Collective angst gripped social media Monday, with Mike Trout heading to the disabled list for the first time in his career with a torn thumb ligament that's expected to sideline him for six to eight weeks after surgery.

It’s a rough break for a player who until now had been a bulwark of health, averaging 158 games from 2013 through 2016 and collecting two American League MVP awards in this time.

But Trout’s injury is unlikely to cost him much, if anything, in the long-term. Even if it were a serious injury that could keep him out a year or longer, he wouldn’t have that much to worry about regarding his Hall of Fame chances.

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The only question is how much this injury might change the trajectory of Trout’s career, whether it takes him out of the running to be the greatest player all-time, which he’s had an outside line on to date.

His legacy, otherwise, appears perfectly safe at this juncture.

Cooperstown chances: 90 percent

Why: We’ll start with Trout’s offensive stats through the early part of his career. According to the Play Index tool on Baseball-Reference.com, Trout is one of 16 players in baseball history to log at least a 170 OPS+ and 1,000 plate appearances through his age-25 season.

Of these players, 10 are in the Hall of Fame, Shoeless Joe Jackson would be in were he eligible, and Pete Browning and Ross Barnes have their supporters.

Just two players of the 15 aside from Trout can’t have a reasonable Hall of Fame case made for them: Ed Swartwood, a star of the old American Association in the 1880s who played just nine seasons; and Benny Kauff, banned by baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis after Kauff’s acquittal for taking part in a car theft ring.

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It’s telling that the only non-Hall of Famers by this measure, aside from Trout, all last played long ago when the chasm between baseball’s best and worst players was wider.

In the Live Ball Era, no one’s been this much better than the rest of baseball in their early seasons and not gone in Cooperstown. It’s rare even for modern players to post 150 OPS+ and 1,000 plate appearances through age-25 and not later be enshrined (though an interesting article could be written about Kal Daniels at some point.)

Frankly, OPS+ underrates Trout somewhat. He’s the second-best position player in baseball history through age-25 for Wins Above Average, with 39.4. Only Mickey Mantle ranks better, at 39.7. If Trout comes back healthy in two months, he might catch the Commerce Comet. He should stay safely in front of Ty Cobb, who’s third at 39.2 (Cobb ranks tops for WAR through age-25 with 55.8 and Trout and Mantle tied at 52.1.).

Admittedly, some of the names of non-Hall of Famers immediately after Trout for their Wins Above Average rankings through age-25 are interesting:

Alex Rodriguez, second among non-Hall of Famers at 32.2: A similar column to this could have been written for A-Rod in 2001. Even casual fans know everything that’s happened since, though it seems unlikely to ultimately cost him a plaque;
Albert Pujols, third among non-Hall of Famers at 27.3: Another player who’s faded with time, though Pujols generally wasn’t on-par with Trout early in his career;
Andruw Jones, fourth among non-Hall of Famers at 25.5: A respectable hitter in the early part of his career, Jones vaults onto this list due to his sublime, underrated defense. His 170 defensive runs better than average through his age-25 season are better than any other player through this age by nearly 50 runs. That said, it would be ludicrous to suggest Jones eclipsed Trout;
Barry Bonds, fifth among non-Hall of Famers at 23.2: This is how Bonds ranked from 1986 through his first National League MVP season in 1990, mostly Barry before he was Barry.

Of those other four players, only Andruw Jones doesn’t look like a surefire Hall of Famer, though he’ll be eligible this fall and his case could start to intensify over the next few years. The inductions of Bonds and Rodriguez will anger some traditionalists, but they look inevitable.

Pujols is more or less a sure thing at this point. So is Trout, ridiculous as it might sound for a 25-year-old on the disabled list.

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Trout needs roughly 110 WAR to catch the next-best position player, Bonds. That’s 11 seasons of at least 10 WAR, just shy of 16 seasons averaging 7 WAR. Trout is something special. But catching Bonds seemed unlikely even before his injury.