
By the primary 5 weeks of the 2025 season, the perfect you could possibly say about Mike Trout was that he was a minimum of wholesome sufficient to play every single day and was hitting a number of residence runs. Nevertheless, the 33-year-old slugger departed Wednesday’s recreation in opposition to the Mariners with soreness in his surgically repaired left knee following a dash to first base, and whereas he remained on the lively roster for Thursday’s recreation, afterwards, the Angels positioned him on the injured record with a bone bruise within the knee. That’s not a worst-case situation, but it surely’s irritating information on high of what’s already been a gradual begin.
Trout entered this season with extra query marks hanging over his head than at any level in his 15-year profession. After enjoying simply 82 video games in 2023 because of a fractured hamate bone — together with only one after July 3 — he was restricted to 29 video games final 12 months because of a torn meniscus in his left knee. He underwent surgical procedure, however as a substitute of the everyday four-to-six week timetable, he wanted almost three months earlier than starting a rehab stint, after which performed simply two innings for Triple-A Salt Lake Metropolis earlier than exiting because of discomfort in the identical knee. After he flew again to Anaheim for additional analysis, he was recognized with one other meniscus tear, requiring season-ending surgical procedure.
Upon reporting to the Angels’ spring coaching facility in Tempe, Arizona in February, Trout met with common supervisor Perry Minasian and supervisor Ron Washington, and collectively they determined that the perfect plan of action could be to transfer the 11-time All-Star middle fielder to proper area with a purpose to save his physique some put on and tear. Up till Wednesday, the plan gave the impression to be working; he’d performed all 29 of the Angels’ video games (matching final 12 months’s whole) with seven begins at DH interspersed along with his appearances in proper area. His .179/.264/.462 batting line, 96 wRC+, and 0.1 WAR aren’t something to put in writing residence about, however he’s been hitting the ball laborious on contact. His 9 homers are sufficient to tie him for third within the American League alongside Tyler Soderstrom, Spencer Torkelson, and teammate Logan O’Hoppe, behind solely Aaron Choose and Cal Raleigh.
Which brings us to Wednesday’s recreation in opposition to the Mariners in Seattle. Within the first inning, Trout blooped a excessive sinker from Emerson Hancock into left area for a single, and made it so far as third base earlier than the inning ended. Within the third, he hit a gradual curler to second base and turned on the jets in an effort to achieve safely. In keeping with Statcast, his dash was at 29.7 ft per second, his quickest of the season, however he was out by half a step nonetheless. After returning to proper area within the backside of the third, he yielded to pinch-hitter Jo Adell with two outs within the fourth.
Trout defined after the sport that whereas he felt wonderful after his sprint to first, his left knee started to really feel “bizarre” when he returned to proper area. “After I began jogging within the outfield a little bit bit, I began feeling it a little bit extra. Needed to be good about it,” he mentioned. “Hopefully, it’s just a bit scar tissue breaking apart,” he later added. The Angels eliminated him from the sport, Trout was checked out by a health care provider, and he iced his knee and obtained pulsed electromagnetic area remedy.
Trout was not within the lineup for Thursday’s recreation in opposition to the Tigers, however he remained on the lively roster, with Washington telling the media he was nonetheless being evaluated however was in good spirits. After the group’s 10-4 loss to Detroit, the supervisor introduced that the group was putting Trout on the injured record. “He has a bone bruise, so we’re going to place him on the IL,” mentioned Washington. “It’s not important. However he wants relaxation.”
Whereas the testing didn’t reveal structural injury, a bone bruise isn’t nice information, significantly because it’s been preceded by a lack of cartilage within the joint through his meniscectomies. Usually, a scarcity of cartilage to cushion the joint raises the potential of bone-on-bone grinding, which will be one explanation for a bone bruise, significantly when there’s no main trauma concerned. Given a minimum of one description of a “jammed” knee, Trout’s left knee might have incurred sufficient pressure with the lunge on his closing step to first base to have brought on the bruise, however that it was sufficient to ship him to the IL testifies to the delicate nature of the joint.
