Mike Trout grew up wanting to be Derek Jeter so it’s almost fitting that Trout, a New Jersey native, be the player many believe will pick up the mantle as the unofficial ‘face of baseball’. At a couple of weeks shy of his 23rd birthday, he was the youngest All-Star Game MVP since Ken Griffey Jr.
The hottest Mike Trout baseball cards range from his 2009 Bowman Chrome Refractor Autographs that sell for thousands of dollars (or in the case of the 1/1 SuperFractor, nearly $4 million) to the standard issue 2011 Topps Update. If you bought in early, congratulations. They’re all worth a lot more than you paid. The good thing is, it looks like he’ll be around long enough to still get in on the action if you didn’t.
Trout’s success hasn’t been a total surprise but if you thought he’d be this good when he was youngand bought those early 2009 models for $40 and $50 each, you’re sitting on a nice little pile of cash.
Could it all come crashing down? Not likely at this point. Anything can happen but by now, it’s pretty obvious he’s on his way to the Hall of Fame and it would take some sort of chronic injury to keep him from playing at an extremely high level. The odds appear stacked more in the direction of Trout going down as one of the game’s all-time greats. A championship and another MVP or two would help, but he’s about as sure as a sure thing gets.
The rising value of his roookie and prospect cards have paralleled his on field success. First came those Bowman-branded cards while he was still a minor leaguer. Then in the 2011 Topps Update set came his official rookie card which has since shown us all that even a base card in a standard issue product can turn to gold. They’re not rare, but they’ve been in constant demand and prices have climbed steadily year after year. You can easily find one on eBay.
You can find him in other early issues, too.
Below is a list of the 100 hottest Trout cards on eBay now, sorted by listings with the most watchers.