McAdam: Mike Trout coming to Fenway makes this summer a little more bearable

The Red Sox' playoff chances aren't dead yet, but their closest friends and family members have been notified that it may not be long now.

The team's precipitous slide in the standings has taken place at an alarming pace. A week ago Sunday, they were tied for the second wildcard spot, and now, they sit six full games out after Wednesday night's 4-4 game with the Royals was suspended and will be resumed Aug. 22.

The prospect of more than a month and a half of irrelevant baseball is enough to discourage any Red Sox fan.

All, however, is not lost. Starting Thursday, fans going to the ballpark -- or watching at home -- can treat themselves to not just the greatest player in the game, but one of the greatest of all time.

That's not hyperbole when it comes to Mike Trout, who arrives Thursday with the rest of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for a four-game series. That's fact.

"When you think about a franchise player,'' said Red Sox bench coach Ron Roenicke, who was an Angels coach for several seasons with Trout, "that's who you think about. The talent, the work ethic, the understanding of who he is as a big superstar, and yet he still goes and signs autographs and knows everyone in the ballpark. He's not just a great player, but he's extremely coachable. If there's a little flaw in his game, he wants to work on it.

"It doesn't get any better than him.''

Trout's Angels are behind even the Red Sox in the wild card chase, a game under 500, but Trout is the odds-on-favorite to again be named the American League's Most Valuable Player. Should he win, it will be the third time he's earned the award in eight full seasons. Four other times, he was the runner-up; in his only other season, he finished fourth.

His career achievements are staggering, made all the more remarkable by the fact that Wednesday was his 28th birthday and he likely is not even halfway through his playing career. (The Angels certainly think so: they signed him to a landmark extension that has him under control through 2030, his age-38 season).

What's remarkable is that, despite the MVP (and near-MVP) seasons, the eight straight All-Star appearances and the six Silver Sluggers, is the suggestion that Trout may have yet to peak as a player. He's currently on pace to establish career highs in homers, RBI and OPS and he leads the league in both homers and RBI.

Of the myriad numbers that can be cited to support Trout's dominance, perhaps none does a better job than OPS+, which measures a player's value, adjusts for different ballparks and compares him to the league average player. Trout's OPS+ is 190, which means he is nearly, quite literally, twice as good as the average player.

His career WAR of 71.7 before his 28th birthday ranks him first all-time at that juncture, just ahead of Ty Cobb and Mickey Mantle. His WAR total is already better than 27 players enshrined in Cooperstown, and this season alone, he's leapfrogged, among others, Hall of Famers Tony Gwynn, Eddie Murray and Willie McCovey -- all well before he turns 30.

Trout's unique blend of power, speed and defense makes him the prototypical five-tool player, one whose achievements are comparable with some of the game's immortals. His career comparison with Mantle -- another center fielder who hit homers and, until his knees gave out, swiped bases, too — are so similar as to be eerie.

As chronicled by @bostonsportsinf, through their first 4,251 career at-bats, Trout has a .419 OBP compared to Mantle's .428; a .582 slugging percentage vs. Mantle's .575; and their OPS is virtually identical: 1.001 for Trout and 1.004 for Mantle.

If there's an aspect of his game that's regressed, even a little, it's base-stealing. After swiping 49 bases in his first full season, he's stolen as many as 30 only twice. That's a concession to physical beating a player takes in stealing bases, to say nothing of the risk of injury to a finger or thumb with a head-first slide.

"If he wanted to,'' assures Roenicke, "he could be a 40-40 guy every year.''

To mention Trout's name in conjunction with some of the game's all-time greats is neither sacrilege nor premature. His standing as unquestionably the game's best player is richly deserved over nearly a decade, with not the smallest hint of drop-off in performance.

Roenicke has spent his entire adult life in baseball — as a player, minor league manager, major league manager and major league coach, working with four different organizations. He's played with or against, or coached or managed hundreds and hundreds of players over the last four decades.

He's not given to empty words or flowery praise. But he has no difficulty putting Trout into historical context. Asked if Trout already belongs on the same level of immortals such as Mantle and Willie Mays, Roenicke doesn't hesitate.

"Yeah,'' says Roenicke, sounding both casual and confident, "he's on that level. Right now. I think because of how well-rounded he is -- because of the on-base percentage, because of the slugging percentage, because of the average, because of the defense because of the stolen bases ... it puts him up with those elite guys of all-time.

"I saw some of those players, and yeah, he's one of those guys.''

And though he'll be wearing the uniform of the visiting team, he's coming to a ballpark near you for the next four days.

Maybe the season isn't lost yet.