Big stage awaits Trout in World Baseball Classic

Mike Trout, who can do as many things on a baseball field as LeBron James can on a basketball court, is about to be on the best team he has ever been on: Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. Not just on it, but captain of it.

Trout is playing with Mookie Betts and Paul Goldschmidt and Clayton Kershaw and Nolan Arenado and J.T. Realmuto -- and that’s the short list. Trout hasn’t won a World Series yet or come close to playing in one. At least this spring, he has a chance to win the world.

• World Baseball Classic: Full coverage | Teams, rosters

The best all-around player in the game has the chance to show the rest of the world just how much game he has.

“I’m extremely excited and very humbled to wear that ‘USA’ across my chest,” he said the other day. “Any time you do have that ‘USA’ across your chest, it means a lot.”

Trout’s first full season in the big leagues was in 2012. He was still just 20 years old. He has played 10 seasons since, even if the one two years ago was limited to just 36 games because of injuries. But Trout has played in just one postseason series for the Angels and has gotten just one hit, a home run.

In another time in baseball, Ernie Banks never made it to the postseason with the Cubs, of course when you had to win the pennant to do that. Still, thus far in Trout’s career, because of the teams he's played on, he’s gotten one more postseason hit than Ernie Banks.

LeBron James isn’t just the best all-around basketball player of his time. He might be the greatest of all time. At a similar point in his NBA career to where Trout is now, he had played more than 150 postseason games, had won two NBA titles and had made it to the Finals four other times.

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These are different sports, for sure. One extraordinary player like LeBron can make all the difference in a five-man sport, though you have to say that’s hardly proving out with the Lakers this season and last. But LeBron has had what feels like a second career in the playoffs and has made it to the Finals 10 times in all -- and eight straight at one point.

Trout has been MVP three times and finished second four other times. He has hit and hit for power, run the bases and chased down balls all over the outfield and all over baseball.

But he has only made it to the postseason that one time, in 2014. Three games and out. Twelve at-bats and just the one hit. He has never been close to being on the best team. Maybe this spring he will be with Team USA. I’ll watch the WBC just to see that.

“I’ll definitely have to ramp it up in the cage a little earlier,” he said on MLB Network this past week.

When he was asked what he will tell his Team USA teammates if they have to face his Angels teammate, Shohei Ohtani, if both Team Japan and Team USA make it to the semifinals of the WBC, Trout grinned and said, “I don’t even know what to tell ’em.”

You want to know what a spectacular talent Ohtani has been since he got to the big leagues with the Angels? He has turned Trout, as great as he is, into the Other Guy in Anaheim. It would be something to see if they have to face each other in a big game in the WBC. There are so many things that can make this WBC the most compelling yet. The possibility of Trout vs. Ohtani, even for one at-bat, is one of them.

But there is something else: Capt. Trout playing on a team with this much talent and this kind of chance to win, even if it’s the spring instead of the fall.

Trout, a Jersey kid, is an Eagles fan. He will watch his team play in the Super Bowl on Sunday against the Chiefs. He has Eagles season tickets, and watched playoff games in person this past January. He has been quite honest talking about the experience.

“It crushes me, because I want to experience the playoff atmosphere. I got a little taste of it in '14, but it’s been a while since I've been back," Trout said recently. “I can't imagine what the players are going through, and I think everybody that competes in sports wants that feeling. That's the goal every year, is to get back to the playoffs. You know it, everybody asks me, ‘We got to get Trout to the playoffs.’"

There are other MVPs on his USA team. Betts is a former MVP. Kershaw is a former MVP. Goldschmidt just won his first MVP Award. But it is Trout, who has been a star since he was a kid, who is the star of all of them -- best all-around player of his time, one of the best of all time. The WBC isn’t the only big-game stage he wants.

This isn’t that October feeling he’s still chasing. But it will have to do for now, for everybody.