Written by David Schoenfield at ESPN.com
One of the aspects of Mike Trout’s greatness has been his durability. In his first five seasons in the majors, he missed just 19 games. Now, in the midst of his best season yet, he heads to the disabled list for the first time in his career with a torn ligament in his left thumb suffered on Sunday while attempting to steal second base.
Mike Trout out multiple weeks with torn thumb ligament
Leads MLB 3.5 WAR
Trout: .337 BA, .461 OBP
Other Angels: .226 BA, .298 OBP— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) May 29, 2017
Trout will need surgery and is expected to miss six to eight weeks, according to the Los Angeles Angels. They might have been able to survive two weeks without Trout, but they can’t survive two months without him, considering they look like a fringe wild-card contender, at best, when he is in the lineup.
As the numbers above show, without Trout the Angels might have the worst offense in the American League. With Kole Calhoun off to a slow start, the only above-average hitter in the lineup other than Trout has been Cameron Maybin, who suddenly has decided to start taking walks, helping himself to a .370 OBP. Albert Pujols is closing in on 600 home runs, but he’s a shell even of his early days with the Angels, hitting a terrible .249/.297/.381 entering Monday’s game. C.J. Cron was supposed to be a power source, but he was so bad, he’s in the minors.
Minus Trout, you’re looking at Ben Revere (.235 OBP) getting more playing time. He’s a replacement-level player, at best (and below one, so far), so we’re talking about three to four wins of value being lost. With Trout, FanGraphs projected the Angels to finish 79-83, with playoff odds of 15 percent. Those odds probably dip below 10 percent with a lengthy DL stint.
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