Bryce Harper vs. Mike Trout, 12 years in: What drives them to be great, and will they ever join forces?

At 3:32 p.m. in Cleveland on April 28, 2012, Mike Trout led off a game for the Los Angeles Angels after his last call-up from triple A. Six hours later at Dodger Stadium, Bryce Harper made his major-league debut for the Washington Nationals.

How’s that for a red-letter day in 21st century baseball?

“I didn’t know the same day thing. That’s really cool,” former infielder Phil Gosselin, one of the few to play with both Trout and Harper, said by phone this week. “They’ve been two of the faces of baseball for a while now. To say it all started the same day is awesome.”

Fitting, too.

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Drafted one year apart by teams on opposite coasts, Trout and Harper made swift, concurrent rises through the minor leagues and lived up to the hype as generational stars. In a sport that invites and encourages comparisons, Trout vs. Harper was descendant from Ruth vs. Gehrig, DiMaggio vs. Williams, Mantle vs. Mays, Schmidt vs. Brett.

Trout settled the who’s-the-better-player argument by finishing second, second, first, second, first, fourth, second, and first in American League MVP voting from 2012 to 2019. Through Thursday, he had 85.8 career wins above replacement, according to FanGraphs; Harper had 47.9.

But Trout and Harper have been central figures in other debates, notably how players should comport themselves on the field and be marketed off it. Lately, they have inspired another question: Whose career is more desirable?

In February 2019, Harper signed with the Phillies for 13 years and $330 million — at the time, the largest free-agent contract in baseball history. Trout agreed a few weeks later to stay with the Angels on a 12-year, $426.5 million deal, still the record for an extension.

Since then, Harper, 31, won an NL MVP in 2021 and led the Phillies on back-to-back postseason runs in 2022 and 2023, emerging as the modern-day Mr. October by batting .324/.432/.705 with 11 home runs in 30 games, including a two-run pennant-clincher at Citizens Bank Park in 2022.

Trout, meanwhile, at age 32, is stuck on three postseason games, none since 2014. He has endured eight consecutive losing seasons, and there’s no end in sight to the Angels’ misery.

“That’s kind of the tale of the two guys,” said Phillies special assistant Howie Kendrick, Trout’s teammate in Anaheim and Harper’s in Washington. “The team that’s built around Bryce is a really good team when you couple that with a player of his caliber. If Mike had the same pieces around him, I’m pretty sure he’d thrive, too.”

» READ MORE: Top 10 Bryce Harper moments as a Phillie: From Mr. 300 to ‘attaboy’ to Bedlam at the Bank

And here’s the kicker: Harper is crafting his legacy in Trout’s backyard.

Trout famously grew up in Millville, N.J., 45 miles south of Philadelphia. Fans have longed for him to request a trade to his hometown Phillies — WIP-FM (94.1) even created a petition (hashtag: #askouttrout). But people who know Trout insist he’s committed to the Angels.

So, as Trout and Harper reconvene Monday night — 12 years and one day after they arrived in the majors for good — for a three-game series in Anaheim, The Inquirer sought perspective from several of their mutual teammates to learn what they’re like behind the scenes and what drives them to be great.

Brandon Marsh isn’t ashamed to admit it. At times, first with the Angels and later with the Phillies, he felt awestruck playing alongside Trout and Harper.

“The honest answer is yes,” Marsh said. “I looked up to those two guys and still do. Being able to share a field with those guys and wear the same jersey as they did, it was super special. It’s like a dream for me.”

Imagine, then, sharing an outfield with both of them.

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In 2011, when they were ranked by Baseball America as the No. 3 and No. 1 prospects in baseball, respectively, Trout and Harper played center field and left field for Scottsdale in the Arizona Fall League.

“Hopefully someday,” said right fielder Alex Hassan, teeing up a punch line, “the three of us will be inducted together into the AFL Hall of Fame as the most successful outfield trinity in history.”

Hassan, now the Minnesota Twins’ vice president of hitting development and acquisitions, was a prospect with the Boston Red Sox. But even then, he recalled Trout and Harper having “undeniable, explosive tools that just looked different than anyone I had ever seen.”

They also had wildly different personalities. Hassan described Trout as “extremely laid back, personable, and fun-loving.” He recalled a postgame bus ride in which they recapped how they did at the plate.

“Mike asked if I had any hits that day and I responded something to the effect of, ‘1-for-3 with a single. How about you?’” Hassan said. “Mike responded, ‘0-for-4,’ and then he paused for a second before saying, ‘Sac fly, though. I’ll take that RBI.’ And that was Mike. He seemed borderline incapable of getting down on himself.”

Harper projected similar self-confidence, just in a more intense way.

» READ MORE: How does Bryce Harper thrive under playoff pressure? He’s lived with it since he was 16.

