It began so swimmingly.
This assertion might 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 grow to be the primary MLB participant to achieve 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, but it surely wasn’t anticipated to be season-ending. Trout steadily rehabbed from knee surgical procedure, bought again to game-ready kind, and started an task 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 Could. 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 way of 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 the next whole in eight seasons than Derek Jeter’s total 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 shall be written sooner or later about this god-level run from Trout. As famous, he gained three MVPs, however there’s case that he ought to have gained no less than three extra. He might do something on the sphere, robbing homers simply as simply as taking a pitch out of the park himself.
There was nothing that Trout might do about the remainder of the staff round him, although. The core was ok 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, they usually’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 possible 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 report, 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 choice a number of months later.
Angels baseball could be considerably extra palatable with Trout round, however that has merely not been over the past 4 years. He was as productive as ever in the course of the COVID-shortened 2020, when the Halos one way or the other 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-Could calf pressure on a seemingly innocuous jog to 3rd base.
It didn’t appear like the sort of damage that might price Trout greater than a pair months, however he by no means returned in 2021. The subsequent 12 months, he performed by way of again ache and the prognosis 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 way of the tip of June in 2023 and earned his eleventh profession All-Star look. On July third, nevertheless, a traditional swing was rewarded with a hamate bone fracture in his left hand.
Trout made it again for one recreation, on August twenty second. Then on the identical day that GM Perry Perry Minasian introduced that Ohtani was accomplished pitching in 2023 resulting from an elbow damage, he revealed that Trout would return on the IL for the reason that hamate nonetheless bothering him. He was finally shut down and didn’t return.
Essentially the most agonizing a part of all that is that when the dude is on the sphere, he can nonetheless rake! The longer term Corridor of Famer’s remaining expertise has shined by way of, as in 111 video games for the reason that begin of 2023, he’s hit .252/.357/.504 with 28 homers and a 135 wRC+. Out of all 299 MLB gamers with no less than 450 plate appearances since then, solely 20 have the next 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 wherein 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 get pleasure from Stanton fairly a bit when he’s on the sphere, however that is somebody whose personal basic supervisor has mentioned that getting harm “appears to be a part of his recreation.” If his physique is responding higher to accidents than yours, than that could 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 truthfully is perhaps out of a job himself quickly) are saying all the identical issues about being longing for subsequent season. At minimal, a transfer out of heart area to a nook spot appears to be so as, if not an outright transition to pure DH responsibility, 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 again and again. Operating round in heart isn’t the reply. If the Halos can’t put collectively a reliable staff, they should do their greatest to no less than attempt to get their star wholesome. With even a modest second half of his profession, Trout might have been maybe the best participant to ever play this recreation. Now, merely seeing him merely step into the batter’s field on a constant foundation could be a win. We simply need a second half of his profession at this level.
Get nicely quickly, Mike, and please keep nicely when you can. We miss you.
