If a lifetime of watching baseball has taught us anything it is the fact that we can’t trust a storybook timeline. When we look at players in their prime we imagine a bell shaped curve that works down gradually until they are in their late thirties or early 40s. We often base Hall of Fame predictions on this. Circa 2018 or 2019 Mike Trout was going to go down as better than Mickey Mantle or Ken Griffey Jr.
I suppose he still could, but the current timeline is not pointed in that direction. When he won his MVP award, I would have bet the house on Dustin Pedroia being a Hall of Famer.