any pitcher. The league will adjust. He is a better player than Profar right now only because Trout is hitting MLB pitching and Profar is hitting AA pitching.

To discredit what Trout has done as though it is nothing, however, is very short sided. Not very many young players come into the league and start performing at this level. Can he maintain? Probably not. Once the book on him is established it will be up to Trout to make the adjustments. Can he? Who knows. Most great hitters figure it out or try to just rely on their talent(Josh Hamilton)to beat the book.

My guess is Trout's weaknesses at the plate will be discovered and if he is able to overcome those he will be an elite player for a very long time.

Or he becomes Fred Lynn and is only good for about half of his career and average the rest.

@reagan @txball

part of being a baseball fan is recognizing greatness from everywhere, not just your own organization's highly-coveted talent. as i expressed, my opinion of mike trout being a better prospect than jurickson profar is no slight on profar. because i think profar will be very good for a very long time.

however, profar's run tool is about 60-grade as compared to trout, who's closer to 80. and as profar may one day be a SS who could pop 15-20 homers, trout is a guy who will likely be closer to 30 a year on average. both have plus-plus gloves and instincts. both should be perennial all stars.

also, as you believe it's unfair to compare the two based off the small sample size argument, i think it's unfair to compare the two based strictly off the positions they play -- one is an outfielder, the other is an infielder. nonetheless, their offensive statistics are pretty relevant, because trout was 19 playing in double-a last year, the same as profar is this year.

no, Trout's power tool doesn't project him to be near 30.

raskol - I think you misunderstood Scooby's analysis.

also, you're combining reagan's analysis with mine. I don't necessarily agree with his analysis but I don't have a problem with it. 'Comparing the two via the small sample size argument' - I never compared the two. I simply stated there's no reason to anoint him based on his small sample size in production (which isn't complete anyways because most of you dismiss his production last year). Just enjoy/curse him. If you want to enjoy him here, be cognizant that there could be a backlash.