Per the Baseball Prospectus Restoration Dashboard, 5 place gamers have hit the IL with bone bruises in a knee since 2016, with absences starting from 16 days to just about 4 months:
Bone Bruises in Knees, Place Gamers
Efficient Date | Participant | Damage Sort | Ultimate Damage Description | Days on IL |
---|---|---|---|---|
6/6/17 | Devon Travis | Contusion | Proper knee bone bruise | 117 |
8/9/17 | Johan Camargo | Contusion | Proper knee bone bruise | 27 |
3/29/21 | Kyle Lewis | Contusion | Knee bone bruise | 22 |
6/23/24 | Starling Marte | Contusion | Knee bone bruise | 56 |
7/5/24 | Jason Heyward | Contusion | Knee bone bruise | 16 |
SOURCE: Baseball Prospectus Restoration Dashboard
That’s a blended bag that features a brief outage for a participant who beforehand had meniscus surgical procedure (Lewis) and a protracted one for a participant who (to the perfect of our information) has by no means had knee surgical procedure (Marte).
As Trout cools his knee and his heels on the IL, it’s value a take a look at his battle to remain above alternative stage. Whereas he was hardly in classic kind final 12 months, his .220/.325/.541 line translated to a 139 wRC+; his 10 homers in 29 video games put him on tempo for 56, whereas his 1.0 WAR put him on tempo for five.6. He’s been a lot much less productive this 12 months, and the large factor that stands out to this point is his 29.8% strikeout price. From 2012–19, he struck out simply 21.2% of the time, and solely as soon as (in 2014) did he have a strikeout price greater than two proportion factors above that (26.1%). As his enjoying time has gotten extra sporadic because of accidents, his strikeout price has fluctuated extra; from 2020-24, he struck out 26.7% of the time, with a excessive of 28.7% in his 82-game ’23 season and a low of 21.4% final 12 months.
Given the pattern sizes in play, it’s significantly useful to take a look at a rolling price graph to seek out precedents for efficiency. Right here’s one with Trout’s strikeout price in addition to his chase and swinging strike charges. All of those are interconnected, and all are larger than the seasonal charges we’ve seen earlier than. He’s at the moment chasing 25.5% of pitches outdoors the zone, almost a six-point enhance from final 12 months and his highest mark since his cup of espresso in 2011, and he’s swung and missed on 12.4% of his pitches, up over 5 factors from final 12 months, and a couple of level above his 2021–23 price (11.3%):
What this graph illustrates is that Trout had such a stretch for much longer than this in 2022, which proper now appears to be like like The Final Actual Mike Trout Season, a 119-game marketing campaign by which he hit .283/.369/.630 (176 wRC+) with 40 homers and 6.0 WAR however missed 5 weeks because of again irritation brought on by T5 costovertebral dysfunction. The mid-2022 peak of these rolling charges kind of coincides with the purpose at which he went on the injured record.
A take a look at Trout’s pitch-type splits reveals that he’s above his profession chase charges on all six of the pitch varieties he’s mostly thrown. Given the amount, the most important deal is that he’s chasing 14.6% of four-seamers and 25% of sinkers outdoors the zone; each of these are about double his 2023–24 charges, and above his profession marks of 11% for four-seamers and 17.9% for sinkers.
His 31.7% chase price on sliders (together with sweepers) is extra in keeping with his profession marks and his latest fluctuations. Whereas he’s hit .229 and slugged .521 in opposition to four-seamers, he’s whiffed on a career-high 30.8%; previous to 2022, he’d by no means whiffed on greater than 22.4% of such pitches. He’s hit simply .111 and slugged .278 on sinkers, down from .294 and .647 final season, albeit in fairly small samples (19 PA this season, 21 final season). He’s 0-for-18 in opposition to sliders and sweepers, with a 42.2% whiff price.
