Mike Trout is squarely in the passing-Hall-of-Famers-in-career-WAR-every-few-days period of his career. He is 27.
If I tell you that 27-year-old Mike Trout has more career WAR than, say, Roberto Alomar, you could hear it as an incredible tribute to Trout, but you could also hear it as a diminishment of Alomar -- and if we diminish Alomar, we diminish the power of the tribute. To really appreciate Trout, it helps to appreciate just how incredible the Hall of Famers he is passing were, and to understand how it is plausible that Trout is already actually more valuable than they were.