Mike Trout Getting Dangerously Close To Record For Futility

Mike Trout is revved up for the World Baseball Classic. The Los Angeles Angels center fielder told reporters in January that “the whole reason” he signed up to play for Team USA was to try and “win this thing. There’s nothing else, you know? Anything else is a failure.” That’s a fairly innocuous thing for Mike Trout to say. Woo-hoo. Go Team USA.  Let's win this thing!

If only Mike Trout had prioritized “winning this thing” before signing a 12-year, $430 million deal with the Angels before the 2019 season. 

Since Trout debuted with the Angels in 2011, the Angels have played just three postseason games. In 2014, the Angels finished first in the American League West with 98 wins and faced the Kansas City Royals in the American League Division Series. The Royals swept the Angels in three games. In 12 at-bats, Trout had just one hit–a solo home run–and struck out twice. He walked three times. 

That’s it. That’s the sum total of Mike Trout’s postseason statistics. In fact, the Angels have enjoyed only four winning seasons with Trout on the major-league roster; the last one was in 2015. 

By every measure, Trout is the best position player of his generation. Taking the 15-year period from the 2008 season through the 2022 season, Trout has a combined fWAR of 82.1 (fWAR = Wins Above Replacement as calculated by FanGraphs). The next best fWAR over that period is Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto at 58 fWAR and former San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey at 57.5 fWAR. 

Trout is so far superior to every other position player in the majors that he’s amassed 20+ fWAR more in that 15-year period despite not playing at all in 2008, 2009, or 2010, and seeing only limited action 2011, his debut season, and 2021, when a calf strain kept him out of action for two-thirds of the season. We see the numbers. We watch him play. But when you take a step back and think about it, what Trout has done so far in his career is mind-blowing.

Photo by kaleb tapp on Unsplash

Will Trout ever play in the postseason again? Will he ever play in the World Series? 

Both FanGraphs (using ZIPS) and Baseball Prospectus (using PECOTA) have good news for Trout and suffering Angels fans. Both projection systems give the Angels a decent shot at claiming one of the American League Wild Card slots. Indeed, PECOTA predicts the Angels have a better than 50% chance of making the MLB postseason. But the chances of Trout and the Angels appearing in the World Series–much less winning the damn thing–are very low. 

Mike Petriello at MLB.com explains how the Angels filled deep holes in their roster in the offseason. But those roster improvements lay on a precarious foundation, should the Angels need to rely on players in the minors. At The Athletic, Keith Law ranked the Angels’ farm system as 25th out of 30 teams. The writers at MLB.com included only two Angels prospects in their top 100 prospect list for 2023–catcher Logan O’Hoppe and second baseman Zach Neto. On FanGraphs’ top 100 prospect list, O’Hoppe and Neto were joined by 19-year-old Edgar Quero, also a catcher. 

So there’s postseason hope for Trout and the Angels this season, but hope doesn’t put trophies in the display case. 

If Trout ends his career without winning a World Series, he wouldn’t be the first MLB megastar position player with that black mark. Ty Cobb played in three World Series with the Detroit Tigers from 1907-1909 but came up short each time. Ted Williams played in one World Series with the Red Sox (1946) and Barry Bonds played in one with the Giants (2002), both losses. 

But the list of players with a 100+ career WAR (either Baseball Reference or FanGraphs) to never play in a World Series is very, very short: Nap Lajoie. Who? Exactly.

Heading into the 2023 season, Trout's career WAR is a bit higher than 82 in 6,159 plate appearances. He's only 31 and has eight years remaining on his contract. Unless he suffers a career-ending injury in the next few years, he will top 100 WAR. By a lot. And unless the Angels get very good or very lucky soon, Trout will become the new Nap Lajoie.

If Trout never plays another postseason game, he will stand alone among superstar position players in the Wild Card era. Remember that before 1995, the only way for a team to play in the postseason was to win its division. That limited the opportunities for superstars Ty Cobb, Ted Williams and Nap Lajoie to get to, and win, the World Series. 

The list of position players who played most of their career in the Wild Card era and who accumulated more career WAR than Trout has in his first 12 seasons is very, very small: Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Chipper Jones and Adrian Beltre. All of these players saw postseason action across multiple seasons. 

The same is true for every position player who played a good part of their career in the Wild Card era and was then voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame: Fred McGriff, Scott Rolen, David Ortiz, Larry Walker, Derek Jeter, Harold Baines, Edgar Martinez, Jim Thome, Vladimir Guerrero, Iván Rodriguez, Tim Raines, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza, Ken Griffey, Jr., Craig Biggio, Barry Larkin, Roberto Alomar, Andre Dawson, Ricky Henderson, Cal Ripkin, Jr. and Tony Gwynn. 

These stark facts are a strong indictment of Angels ownership and management for failing to surround Mike Trout with a deep and talented roster. Even Shohei Ohtani, when added to the Trout juggernaut, has not been enough to propel the Angels to the postseason. Ohtani has made it clear that winning will be a top priority for him when he becomes a free agent at the end of the 2023 season. 

If only Mike Trout had made winning a top priority before he committing his career to the Angels. 

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