3 Angels' veteran hitters that have held the team back so far in 2025

The Angels need a rejuvenated Mike Trout to quickly return from the IL

It appears, for now, that the Angels have avoided a potential long-term absence from franchise icon Mike Trout. Still, until Trout is cleared and back on the baseball field, no one will be breathing a sigh of relief.

Trout is the Angels' most important player by far. The team does not sniff being competitive without him healthy and at the peak of his powers. Whether or not he still has that MVP-caliber juice within his aging and injury-ravaged body is the real question.

In many ways, Trout has personified the Angels' offensive performance this season. He's put on impressive displays of power mixed with strikeout woes, a relative downturn in walks, and an inability to make consistent contact.

With nine home runs on the year, the three-time MVP is batting just .179/.264/.462. His 29.8% strikeout rate is the worst mark of his career. He's only once posted a walk rate lower than the 9.9% he's currently running, which came all the way back in 2011 when he played 40 games as a 19-year-old and walked just 6.7% of the time.

It could be chalked up as nothing more than a small sample size blip, destined to regress back to Trout's career averages as time wears on, if these issues weren't struggles that have carried over from recent years.

A career .297 hitter, Trout's average has fallen from .283 in 2022 to .263 in 2023, and plummeted to .220 last season. His walk rate has consistently been 2-4% below his career average of 14.7% during that same time frame, while his strikeouts have risen.

Trout still hits the ball hard, but the line drives that he peppered all over the field have given way to fly balls that either leave the yard or land in outfielders' gloves. The underlying reason is hard to discern. Is it that, after years of his body taking a beating, he's lost a split second of reaction time and has compensated by swinging for the fences more? Or is there something else at play?

If Trout is able to get back to some approximation of the player he was at his peak, the Angels' outlook will get a whole lot brighter. Even 80% of peak Trout would be a very welcome development. However, if this is the new normal for Trout and he is the kind of player who produces all-or-nothing results, the Halos will be in a lot of trouble.

What is for sure is that the team needs him back desperately. Back from injury, yes, but also back to swinging the bat like his old self.

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