Mike Trout's Card Market Is Surging: But Should It Be?
Trout is off to a hot start in 2026 — we look at what the projections say, what they might be missing, and which cards are worth targeting right now.
Mike Trout has one of the best peaks in the history of baseball, but somehow his story still feels like more of a “what if” than anything else.
From 2012 to 2019, he accumulated a total of 71.7 bWAR, while slashing .308/.422/.587 with 280 home runs and 196 stolen bases. He won 3 MVPs, while being robbed of at least 2 more.
Without going into all the details, we know what happened from here. Trout’s prime was cut short with all sorts of injuries: meniscus, UCL, back, calf, and more. From 2020-2025, Trout played just 449 games, an average of 75 per year, and accumulated a total of 15.3 bWAR. When he was on the field, Trout was still a good player, but not the same MVP-caliber guy that we all took for granted the decade prior.
But is this changing in 2026?
Mike Trout has started the season on a tear, with a .971 OPS and 1.3 bWAR in his first 21 games. Impressively, he’s manned the outfield in 19 of those games, after primarily serving as a DH in 2025.
Additionally, his early season hot streak seems to be backed up by quality of contact metrics, although these have been good for pretty much the entirety of Trout’s career.
The one thing that stands out so far though is that Trout’s strikeout rate is down to 19.4% so far this season, after being well above 30% in 2025. While players can be productive even with high K%, putting the ball in play more often means that strong quality of contact has more opportunity to turn into production.
Trout’s Topps Update Rookie Card Is Up 33%
As you might have guessed, all this has led to a surge in Mike Trout’s card market so far in 2026. Below is a chart of the 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout Rookie Card, which is his most popular card on the market.
In total, Trout’s PSA 10 card is up 32.8% to $1,175 since mid February, although it’s important to note that this has occurred while the entirety of the baseball card market has been increasing. With that said, this begs the question, has Trout done enough so far in 2026 to warrant this kind of price increase?
The Outlook: ZiPS 3-Year Projections
To evaluate this question, we’re going to look at Fangraphs’ 3-year ZiPS projections. This is convenient for 2 reasons. The first is that they’re readily available and considered amongst the most accurate projections. And second, we can look at a 3 year outlook, which is an important window for the 34 year old as he approaches career milestones like 500 homeruns and 100 WAR.
With that said, the projections paint a bit of a bleak picture.
In total, between now and the end of 2028, they project Trout to play just 303 games with fairly pedestrian numbers. His OPS is never projected to surpass .800, and he’s projected just 2.8 WAR in total. If this is really all Trout has left in the tank, I’m not sure why his prices would be increasing now.
But of course, projections aren’t everything, and I think it’s safe to assume that if Trout can stay healthy, he at least has a chance to play at an All Star (or at least above average) level. In spite of the aforementioned injury-riddled seasons from 2020-2025, Trout still had a .913 OPS in that timeframe, and a per-162 game pace of 5.5 bWAR per season.
I’m not a projections expert, but I do think ZiPS is overweighting the down season Trout had in 2025. I think there’s a lot of reason to believe that Trout will at least continue to be a great hitter when healthy, even if overall he’s not the same player he was in his prime.
Final Outlook: Putting the Pieces Together
I don’t think we’re going to see another MVP season out of Mike Trout, and that’s not exactly a hot take. However, I do think he can be a borderline All Star caliber player for a few more seasons.
If Trout can stay healthy, we could see him reach some key milestones: 2000 hits, 500 home runs, and 100 bWAR en route to one of the easiest first ballot Hall of Fame selections of our lifetimes. Further milestones like 600 home runs are not completely out of the question, although they would require him to be on the field more often than not over the next 5 to 6 seasons. A World Series ring with the Halos would also help his collectability in the long term, but that seems highly unlikely at best.
With all that said, I’m fine with the bump in value we’re seeing in Trout cards now. I think last season he proved he still has it in him to stay on the field, as he was able to play 130 games in 2025. Now in 2026, Trout’s reminding us that he can still hit at an elite level. Let’s just hope he can keep it up.
Top Mike Trout Cards To Invest In
While the market context is interesting, our approach is always the same. We look to buy cards that are profitable to grade based on Expected Value, without trying to predict the ups and downs of the market. With that said, here are a few Trout cards that are worth looking into for either an investment or grading approach.
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2011 Topps Update Mike Trout
Notes: This is the Trout card we’ve bought the most of, and a great choice for grading. Raw cards go for around $350, while PSA 10s are now over $1,100. Average gem rate is about 45%. We’ve also graded quite well on these.
2026 Topps Mike Trout All Kings
Notes: All Kings cards are on fire right now, so I felt that this was worth putting in here. It’s too early to consider grading this card (I haven’t seen a single PSA sale yet), but if you’re looking to invest in Trout in general, this is one of his most liquid cards right now. These are worth just under $700.
2011 Topps Update Mike Trout Diamond Anniversary
Notes: This is similar to the above Trout card in terms of grading profit, but it’s a much higher ticket card. Raw cards are selling for nearly $1,500, while PSA 10s are approaching $5,000. These have an average Gem Rate of 47.7%.
2010 Bowman Platinum Mike Trout Prospect Auto
Notes: Admittedly, Bowman Platinum isn’t exactly a top tier brand, but at the same time this feels incredibly low for a rookie auto of an all time legend. With that said, don’t buy this card to grade, as it has just a 3.9% Gem Rate. This would be more of an investment play.
2011 Mike Trout Bowman Chrome Draft
Notes: I don’t recommend buying this to grade, as it has a Gem Rate of just 19.2%. But given the popularity of Bowman Chrome (and that this is not a paper card), this could be a good choice to hold longer term.