Mike Drop

 

The one thing I always worried about with Mike Trout, even aside from his injury spells in the last few years, was his second decade of MLB work. The people making the Ken Griffey Jr. comparisons all throughout his glory years also brought up injuries, and I worried that, like Trout's former teammate Albert Pujols, or even his current teammate Anthony Rendon, Trout would simply refuse to continue his level of consistency past his age-30 season, and give whichever team gave him a large contract some years they would rather not remember.

Last year for Trout was a step in the right direction, and though he still missed 40 games, he ended the year with a 6.3 WAR, a 43 batting WAR figure, 40 home runs and 80 RBIs. And this is 75%-energy Trout, at 31. This year he's off to the same sort of numbers, with 14 home runs already, 36 RBIs and a 2.0 WAR. He is still one of the tentpoles of this Angels team, and he's nowhere near disappointing levels of production, which is a relief for so many Angels fans who worried there'd eventually be a statistical trail-off. 

The problem of the Angels still mostly coming down to Trout and Ohtani still persists though, which does complete the Griffey comparisons a little. There are at least people like Zach Neto, Mickey Moniak and Carlos Estevez helping out this year, but the promise of a lineup that Anthony Rendon, Jared Walsh, Jo Adell and Taylor Ward would fill out was greatly exaggerated. And yes, Rendon is doing better, he's got 20 RBIs, but the contact abilities that made him the star of the Nats' 2019 WS team has dissipated. You've got a lot of amicable choices, like Gio Urshela, Hunter Renfroe and Brandon Drury, but nobody who seems like an overwhelming choice to bring this team to the next level.

And so while it's nice that Mike Trout is still one of the best players in baseball, there's the possibility that in keeping him in Anaheim for the rest of his strong run, the Griffey comparisons will run out if Trout doesn't attain something, namely a postseason victory, that Griffey famously notched with the Mariners in '95. And while there are lots of great players who've somehow failed to sniff true postseason success, like Ernie Banks or Dale Murphy, if Trout misses out on that glory because of how unlucky and badly curated these Angels teams have been, it'd be heartbreaking.

The Angels, however, are still above .500, have won 6 of their last 7, and still have Trout and Ohtani healthy and surging. So hopefully this series against the Rangers won't be a complete disaster.

Coming Tomorrow- Ironically, a rookie who's been giving people 2012-era Mike Trout vibes.