By Ken Rosenthal / The Athletic
Mike Trout hears the noise: that he is content to play for the Los Angeles Angels; that he does not want to win; that he will not demand a trade. It doesn’t bother him. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“It fuels me more,” Trout said in a recent interview at the Angels’ spring training facility in Tempe, Arizona. “The overall satisfaction, when we do win here, it will be greater than if I did go somewhere else.
“So when I hear, ‘Trout needs to get traded’ or ‘He’s happy to be there,’ they can say whatever they want. I’ve got one thing on my mind. That’s trying to win here.”
Scoff if you must. FanGraphs projects the Angels to finish 78-84 this season, ahead of only the pitiful Oakland Athletics in the American League West.
Trout, 32, is not ignoring the obvious as the team appears destined to miss the playoffs for the 10th straight season. That is why he continues to lobby management for free-agent additions. But he does have one other thing on his mind, something that would help boost the team’s performance.
He wants to return to most valuable player form.
Let’s not forget who Trout is. He finished first or second in the voting for the MVP award seven times in eight years from 2012 to 2019. As recently as 2022, he hit 40 homers in only 119 games. Last season, he had 18 homers before July 3, but played in only one game after that because of a left hamate fracture he suffered fouling off a pitch. He finished with an .858 on-base plus slugging percentage, a career low.
It was Trout’s third consecutive season of missing significant time. In 2021, he did not play after May 17 because of a strained right calf. In 2022, he missed more than a month because of left rib cage inflammation. The injuries, Trout said, prevented him from getting into a proper offensive rhythm, the kind only consistent at-bats provide. “I haven’t been able to get into a stretch,” he said, “where I can be me.”
Trout, though, does not believe he is in decline. As he first told The Orange County Register, he identified a problem in his approach that he said has hampered him for the past year and a half. He is “sliding” into his swing instead of maintaining a strong base.
The effect is evident in his numbers. Trout batted .316 on all fastballs (four-seam, two-seam and cutters) through 2021. That average fell to .285 in 2022 and .254 in 2023. His whiff percentage on fastballs the past four seasons went from 14.1% to 19.1% to 26.7% to 25.9%.
“I don’t know what’s causing it,” he said. “We’re in the cage every day working on it. It feels good in the cage. And then in the game it kind of comes back. It’s a habit I created over time. I don’t know how. I think once we calm that down and get that back right, you’ll see a big difference.”
Trout added matter-of-factly, rather than defiantly, “When I’m in my zone and I feel like I’m in that good spot hitting, I can hit anybody.” His desire to correct his mechanical flaw certainly is not in question. Ron Washington, the Angels’ new manager and the team’s fifth in seven years, sounds almost alarmed by Trout’s intensity.
“You have to slow him down,” Washington said. “I’m not saying he’s out of control. But he’s out there every day and he’s giving everything he has, to lead as an example. And I just have been trying to tell him, you can still lead. But just slow it down. Don’t burn yourself out.”
Washington said his fear was that the other Angels would try to keep up with Trout’s pace and run out of gas. He said that he advised Trout, an 11-time All-Star, of his concerns and that Trout understood. Still, Trout is hellbent on returning to the player he once was and eliminating at least that aspect of the noise around him.
As for the rest of the noise, well, Trout has seven years and nearly $250 million remaining on his contract. For all the talk of him getting traded, he first needs to restore his value by staying healthy and producing. If that happens and team owner Arte Moreno finally decides to retool, Trout can then wield his no-trade clause and effectively choose his next team.
Trout is not there yet. For now, he continues to take this at his pace, remaining loyal to the team that signed him to what is now the second-largest contract in baseball history, surpassed only recently by Shohei Ohtani’s, his former teammate. When Trout was growing up in Millville, New Jersey, his role model was Derek Jeter, in part because Jeter spent his entire career with the New York Yankees. That is the career path Trout wanted for himself. Still does.
Trout appears to be growing more comfortable publicly expressing his impatience with the team. He at least has admitted to voicing his opinion internally about the need for the Angels to sign free agents, not that Moreno is necessarily listening.
How much will this season affect Trout’s desire to stay?
“I wouldn’t say. I’m not trying to predict my future,” Trout said. “I come in with the same mindset every year. I’ve got to stay on the field. I think being on the field, I can make a difference for the club. And the last few years I couldn’t do that.”
What would make him want to move on?
“We got to win,” he said. “I think that’s a big part. I want to win. I’ve said it in an interview a few weeks ago at the beginning of spring, when the trade talks come up, I could go that route. That’s obviously a decision I would have to think about. I haven’t thought about any of that yet. I think the desire to win for this team is bigger than any of that.”
Again, scoff if you must. But Trout’s notion of returning the Angels to glory, however far-fetched, drives him still. One player cannot do it alone. The Angels’ only meaningful additions have been in their bullpen. Still, Trout is healthy again after appearing in fewer than 50% of his team’s games the past three seasons. That, at least, is a start.
He does not simply dream of returning to MVP form. He is convinced it will happen.
“I’m getting chills thinking about it right now,” he said.