Troutless Again

Remember Mike Trout? Best baseball player in the universe, and got paid like it too? Shoo-in for the Hall of Fame? Shoo-in for governor of California if he wanted it? There'd be statues, there'd be a Netflix documentary, there'd be a sitcom with Shohei Ohtani, there'd be World Series rings to make his hands look like he stole them from Mickey Mouse.

Well, you'll be shocked in no way whatsoever to learn this:

Yes, Trout's body has revolted yet again, killing yet one more season and inspiring fun new rounds of the internet's 283rd favorite game, "He's Played Fewer Games In The Last Half Decade Than [Guy Who Stinks]." He's played the equivalent of two seasons in the last five, and has hit as many home runs in that time as Joey Gallo. He's missed time with a calf strain, a back strain, a broken hand, and now two torn meniscuses (or menisci, if you are Latinly inclined). The dream matchup of him and Ohtani that would surely make the Angels a center of baseball attention in this decade lasted barely two and a half years, and never resulted in a postseason, or many indelible memories for either. It's almost as if it never happened at all.

That's the new takeaway from Trout's injury, a sad recalibration of his legacy as a player. Now, legacy reconsideration is a detestable but much beloved move by chat-show barnacles stuck between doing show prep and letting a producer do it instead, and no athlete is immune. Simone Biles has won no gold medals today, and thus her legacy is now worse than it was yesterday. Ask any morning-drive nimrod.

But Trout has gone from being a perennial MVP candidate to this generation's Ernie Banks, the Cubs first baseman and shortstop who breezed into Cooperstown on the wings of the title "Best Player Never To Play In The Postseason." Trout did play three postseason games in his career, all of them in 2014, all of them losses, and all of them disappointments for him personally, with one hit in 12 at-bats. Like we said, it's almost as if it never happened.

But that wasn't the issue, clearly. There would have been more if the Angels had any pitching, or one more bat, or more than three winning seasons. He'd chosen the wrong team karmically, stayed with them out of loyalty and the love that comes with 12-year, $426 million contract that was supposed to see him through six more years after this, three more MVPs, a few more postseasons, and all the accolades Ken Rosenthal can spew. Instead, he is a figure of pity. Ohtani has superseded him by going an hour up the road. Trout's heyday, 2012–19, in which he won twice as many MVP votes as any other player in that span, was as great as any player's best eight years, but five hard years in civilian clothes have undercut that story, from pity to smarmy counting-stat curios.

In fairness, that's no sillier than Angels GM Perry Minasian, who while speaking in Trout's defense, said, "He’s going to come back. He’s going to win the MVP, and he’s going to hit 70 home runs. Book it.” No, he isn't going to hit 70 home runs, and he probably won't win another MVP, and book that.

Minasian is correct, though, when he says, "I know everybody’s like, ‘What happened? Why?’ I get it. I have the same questions. With that being said, sometimes things happen. And sometimes, that’s the answer.”

Well, the answer sucks and I hate it. It's no more helpful than "This is what happens when you put your hope in anything Angels-related." It's snarky, and it is inferentially accurate, but five years of you-can't-play-because-your-body-hates you is an unsatisfying answer to any question. Mike Trout may not deserve anything more because he had eight years most players fantasize about, but maybe for all that personal success, the thing he really wanted to do was just play baseball.

Though were I him, I'd fumigate the Angels clubhouse just in case the bad juju isn't his but theirs.