As an amateur, he was a baseball prodigy. He grew up in Las Vegas but played for travel teams in tournaments across the country. And he famously appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 16 as baseball’s equivalent to LeBron James.

It all translated into an uncommon competitiveness. While other players in the Fall League weren’t eager to face, say, Gerrit Cole, Hassan recalled that Harper “couldn’t wait to see how he would stack up against another No. 1 overall pick.”

But while Hassan found Harper — at 18, the Scorpions’ youngest player — to be “uber confident” and laser-focused, he also was refreshingly eager to blend in.

“I had no idea what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that he was a fantastic teammate,” Hassan said. “He seemed to have a nickname for just about every guy on the team early on. I was ‘Hass’ almost from Day 1.”

Likewise, Kendrick and Gosselin had preconceived ideas about Harper before they teamed up with him. Because Harper oozes emotion and plays with flare, opponents tended to brand him as cocky, a look-at-me star in a team-oriented sport.

The reality was different.

“He might’ve rubbed some people the wrong way when he was younger, but he genuinely just wanted to win,” said Gosselin, who teamed with Harper with the Phillies in 2019-20. “There’s nothing he wants to do more than win. And he feels like it’s on him. He probably puts too much on himself at times, but that’s what great players do.”

» READ MORE: The Bryce brand: Phillies’ Harper is intimately involved with how he’s marketed, and it’s paying off

With the Phillies, it has manifested in helping to recruit star free agents (Nick Castellanos, Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner) to join him. Trout’s greatness is unassailable. Since he rejoined the Angels for good in 2012, he leads the majors in homers (373), slugging (.586), and OPS+ (175), and ranks second in triples (54) and on-base percentage (.413). After being slowed by injuries in the last three seasons, he’s back to his usual feats, becoming the first player to reach 10 homers this season.

The Angels are off to their typical start, too, entering the weekend with a 10-15 record. Anthony Rendon is injured (again); the pitching is thin (again). Shohei Ohtani fled in free agency last winter. There was Trout, though, telling reporters in spring training that asking to be traded would be “taking the easy way out.” He insisted he’s loyal to the Angels and owner Arte Moreno.

But contrary to how it may seem, Trout’s former teammates insist that he wants to win every bit as much as Harper does.

In 2021, the Angels had a Monday off before opening a late-season road trip against the Rangers. The Eagles happened to be in Dallas to play the Cowboys, so Trout, an Eagles diehard, bought a luxury suite and rounded up his teammates.

“He’s like, ‘I had to do it, but it kills me to give Jerry Jones my money,’” Gosselin said, laughing. “It was such a relatable comment. It was something I would say. The Eagles side of him is as genuine as it gets. He’s living and dying with those guys.”

Gosselin, who works for the Phillies as an analyst, grew up in Chester County and went to Malvern Prep. Like Trout, he loves the Eagles. They bonded over football and Wawa and all things Philly as teammates in Southern California.

Surely, then, Trout must have asked Gosselin what it was like to play for their hometown baseball team.

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“I don’t remember us having specific conversations about it,” Gosselin said.

It isn’t that Trout doesn’t like coming home. On the contrary, Jersey Mike is designing a championship-level golf course in Vineland that is scheduled to open next year. Gosselin would often kid Trout about returning to Millville for the holidays rather than soaking up the sun in his Newport Beach mansion.

But there’s a difference between spending the offseason at home and playing for your hometown team. It isn’t for everyone. Zack Wheeler, an Atlanta native, nearly got drafted by the Braves in 2009. Years later, he’s relieved that he didn’t.

“Mike is like a normal guy who happens to be one of the best players ever,” Gosselin said. “Harp’s also a down-to-earth guy, but he was known from the time he was like 12 years old, so he has more of that superstar feel around him. Mike comes across as just one of your buddies from high school that happens to have otherworldly talent.”

Eventually, maybe Trout will get frustrated with losing in sunny Anaheim. Maybe he will look at the success that his careerlong foil is having in Philadelphia and ask Moreno to trade him to a contender.

Or maybe not.

“He signed there because he wants to win there. I could never fault a guy for that,” Kendrick said. “Mike never thought the Angels would not be a winning organization. But coming up with the Angels, the way we went about it, sometimes it’s a different philosophy today than what we had back then.”

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Said Gosselin: “They gave him his chance. They drafted him in the first round when a lot of teams didn’t have him as a first-rounder. He knows all the people there, knows the owner. If he can win there, where they’ve had a rough go of it, that’ll mean that much more to him.”

Until then, Trout will be the Ted Williams to Harper’s Joe DiMaggio, statistically superior but without the magical October moments. And that may wind up as the biggest difference between them.

“I always want success for Mike,” Marsh said. “Just because of what he’s done for me. Seeing Trouty in a big game in October, that would be special. As long as the Phillies come out on top.”