At first, it was a fun story. Twenty-year-old kid succeeds in the big leagues after a brief teenage cameo a year earlier. Then it was a tandem story — two outrageously talented, outrageously young rookies setting the baseball world ablaze. Then we started checking the history books. How many past rookie classes compared to the one we were watching?

It's time to recalibrate, again. For this year, at least, Mike Trout has blown by Bryce Harper. He is in the midst of one of the greatest rookie seasons of all time. He's doing things virtually no one his age has done before. He might already be the best player in the game. And if he keeps up this pace, we might soon be able to say this: On a per-game basis, he's putting up one of the greatest performances by any player, of any age, ever.