5 questions in the wake of Trout¡¯s latest injury

What sound did you make when you learned Tuesday that Mike Trout had torn the meniscus in his left knee? I made a low ooohhufffff sound, like someone had just given me a quick jab in the midsection -- a bad sound, but one that¡¯s more muted than I would have uttered had I heard the same news a few years ago.

The sad fact is, we¡¯ve all gotten a little bit inured to Mike Trout injury news at this point. He hasn¡¯t played more than 120 games since 2019 (when he won his third and most recent AL MVP Award), and the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign was the last one in which he didn¡¯t miss significant time due to injury. While the Angels do expect that Trout will return sometime this season, this is almost certainly going to be the fourth time in the past five years he won¡¯t play more than 82 games.

Trout is one of the greatest baseball players any of us have ever seen. But the problem is that we don¡¯t get to see him nearly often enough. In the wake of this latest setback, here are five questions that arise about Trout: About his future, his legacy, his team and how we¡¯ll talk about him for the years to come.

1. Did we just miss our last chance at another truly epic Trout season?
Obviously, Trout has produced many terrific seasons in his 14-year career: He has won three MVPs, after all. But for more than half a decade, we have been waiting for that culmination year, the year we see everything that Trout does all come together in a year when he wrecks the league in a way we haven¡¯t seen anybody do in decades.

While Trout wasn¡¯t off to a great start in terms of OBP in 2024 (.325), he was tied for the MLB lead with 10 home runs, smashing one per every 10.9 at-bats -- a rate he had reached only once before in his career, when he went deep a career-high 45 times in 134 games in 2019. He also had already stolen six bases, as many as he had from 2020-23 combined. If Trout had been able to stay healthy this whole season, could we have been looking at a 55-homer season (flying past his career high)? A 30-30 season (only the second of his career)? Now we¡¯ll never know.

2. Who is Trout moving forward now?
Cynical observers argued that a Trout injury was inevitable heading into this season, and for every season moving forward. I couldn¡¯t quite go that far, particularly after watching him launch two homers in person at loanDepot park during the Opening Week of the season. It¡¯s cruel for injury to take away such beauty, and I refused to believe 2024 would be like all the other years. But it is, alas.

So now it¡¯s probably time: A Trout injury has to be factored in, maybe even assumed, nearly every year moving forward, through at least the end of his current contract in 2030. He will turn 33 in August, after all, and as anyone in their 30s or older can tell you, your body doesn¡¯t get less prone to injury over time. We are reaching the point where 120 games in a season for Trout would have to feel like a major victory. Which is, of course, a major bummer.

One suspects that concessions may need to be made for him to get even that many. Is it finally time to move Trout out of center field? The Angels have to seriously consider it.

3. What in the world are the Angels supposed to do now?
From 2018-23, the Angels had both Trout and Shohei Ohtani and never once had a winning record. So what happens when they have neither? They¡¯re already 11-19 this year with Trout in the lineup, and now that he¡¯ll be replaced by Mickey Moniak and, uh, Kevin Pillar, it seems fair to assume that they¡¯re not going to suddenly zoom up the AL West standings.

So this year, as unfun as it is to say, seems lost, if it wasn¡¯t already. But remember: The Angels have Trout under contract for six more season after this one. With his injury history, you can¡¯t really build around him anymore. Is it possible they finally bite the bullet this offseason and shop him around? He¡¯s less desirable, because of those injuries (and annual salary of over $37 million), than he might have been in past seasons, but he¡¯s still Mike Trout. The Angels¡¯ roster needs, well, pretty much everything. Trout might be the only asset they have that will start to replenish those coffers.

Of course, he also has a full no-trade clause in his contract, so Trout is going anywhere unless he wants to. While he said this spring that he didn¡¯t, he also left the door open to changing his mind, saying, ¡°I can¡¯t predict the future.¡± Does this latest injury push him to reconsider?

4. How does this affect Trout historically?
We have all been talking about Trout as an inner-circle Hall of Famer for years, before he¡¯d even played the full 10 years that would allow him to qualify. But do the injuries require us to pump the breaks a little? Trout¡¯s counting numbers are starting to feel the effects of all these missed games. He¡¯s at 378 homers; are we sure he¡¯s going to make it to 500? He¡¯s at 1,648 hits; 2,000 hits seems likely, but not certain, and besides, 2,000 isn¡¯t that big of a milestone. (Mark Grudzielanek has 2,040 and I don¡¯t see the Hall¡¯s Contemporary Era Commitee reaching out to him any time soon.)

Trout holds up well in all-time WAR metrics -- he¡¯s 30th all-time among position players, per FanGraphs (85.7) -- but, well, I¡¯ve never seen WAR on a Hall of Fame plaque, have you? When you add in the fact that Trout still hasn¡¯t won a postseason game -- and he has only played in three -- his historical resume is starting to get much thinner than any of us ever imagined it being.

You know what could help him? A late-career trade to a contending team that goes deep into October. Think of it as his Wade-Boggs-with-the-Yankees period.

5. Will our kids really understand Trout¡¯s greatness?
I took my 12-year-old son to the aforementioned Angels game at loanDepot park, and I spent the first four innings talking over and over about how special it was to see a player of Trout¡¯s caliber in person, how he¡¯ll tell his grandchildren someday that he watched Trout play (and hit two homers).

My son politely obliged me, but the fact is, he¡¯s 12 years old, and Trout really hasn¡¯t been Trout since he was 6 -- too young to appreciate him. (He¡¯d much rather watch Elly De La Cruz or Ronald Acu?a Jr., who are at their most electric right now.) This is the ultimate tragedy of Trout¡¯s injuries: They have deprived most of us from seeing this most transcendent player at his absolute best. He has played his whole career for a West Coast franchise that gets overshadowed even within its own geographic area. He has never won a playoff game.

Trout has never been the most outgoing personality -- he has simply been an incredible baseball player, at times maybe the best some of us have ever seen. But it didn¡¯t last long enough. True greatness rarely does.