Mike Trout

Mike Trout‘s last health update came in late June, when the Angels superstar was aiming to return to action before the end of July.  That timeline appears to be coming into focus, as MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger writes (via X) that Trout could be back in the Angels’ lineup before the end of the week.  The first step is facing live pitching at the Angels’ Spring Training complex this weekend, and Trout is then expected to start a Triple-A rehab assignment on Monday.

Bollinger suggests that Trout could be activated from the 60-day injured list on Thursday, when the Halos return home to start a four-game series with the A’s.  Assuming this date holds up, that would make it almost exactly three months since Trout’s last game, as the outfielder last took the field on April 29 before suffering a torn meniscus in his left knee.  The injury required surgery and another lengthy absence for Trout, which has unfortunately become far too common an occurrence for the three-time AL MVP.  Between a right calf strain, back issues, a left hamate fracture, and now this knee surgery, Trout has played in only 266 games since the start of the 2021 season.

In typical fashion, Trout has still been outstanding in that limited playing time, posting a .951 OPS over 1133 plate appearances since Opening Day 2021.  Those numbers include 10 homers and a .220/.325/.541 slash line in 126 plate appearances this season, and while this translates to a 138 wRC+, that impressive number still counts as a step down from Trout’s usual level of Cooperstown-esque production.  Trout was making much less hard contact than usual but also with a drastic reduction in his strikeouts.

While it may be overstating things to read too deeply into a 126-PA sample size, some kind of dropoff is perhaps inevitable given Trout’s age (33 in August), his recent injury history, and simply the fact that only a few players in baseball history have ever kept Trout’s prior level of production over a longer period of time.  Trout’s 135 wRC+ over the last two seasons comes on the heels of a 174 wRC+ and a .305/.418/.592 slash line from 2012-22.

Of course, Los Angeles reached the playoffs just once during that 11-year run, and the team hasn’t had a winning season since 2015.  Trout will return to another lost season, as the Angels have languished to a 41-56 record and are again looking to sell at the deadline, albeit in perhaps a somewhat limited fashion.  Finishing out the year in his usual form and in good health would provide Trout with a nice platform for 2025, though questions will persist about how long Trout might continue putting up with the Halos’ struggles before asking for a trade.  Or, if a deal would be feasible given how Angels owner Arte Moreno has long resisted rebuilding, plus how Trout’s huge remaining contract ($212.7MM over the 2025-30 seasons) and his health history would certainly make interested suitors wary of taking on such a big salary commitment.

Fans around baseball received exciting news today as veteran superstar Mike Trout told reporters (including Sam Blum of The Athletic) this afternoon that he is “basically pain-free” with only occasional soreness as he works his way back from surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee that he underwent at the end of April. Initial reporting suggested a recovery timeline in the range of six weeks was possible for the 32-year-old based on similar surgeries other players had undergone previously, though the Angels cautioned that they intended to take Trout’s rehab slowly in order to minimize the possibility of re-injury.

They’ve certainly done that, as tomorrow will mark two months since Trout went under the knife and he has still not began running, as he told reporters (including Blum) earlier today. While he has no specific timetable for his return from the IL or even for himself to resume running, Trout indicated that he expects to be back by the end of July. Given the fact that Trout will almost assuredly require a rehab assignment of some length after a two-month layoff, that timeline would suggest that the star expects to resume running in relatively short order.

The possibility of Trout returning in the near future is certainly an exciting one, both for Angels fans and fans around the baseball world. After all, the 32-year-old veteran was long considered the game’s best player and is already a slam-dunk future Hall of Famer as an 11-time All Star who finished within the top 5 of AL MVP voting in nine consecutive seasons while winning the award three times. Trout’s career slash line of .299/.410/.581 gives him the 12th-highest career wRC+ in MLB history, ahead of legends of the game such as Ty Cobb and Stan Musial.

Prior to going on the IL this season, Trout had gotten off to an unusual start. The superstar slugged an incredible ten home runs in just 29 games prior to going on the IL, was striking out at a 21.4% clip that would be his lowest since the pandemic if maintained throughout the whole year, and boasted a strong 12.7% walk rate. While those elite peripherals would suggest that Trout was an early favorite to win his fourth AL MVP award this year, an eye-popping batting average on balls in play of just .194 left Trout with a slash line of “just” .220/.325/.541 in 126 trips to the plate prior to his placement on the injured list. While the overwhelming majority of hitters would be delighted to post a wRC+ of 138, that’s a far cry from Trout’s typical lofty standard.

Of course, this is far from the only injury that’s plagued Trout in recent years. The veteran has played in just 51% of the club’s games since the start of the 2020 season amid injury woes ranging from calf and back problems to a fractured hamate bone, in addition to this season’s knee surgery. Those injury woes have not only cost Trout nearly half of his games over the past half decade, but have also turned his contract with the Angels, which runs through the 2030 season, into a relative bargain for a future Hall of Famer into a deal that the Halos might have trouble moving on from even if both the organization and Trout himself were to decide that they’d like to part ways.

Talented as Trout is, it’s extremely unlikely that his return will be able to spur Anaheim into the postseason. The club’s 35-46 record leaves them 10.5 games back in the AL West and nine games back of the final AL Wild Card spot with a record better than only the lowly A’s and White Sox among all AL clubs. To even finish the season with a .500 record, the Halos would need to play at a .568 clip the rest of the way, on par with what the Braves have done in the first half this year.

Angels outfielder Mike Trout‘s recovery timeline seems to be growing. Earlier this week, Sam Blum of The Athletic relayed on X that the superstar says he still hasn’t started running and doesn’t have a target for his return date.

