Why Mike Trout isn't the new face of baseball - yet

In professional wrestling parlance, a concerted push to turn a character into a fan favorite is known as “putting him over.” The wheels of the league’s mechanism start turning in an attempt to make one athlete a “face”.

In baseball, the good guy/bad guy dichotomy isn’t quite as clear cut as in the inane soap opera for preteens, but much of last night’s All Star festivities felt as though the machinery of Major League Baseball was trying to turn Mike Trout into a “face” - the face of the game.

The air was rife with “Jeter passes the torch to Trout” narrative strains in the Twin Cities. It seemed forced and unnatural, as though fans lack the free will to decide on their own who should serve in the nominal role of baseball’s “new face.”

There was no push to make Derek Jeter “the face of baseball” - he earned it.

He earned it by being one of the greatest shortstops in the history of the game. He earned it by playing for the most storied franchise in baseball during an era of unquestioned dominance. He earned it by putting up numbers when it mattered, even if our memory distorts just how good those numbers were and when he actually produced them.

Baseball didn’t orchestrate Jeter’s rise to the preeminent sportsmen of his generation. His work on the biggest stage in the game garnered him the respect and admiration of fans, media, and his fellow competitors alike.

Mike Trout has a great chance to do the same. He’s arguably a better player now than Jeter ever was, a similarly blank slate advertisers and image-conscious Old White Baseball can anoint their chosen one.

For now, his Angels teammates need to play along. They sit with the second-best record in all of baseball at the All Star break, challenging for the AL West division title.

Would they be there without Trout? No matter what you think of value stats like Wins Above Replacement, this Angels group would challenge for the post-season even without the best player in the game.

Like it or lump it, post-season success is the key that unlocks the doors to superstar credibility. All the Subway commercials in the world can’t match October success when it comes to bringing a player from the West Coast into the living rooms of most casual baseball fans.

Trout’s time is now. No All Star ovations or grooved fastballs or feel-good moments will usher the in the era of Trout any faster than his own actions. On the field and off, the best player in baseball in baseball can’t inhabit a greater place in the sporting culture until he does one thing - earn it.