It began so swimmingly.
This assertion may apply to each Mike Trout’s profession and his 2024 marketing campaign. It seems like an eon in the past now, however the Angels icon went deep in his first at-bat of the season. He then outpaced all youthful mashers of their prime, like Aaron Choose and Shohei Ohtani, to change into the primary MLB participant to succeed in 10 residence runs in 2024.
Lower than every week after his tenth homer, Trout abruptly went on the IL. He had skilled soreness in his knee, and a check revealed a meniscus tear. It was a devastating blow, nevertheless it wasn’t anticipated to be season-ending. Trout regularly rehabbed from knee surgical procedure, received again to game-ready kind, and started an project at Triple-A Salt Lake Metropolis on July twenty third. It lasted two innings.
Extra soreness emerged and led to an early departure from Trout’s deliberate 4 innings, and although preliminary MRIs have been clear, a newer scan revealed a brand new meniscus tear. He’ll endure surgical procedure once more. Trout 2024 season is over after simply 29 video games, all earlier than the month of Might. The star is simply as crushed as the remainder of us.
Few gamers within the historical past of baseball can method the sheer quantity of Trout manufacturing from 2012, when he gained American League Rookie of the Yr, by 2019, when he polished off his third profession AL MVP. Throughout that timespan, Trout hit .308/.422/.587 with 245 doubles, 280 homers, 196 stolen bases, and a staggering 72.0 WAR, per Baseball Reference. That’s a better complete in eight seasons than Derek Jeter’s complete 20-year profession, and although Trout is usually in comparison with Ken Griffey Jr., even Junior’s eight-year peak from 1991-98 was 57.3 WAR.
Total books will probably be written sooner or later about this god-level run from Trout. As famous, he gained three MVPs, however there’s a great case that he ought to have gained at the least three extra. He may do something on the sector, robbing homers simply as simply as taking a pitch out of the park himself.
There was nothing that Trout may do about the remainder of the group round him, although. The core was adequate on the outset of his profession, when the Angels narrowly missed the playoffs in 2012 earlier than recovering from an off-year the following season to win 98 video games and the AL West crown in 2014. Trout’s maiden playoff voyage lasted three video games, because the upstart Royals upset the Halos in a three-game sweep that noticed the MVP go 1-for-12.
The Angels have by no means sniffed the postseason since then, and so they’re at the moment tied with the Tigers for the longest lively playoff drought. What’s worse is that they haven’t posted a mere profitable season since 2015, even with Shohei Ohtani aboard for many of these years as nicely. That streak will seemingly proceed this 12 months, because the Ohtani-less Angels are on their fifth totally different supervisor in seven seasons, at the moment maintain a 47-61 document, and have little hope from the farm system, which FanGraphs charges because the very worst in baseball. Their proprietor is an incompetent, interfering miser who almost rescued the franchise by saying he would promote it after 2022, solely to renege on his determination just a few months later.
Angels baseball can be considerably extra palatable with Trout round, however that has merely not been over the last 4 years. He was as productive as ever in the course of the COVID-shortened 2020, when the Halos someway nonetheless missed the postseason regardless of over half the league making it (together with the sub-.500 Astros and Brewers). Off to a 1.090 OPS begin in 2021, he suffered a mid-Might calf pressure on a seemingly innocuous jog to 3rd base.
It didn’t appear like the form of damage that might value Trout greater than a pair months, however he by no means returned in 2021. The subsequent 12 months, he performed by again ache and the analysis of a uncommon spinal situation (one that might have an effect on his profession) to seem in 119 video games, albeit whereas lacking over 5 weeks in midsummer.
Trout was wholesome by the top of June in 2023 and earned his eleventh profession All-Star look. On July third, nonetheless, a traditional swing was rewarded with a hamate bone fracture in his left hand.
Trout made it again for one sport, on August twenty second. Then on the identical day that GM Perry Perry Minasian introduced that Ohtani was achieved pitching in 2023 because of an elbow damage, he revealed that Trout would return on the IL because the hamate nonetheless bothering him. He was ultimately shut down and didn’t return.
Probably the most agonizing a part of all that is that when the dude is on the sector, he can nonetheless rake! The longer term Corridor of Famer’s remaining expertise has shined by, as in 111 video games because the begin of 2023, he’s hit .252/.357/.504 with 28 homers and a 135 wRC+. Out of all 299 MLB gamers with at the least 450 plate appearances since then, solely 20 have a better wRC+, and it ranks above perennial All-Stars like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., José Ramírez, and Pete Alonso.
Combining all his time missed this decade tells a bleak story, greatest illustrated by FanGraphs’ Jon Becker with a comp to a different former MVP who can’t shake the damage bug.
For the reason that starting of 2019, a season during which Giancarlo Stanton would go on to play simply 18 video games and Mike Trout appeared in 134:
Stanton: 463 video games performed
Trout: 453 video games performed— Jon Becker (@jonbecker_) August 1, 2024
I occur to nonetheless take pleasure in Stanton fairly a bit when he’s on the sector, however that is somebody whose personal normal supervisor has stated that getting harm “appears to be a part of his sport.” If his physique is responding higher to accidents than yours, than that may be a dire state of affairs. Hell, much-maligned Reds Period Griffey was more healthy, too.
The place does Trout go from right here? The Angels are nonetheless paying him $37.1 million per 12 months from 2025-30 and he’s solely 32, so he’s not about to retire or something. Each Trout and Minasian (who actually may be out of a job himself quickly) are saying all the identical issues about being looking forward to subsequent season. At minimal, a transfer out of heart discipline to a nook spot appears to be so as, if not an outright transition to pure DH obligation, à la David Ortiz and Nelson Cruz.
There’s no assure that this gambit will work as a result of Trout’s accidents appear to be so painfully random. Nonetheless, he and the Angels must strive one thing totally different as a result of the methods of the previous few years have failed time and again. Working round in heart isn’t the reply. If the Halos can’t put collectively a reliable group, they should do their greatest to at the least attempt to get their star wholesome. With even a modest second half of his profession, Trout may have been maybe the best participant to ever play this sport. Now, merely seeing him merely step into the batter’s field on a constant foundation can be a win. We simply need a second half of his profession at this level.
Get nicely quickly, Mike, and please keep nicely in case you can. We miss you.