Given his excessive chase and swinging strike charges, it’s value having a look at Trout’s rolling contact charges for in- and out-of-zone pitches. For a similar time interval because the earlier rolling graph, we see that whereas he’s inside comparatively latest vary for in-zone pitches, he’s actually within the weeds on out-of-zone ones:
In order that’s not nice. For some extra encouraging information, we shift to what occurs when he makes contact. Maybe as a result of a couple of of his greatest seasons preceded the Statcast period — he was the MVP in 2014 and was the runner-up within the earlier two seasons, exceeding 10 WAR in each — Trout has by no means dominated the Statcast leaderboards to fairly the extent that Choose or Shohei Ohtani have besides within the barrel price division. His common exit velocities and hard-hit charges have each been in 99th-percentile territory at some factors however have centered nearer to the ninetieth percentile, with a low of the 69th percentile for EV and 74th for hard-hit. His barrel charges have typically been within the 98th percentile or above, with a low of the 93rd. Percentile-wise, he’s beneath all of these at the moment, however he’s a lot nearer to his norms in barrel price, and nonetheless not that far off his Statcast-era averages within the different classes:
Mike Trout Statcast Profile
Season | BBE | EV | Pct EV | Brl% | Pct Brl | HH% | Pct HH |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | 300 | 91.6 | 99 | 19.7% | 93 | 50.3% | 97 |
2023 | 206 | 91.9 | 90 | 16.0% | 99 | 51.5% | 96 |
2024 | 82 | 89.2 | 89 | 17.1% | 95 | 41.5% | 95 |
2025 | 72 | 90.5 | 63 | 16.7% | 90 | 45.8% | 66 |
2015–25 | 2,744 | 91.3 | 15.7% | 46.0% |
Pattern-wise, we’re far sufficient alongside that we are able to put some inventory in these numbers. Exit velocity stabilizes on the 40 batted ball occasion mark and barrel price on the 50 BBE mark; hard-hit stabilizes on the 80 BBE mark, so he’s in need of that, however his price doesn’t look like a departure.
Trout’s anticipated stats present he’s getting a very uncooked deal within the batting common division, however his anticipated slugging proportion is in keeping with his latest fragmented seasons. The lag between precise and anticipated numbers may be very large on pitches within the coronary heart of the zone:
Mike Trout Anticipated Stats
Season | Cut up | PA | AVG | xBA | SLG | xSLG | wOBA | xwOBA | Whiff% | Brl% |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | Complete | 499 | .283 | .265 | .630 | .583 | .418 | .395 | 30.2% | 19.7% |
2023 | Complete | 362 | .263 | .275 | .490 | .523 | .368 | .389 | 29.3% | 16.0% |
2024 | Complete | 126 | .220 | .271 | .541 | .591 | .365 | .405 | 20.5% | 17.1% |
2025 | Complete | 121 | .179 | .248 | .462 | .577 | .307 | .373 | 30.1% | 16.7% |
2022 | Coronary heart | 171 | .327 | .305 | .784 | .724 | .468 | .435 | 23.7% | 24.8% |
2023 | Coronary heart | 141 | .353 | .377 | .683 | .775 | .428 | .487 | 21.1% | 23.3% |
2024 | Coronary heart | 50 | .320 | .335 | .860 | .824 | .491 | .486 | 13.3% | 24.4% |
2025 | Coronary heart | 55 | .164 | .290 | .382 | .625 | .231 | .383 | 13.7% | 13.3% |
2022 | Shadow | 248 | .270 | .257 | .588 | .545 | .380 | .361 | 27.9% | 16.7% |
2023 | Shadow | 151 | .221 | .219 | .397 | .368 | .304 | .294 | 30.1% | 7.1% |
2024 | Shadow | 58 | .140 | .230 | .260 | .411 | .242 | .330 | 24.5% | 6.1% |
2025 | Shadow | 48 | .244 | .253 | .683 | .653 | .408 | .398 | 34.3% | 22.2% |
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
On pitches within the coronary heart of the zone, Trout’s precise efficiency has been dangerous — 9 runs beneath common, uncharted territory for him — however whereas his contact in that space hasn’t been as much as his latest requirements, it’s been a lot better than his uncooked slash line suggests. He’s truly doing wonderful within the shadow zone, the pitches on both aspect of the border of the strike zone, at six runs above common, which is pretty much as good or higher than he did throughout some classic seasons (2016–18).
Neither his present harm nor his statistics to this point recommend issues are significantly rosy in Troutland. However whereas we shouldn’t count on him to all of the sudden revert to MVP kind, his underlying metrics recommend his efficiency hasn’t been as dangerous as his numbers take a look at this juncture. We will hope — once more — that this received’t be a protracted absence, and that as he will get extra enjoying time upon returning, he’ll present us one thing nearer to his productive-when-available 2023-24 ranges. Fingers crossed.