At the end of April, the Angels announced that Trout would require surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee. They didn’t provide a recovery timeline but some reporters suggested a timeline of four to six weeks based on previous surgeries of this nature.

Trout’s surgery took place on May 3, seven weeks ago today. The fact that he’s still not running suggests that he’s nowhere close to a return. Even once he crosses that bridge, he will have to gradually ramp up activities and will likely need some kind of rehab assignment after such a long layoff.

It’s the latest frustrating setback as the recent period of Trout’s career has unfortunately come to be defined by injury absences. From 2012 to 2019, there was only one season in which Trout played less than 134 games. He also played 53 out of the 60 games in the shortened 2020 season. But he hasn’t hit the 120-game mark in any season since then and only got into more than 82 contests once.

The 2021 season saw Trout hit the injured list with a right calf strain that lingered and lingered, limiting him to just 36 games that year. The following year, Trout was healthy enough for 119 games but did deal with some back problems. Last year, a left hamate fracture capped him at 82 games. This year, he was only able to get into 29 contests before the meniscus surgery and it’s anybody’s guess how much he’ll be able to add to that number later in the year.

Those injuries have reduced the quantity of his playing but the quality has still been good. He has slashed .276/.376/.575 since the start of 2021 and has a line of .220/.325/.541 this year despite a .194 batting average on balls in play. But the mounting injuries are a significant problem for the organization.

The Angels had two of the best players in the world on the same team for six years with Trout and Shohei Ohtani both on the roster. But their attempts to build a winner around those two continually fell short, as the Halos haven’t even finished above .500 since 2015.

Now Ohtani is gone, having reached free agency and signed with the Dodgers, while Trout has become an ongoing question mark. The Angels are one of the worst clubs in baseball this year, with a 29-45 record that is ahead of just four clubs.

All in all, very little about the franchise is in good shape. In addition to the struggles at the major league level, most prospect evaluators rank their farm system as one of the worst. Owner Arte Moreno pared back the payroll this winter and it’s unclear when it will ramp up again. A lot of the money they are spending is tied up in Trout and Anthony Rendon, with each of them making more than $35MM annually while frequently injured. Rendon’s deal goes through 2026 and Trout’s through 2030. Trout will reach his 33rd birthday in August of this year.

Angels general manager Perry Minasian spoke to the media at the Winter Meetings today, emphatically declaring that a Mike Trout trade is not happening, with Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com among those to pass along his comments. “Mike Trout is not getting traded,” Minasian said. “100 percent.”

There was never really any concrete reporting to suggest that a Trout trade was actually being considered, just speculation from outside observers. The argument for contemplating a trade was essentially that the club hasn’t been good enough in recent years, despite having both Trout and Shohei Ohtani on the same team. They haven’t had a winning season since 2015, haven’t made the postseason since 2014 and haven’t won a playoff game since 2009. With Ohtani now a free agent and perhaps signing elsewhere, it was suggested by some that the club should look to blow up the roster and start over.

But that is clearly not how the Halos are viewing things. Last month, Minasian made it clear that the club is not rebuilding and is actually planning on being aggressive this winter in adding to the roster. That may involve luring Ohtani back to Anaheim or perhaps pivoting to other notable transactions, but trading Trout doesn’t make sense in any scenario where the club is still trying to win in the short term.

Even if the club were to decide to make Trout available at some point down the road, there would be challenges in doing so. For one thing, Trout has a full no-trade clause and would therefore have to give the green light to any deal. Back in September, he spoke about how he intended to play for the Angels in 2024.

It’s also fair to wonder how much trade value he actually has at this point. Various injuries have limited him to 237 games played over the past three seasons, less than half of the club’s 486 contests for that time frame. He was able to get into 82 games in 2023, with a left hamate fracture wiping out much of his second half, but had diminished production when on the field. His batting line of .263/.367/.490 was still well above average, translating to a wRC+ of 134, but he had never previously had a wRC+ below 167 in a full season. He also hasn’t reached double-digit steals since 2019 and the advanced defensive metrics have been split on his glovework in recent years.

That’s not to say Trout isn’t still a very good player. FanGraphs still pegged him as being worth 3.0 wins above replacement in 2023, even with the drop from his own ridiculous standards and only playing half the year. But he’s now 32 years old with his health becoming a growing concern and he is still being paid at an elite level.

Trout’s contract still has seven more years on it with $248.15MM still to be paid out, a rate of $35.45MM per year through 2030. Even if the club decides to change their plans a year from now, he will still have six years and $212.7MM remaining, going into his age-33 season. Using MLBTR’s Contract Tracker to look at data going back to 2010, we can see that the largest guarantee secured by a player going into his age-33 season or older is Jacob deGrom‘s $185MM deal from last offseason. Among position players, Josh Donaldson‘s $92MM tops the list.

Unless Trout can suddenly return to total health and MVP-caliber production, there’s likely not any surplus value in the deal. Though he’s still a valuable player, it would be hard for him to secure this elite-level salary if he were on the open market. That means the Angels would either have to settle for a middling return to clear the money off the books or eat some cash in order to secure a more notable return. That figures to put the club in an awkward spot on terms of public relations with Trout having been the face of the franchise for so long, and that goes double if Ohtani also ends up leaving for another club this winter.

Ultimately, with the Angels set on competing, keeping Trout and hoping for a return to form is the most sensible option. The rest of the offseason will determine if his supporting cast will be stronger than it has been in recent years.