“With the 25th selection in the first round of the 2009 First-Year Player Draft, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim select Michael Trout.” Bud Selig announced in the 2009 MLB draft. Two years later, Mike Trout made it to the big league. Mike Trout’s MLB debut was on July 8th, 2011, against the Seattle Mariners, he went 0-for-3. In the 3-game series, Trout was 1-for-9, collecting his first career hit in the second game of the series.
In 2011, Trout played 40 games for the Angels, hitting .220/.281/.390, collecting 5 home runs and 16 RBIs. From 2012 to 2019, Mike Trout was selected to the All-Star game every year, in the meantime, he has won the AL MVP award 3 times, finished 2nd in the MVP voting 4 times and finished 4th in the voting in 2017. Thus, he’s been a MVP favorite since the 2012 season. About Trout, there must be a long list of his accomplishments on his resume.
In 2011, Trout played 40 games for the Angels, hitting .220/.281/.390, collecting 5 home runs and 16 RBIs. From 2012 to 2019, Mike Trout was selected to the All-Star game every year, in the meantime, he has won the AL MVP award 3 times, finished 2nd in the MVP voting 4 times and finished 4th in the voting in 2017. Thus, he’s been a MVP favorite since the 2012 season. About Trout, there must be a long list of his accomplishments on his resume.
There is no doubt that Trout is a great baseball player. When he’s at bat, he’s always a dangerous hitter and pitchers have to be extremely careful when pitching against him. So, doesn’t Trout have a weakness? I tried to find if there is something interesting on the statcast website.
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It does have something interesting. Given at least 200 pitches per type, Mike Trout can hit any types of pitches, except knuckle curve. From 2011 to 2019, Mike Trout only hit .213 against knuckle curve. Meanwhile, he hit .266 against split-finger and .277 against slider. When we look at other types of pitches, Trout hit at least .290 in these 9 seasons.
The league average BABIP is typically around .300. From 2011 to 2019, Trout’s BABIP against knuckle curve was .276. The long-run ceiling on a player’s BABIP is about .380, here we can see Trout’s BABIP against splitter, sinker and cutter reached at least .380. Particularly, Trout’s batting average against splitter was .266 and BABIP against splitter was .389. It will be worth watching his performance against splitter if baseball returns.
Also, to see Trout’s quality of contact, from 2015 to 2019 (statcast implemented in 2015), Trout’s xwOBA against knuckle curve was .336. Against splitter and slider, his xwOBA was .367 and .351 each. At the same, he hit other types of pitches pretty well, xwOBA all reached at least .400.
3-time MVP Mike Trout is undoubtedly a great hitter and he can basically crush everything. It is always very hard for pitchers to stop Mike Trout or get him out. However, there might be something that Trout can’t hit very well. From the statcast data, we see that Trout didn’t hit above .250 against knuckle curve. His xwOBA from 2015 to 2019 was .336. Compared to other types of pitches, this number is relatively low. Meanwhile, it will be worthwhile to see whether Trout will improve his performance against splitter and slider. Therefore, knuckle curve could be a good weapon to use when pitching against Mike Trout. Splitter and slider could also work, but make sure one thing, throw in the right zone.
Mike Trout’s xwOBA (Zone, 2019)
.182
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.392
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.329
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.339
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.515
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.589
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.409
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.574
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.533
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