(Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

People sometimes paint Bryce Harper as an entitled young player who acts like he’s bigger than the game, but Harper is as big a fan of the sport as anyone currently playing it, and he has never been one to shy away from praising his contemporaries around the league.

So though Harper is currently sporting an outrageous 1.198 OPS — best in baseball by over 100 points — he told Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com that he is still not the game’s best player.

“Baseball is always, ‘What have you done for me lately?'” Harper said. “That’s just how the game works. I still believe Trout is the best player in the game, hands down. It’s not about taking a backseat to anybody. I love seeing Stanton hit homers or Kris Bryant do the things he does. I love watching Matt Harvey or Gerrit Cole or Noah Syndergaard come up and throw 100 mph. I cheer for guys. I’ve always been that way.”

(PHOTO: Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)

Harper and Trout currently rank Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, on Fangraphs’ WAR leaderboard, but Trout has led the Majors in that stat for each of the last three seasons.

Both players became full time big-leaguers in 2012. Trout is 14 months older than Harper and has been far healthier and more productive to date in their Major League careers. But Harper appears to have taken a huge step forward in 2015, with massively improved walk and home-run rates that seem to indicate a real improvement.

So, who ya got?

(An earlier version of this post said that Trout is ten months older than Harper. Trout was born on Aug. 7, 1991, and Harper on Oct. 16, 1992.)