Mike Trout is one of the all-time greats, as you already know

On Sunday, Mike Trout celebrated his 25th birthday in his own fashion, robbing a grand slam from poor Leonys Martin (ignore the golden sombrero at the plate here).

While we are all aware of his greatness, I'd like to take a moment to appreciate what he's accomplished in honor of his quarter century on this planet.

Through Sunday's action, the Millville Meteor has accumulated a robust 45.2 bWAR in 763 games. For comparison, this is more than multiple-All-Star veterans like Matt Holliday, Ryan Braun, and Adrian Gonzalez have in their careers and as many as Lou Brock did over the course of his Hall of Fame career.

Speaking of Hall of Famers, there are 26 enshrined position players who have fewer career bWAR than Trout. Obviously, these 26 players are some of the least-deserving ones in Cooperstown. But that doesn't change the fact that Trout has built a remarkable career before he turned 25.

Players like Trout don't grow on a tree. In fact, only five other players since 1901 have accomplished this - accumulating at least 45.2 bWAR through their age-25 season. As you can see in the table below, all of them are either inner circle Hall of Famers or deserving candidates.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference's Play Index

To put this into context, Albert Pujols, Trout's current teammate and the best player of the previous generation, had racked up only 37.5 bWAR at this point of his career.

Now, to show how dominant he's been, I compiled a list of the top 30 position players since the start of the 2012 season, or in other words, when Mike Trout became the Mike Trout we know.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference's Play Index

Trout is, of course, on the very top of the list at 44.5 WAR. The reigning AL MVP Josh Donaldson comes in the second place, amassing 31.7 WAR. The gap between Trout and Donaldson is larger than Donaldson and 25th-place Jose Bautista.

Donaldson, Bautista, and all the players in between are above average major league regulars, if not bona fide superstars. Yet Trout blows them away by a landslide. That's how good he is.

As you may already know, Michael Nelson Trout is an otherworldly good baseball player and one of the greatest of all-time. Barring a Roland Emmerich movie-esque catastrophic event, he's going to get his plaque displayed in Cooperstown five years after his playing career comes to an end. We're more than lucky to watch him play baseball on a daily basis.

Happy belated birthday, Mike!

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Kazuto Yamazaki is a contributor to Beyond the Box Score.

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