How does Mike Trout feel right now after seeing Shohei Ohtani make the World Series?

During the first place game of the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Japan's Shohei Ohtani pitched to the United States' Mike Trout with 2 outs and a 3-2 lead. With a full count, Ohtani uncorked one of the nastiest sweepers of his career and struck Trout out to win the WBC.

That matchup was entirely predictive of how the two players' careers were heading. No single play is more indicative of how Ohtani and Trout's careers are doing at the moment. Ohtani is celebrating right now while Trout is, once again, metaphorically walking sadly back to the dugout in defeat.

Ohtani and Trout's career will always be tied together. Both are all-time greats, perhaps the two best players of the post-steroid era of baseball. They were obviously teammates for six seasons. However, one decided to leave the Angels while the other remains. MLB fans and pundits have long called for Trout and Ohtani to force their way out of Anaheim, and their stance has been proven correct over-and-over-and-over this season. Ohtani's Dodgers had the best regular season record and the superstar is heading to the World Series in his first season away from the Angels. Meanwhile, Trout played 29 games in 2024, while his Angels had their worst regular season record ever. The Angels were 35 games worse than the Dodgers in 2024. His second meniscus surgery left Trout feeling like he disappointed fans, when the reality is that his decision to stay with the Angels is the real disappointment.

Trout's loyalty to the Angels is clearly being tested. It appears that there could be a riff between Trout and his GM and owner over how Trout's decisions of rehabilitation methods have gone down the past few seasons. Trout has been more vocal than ever in calling for Perry Minasian and Arte Moreno to acquire real baseball players. Trout has famously only played three postseason games 10 years ago, and he just watched Ohtani slash .364/.548/.636/1.185 in the NLCS. How can Trout not be incredibly hurt by that development, given potential turmoil with the Angels' top brass and a 10-year playoff drought? The Angels are going nowhere as a franchise, and Trout is watching his career turn sour.

Fans can both celebrate an athlete's loyalty while also questioning it. Trout is clearly in that camp. The superstar has made the decision to this point to remain unwavering in his loyalty to the team that drafted and developed him. That is awesome, and more players should want to follow Trout's lead in that regard. However, blind loyalty is clearly not a good thing. A superstar should not be loyal for loyalty's sake, as the organization needs to prove to the player that they are worthy of rostering him for the entirety of their career. The organization needs the superstar's talent more than the superstar needs the team. Modern superstars need to be more aware of their surroundings, as MLB's growth depends on their best players making business decisions that benefit the league as a whole.

Trout wasting away with the Los Angeles Angels benefits nobody. Kudos to Shohei Ohtani for making a fantastic decision in leaving. Baseball fans just want to see Trout happy again.