Mike Trout turned 34 over the weekend, the kind of age when even the greats start to show the fray. He is still putting up a 130 OPS+, which would be a career year for most players, but for him it is a reminder of just how far the peak once was. The black ink on his Baseball Reference page is still crowded from those early years, looking like something out of the Mantle or Griffey archives, frontloaded and dominant. The numbers still carry weight, but they are no longer effortless. The bat speed is a touch slower. The bursts in center are gone and the injuries keep adding up, including the bone bruise that put him on the IL this spring. The Angels had shifted him to right field when he is not serving as DH and in that role he can still impact the game without the wear of chasing balls in the gaps.
It is a different kind of late career than Willie Stargell’s, though there are echoes. By 1979, “Pops” Stargell was 39 and a shell of his younger self in terms of daily production. His slash line was modest, and the legs were heavy, the fielding range a shadow of what it had been. Yet that season became one of the most celebrated in Pirates history. Stargell won the National League MVP, the NLCS MVP, and the World Series MVP, the rare triple that spoke as much to leadership as to performance. He hit the big home runs, including the two-run shot in Game 7 that flipped the Series, but he was just as valuable in the dugout, in the clubhouse, and in holding together the “We Are Family” roster that had been in last place in April. In an era before the designated hitter in the National League, he shifted from left field to first base, making it work well enough to keep his bat in the lineup every day.
[Ok, I have to address this clip in a couple ways. First, look at the condition of the field. It’s clear that sharing the stadium with the Colts (!!) didn’t do Memorial Stadium any favors, but imagine seeing a field in this condition today. We’re in an absolute golden era of field conditions. Second, that is a CHAIN LINK FENCE in right, temporary and by design, I’m sure, but that thing wouldn’t be acceptable in a Little League field now, let alone watching Ken Singleton go up and nearly being impaled. Anyone telling you the game was better then is ignoring all evidence.]
If Trout’s body holds together, he has the advantage Stargell never did, if not the nickname he so richly deserves. The DH allows a player to keep hitting without asking him to cover ground in the field. The wear and tear on the legs, on the back, and especially on the knees, is lessened. Trout’s bat is still dangerous, his on-base skills still sharp, and his ability to adjust his approach has been evident even as the raw numbers slide. Stargell had no such cushion. The Pirates needed him on the field and he made the move because the alternative was to fade out quietly.
The path is not identical, but it is instructive. Trout is not yet at the point where his value is built on story and symbolism, the way Stargell’s was in 1979, but the risk of that turn exists. If the Angels ever find themselves in a postseason run with Trout no longer the force of old, he could follow that template, the aging star who still has one or two great swings left in October. What I’m not sure of is the leadership part. Trout has always been quiet, but as the shadows on his career grow longer, will the players around him want to put him on a pedestal he couldn’t reach earlier? Until then, Trout’s job is to keep producing at a level where even his diminished years are better than most players’ primes, using the DH to stretch out the clock in ways Stargell could have only imagined.
Let’s get to the injuries:
MARCELO MAYER, IF BOS (sprained wrist)
The idea was that Marcelo Mayer would have the injection in his wrist and that the sprain would get relief from pain and inflammation, enough to get him back to baseball more quickly than something like surgery or just simple rest and treatment could do. So far, still no baseball for Mayer and no indication that he’ll be back soon, or at all. This is one of those situations where regardless, it was worth trying and that pushing surgery back isn’t going to cost him any part of next year or even much of his off-season. It also wasn’t going to get him back for the playoffs, so there was a window here where taking the time to avoid surgery had no real time penalty and a chance of success.
That latter chance may still be there, though it’s not happening at the pace that was hoped. There’s no word as yet of a second injection, thought that’s often done, or any further more invasive therapies. The TFCC (triangular fibro-cartilage complex) is a difficult area since it’s a “complex” rather than a single structure, made up of all three major soft tissue types. It’s involved in both turning the wrist and stability of the hand, so any issue there is going to be very involved in hitting and almost any activity in baseball. We should get more information on this soon, leaving the Sox with the worry that for the second season, injuries have defined Mayer’s seasons. Last year it was hip and back, which have more long term concerns and haven’t been evident, but given his issues and the player he’s with - Trevor Story - you can imagine how many Sox fans are going to see this as some kind of new curse.
GABRIEL MORENO, C ARZ (fractured hand)
Context is everything. That should be the motto around here and I’m surprised I haven’t put it into the header or something. The Diamondbacks aren’t fighting for playoff position now and that means when a young player - a young catcher no less - is coming back from something as serious as a fractured hand, a few extra days off shouldn’t be something held against the catcher. It will be in arbitration, but not here.
Gabriel Moreno has been playing complex games — not official ones, but the kind that are functional equivalents of sim games — as his finger heals. He’ll shift up, likely to Triple-A Reno, in the near future [note: late word is that he’ll go to Reno on Tuesday] and be back with the big club quickly but again, the day or the game-count doesn't really matter to the true context of the team. Instead, it’s the long term future and workload for a central figure, an age-25 positive-offense catcher, that really has value, not the next forty games.
Some will argue that Moreno hasn’t yet caught more than 350 at-bats and that’s fair. Most catchers this age wouldn’t even have the opportunity and those that do are special talents. Look at Ethan Salas or .. well, I’m honestly not sure who the last matching talent there was at a sub-25 and plus-500 catcher. Francisco Alvarez? I think that’s it, but while there’s some like JT Realmuto or Tyler Stephenson, we might have to go back to Pudge Rodriguez in 1992 before we get to that mark, which is, well, we don’t compare people to Hall of Famers around here. We’ll just hope that Moreno can get back, have a good September, and that we’ll all get to see where he goes from here.