Mike Trout was looking like an MVP again this season, but that campaign is now on hold indefinitely.
The Los Angeles Angels star has a torn meniscus in his knee that will require surgery, according to The Athletic’s Sam Blum. It’s unclear how much time Trout needs to miss, but the injury is reportedly not expected to be season-ending.
Even if Trout is coming back this season, the development is a massive blow both for him and the Angels. The three-time MVP is currently tied for the MLB lead in homers with 10, while hitting .220/.325/.541 for a team that entered Tuesday in fourth place in the AL West at 11-18.
The team was already missing its other highly paid All-Star, Anthony Rendon, who will be out a significant amount of time with a hamstring strain.
Trout performing well then missing significant amount of times is sadly nothing new in recent years. He’s hit a robust .276/.376/.575 while on the field since 2020, but in only 266 out of a possible 515 games. He missed the final four months of 2021 with a calf strain, missed more than a month of 2022 with a back issue and sat out half of 2023 with a hand fracture.
Now, the issue is his knee, and there’s no telling when he comes back.
This injury might feel different because the Angels don’t have Shohei Ohtani as their other superstar. It was already hard to say where the team should go after losing the most famous player in the sport to the Los Angeles Dodgers, but losing Trout too leaves them with little hope to come even close to the playoffs.
With the team’s farm system ranked by MLB Pipeline as dead last in the league, it’s not like the future around Trout is bright either. On a related note, the team still owes Trout $223 million after this season, as well as $77 million for Rendon.