What a rotten holiday Monday for Major League Baseball. In the span of about an hour, Bryce Harper got in a fight and Mike Trout was diagnosed with a torn thumb ligament, an injury that will keep him out for six to eight weeks.
You can get the blow-by-blow of Harper vs. Hunter Strickland here. This quick piece will examine whether the Angels can tread water without the best player in the game.
Trout goes to the disabled list just as he was, somehow, getting even better at baseball. He entered Monday’s games with a major league-best 3.5 WAR, the product of 16 home runs (including this mammoth blast), a 1.203 OPS and his usual top-notch defense and baserunning.
He was helping the Angels hover around .500 and stay in the American League wild-card race (they trailed the first-place Astros by 10 games in the West). Another MVP award was on the table. With Trout out for up to two months, a lot of that hope goes away.
“I think you’ll feel that impact,” Angels general manager Billy Eppler told reporters before Monday’s game vs. the Braves (per MLB.com). “The team will require multiple people stepping up in his absence. The team will continue to fight, as it always does, but you know you’re losing the heart of your order and the heart of your defense and a leader in the dugout and on the bench. It’s something to absorb, there’s no doubt. But I know the guys in the clubhouse will do their darndest to absorb it.”
Those guys weren’t doing much to help Trout as it was, so trying harder might not be enough. The Angels were next to last in the AL in runs per game and 12th in home runs prior to Monday.
Albert Pujols is 37 and headed for the worst OPS of his career. He hit career homer No. 598 on Monday, but St. Louis Albert is long gone. Cameron Maybin, who was flanking Trout in left field, will be fine in center, but his offense isn’t going to spike sufficiently, given his .258/.324/.373 career averages. Right fielder Kole Calhoun needs to end his seasonlong slump pronto. The infield isn’t hitting, either.
Should the Angels trade for a rental like Lorenzo Cain, Melky Cabrera or Curtis Granderson? Even if Eppler considers those outfielders to be better than journeyman Eric Young Jr., who was called up from Triple-A on Monday to replace Trout on the 25-man roster, he still has to give up at least one player (major or minor league) and add salary.
If Eppler is thinking boldly, he could try to go all-in on a longer-term addition like Marlins left fielder Marcell Ozuna, but he doesn’t have much of a farm system from which to deal. LA’s was ranked 29th by Baseball America during spring training.
Likewise, Eppler can’t really beef up the pitching to compensate for the weakened offense. A Jose Quintana or an Alex Cobb doesn’t seem realistic, absent a highly creative swap that might need a third team.
The bottom line is the Angels are in a very bad spot beyond the obvious of Trout being possibly gone through the All-Star break. They can’t readily add reinforcements. They will have to rely on players who thus far haven’t been productive. A third consecutive season without the playoffs suddenly appears likely.
