Who’s your pick from today’s era if you had to elect someone for the Hall of Fame? Shohei Ohtani? That’s the obvious choice; even Dodgers players Mookie Betts think so. But there is another player, not from the Dodgers but from the Angels, that Betts thinks is going to be Cooperstown-worthy, and it is none other than Mike Trout. Trout’s name is almost synonymous with “legend” in baseball circles, but also with “what could have been” when it comes to injuries. 

Trout has undeniably been one of the best players of his generation, if not of all time. From 2012 to 2019, he put up MVP-caliber numbers year after year, bagging three American League MVP awards and finishing in the top 2 in voting five times. The guy was an absolute machine. If you look at his stats during the 2010s, you could make a case that he should’ve won at least two more MVPs. 

Mookie Betts wants to see a healthy Mike Trout 

On the “All the Smoke” podcast, Betts joined former NBA player Matt Barnes to discuss Trout and his expectations for 2025. “I wish if he just didn’t get hurt. I hope he plays next year and does not get hurt. I think the same thing about Shohei is the same thing about Mike Trout. Like when he plays, it’s crazy. If God lets him be healthy for one year, I think he’s going to go crazy.” Mookie, being the competitor and fellow superstar he is, probably knows better than most how incredible Trout is when he’s on the field.   

But it’s that one big “what if” hanging over Trout’s career: What if he could just stay healthy long enough to have a truly uninterrupted stretch at his peak? It’s wild that even someone like Mookie, who’s carved out his own Hall-of-Fame-worthy career, still looks at Trout and says, “Man, I want to see what he’s really capable of.” That speaks volumes, right? The center-fielder has frequently referred to “my old self” or “the old Mike Trout” in reference to regaining his past excellence, the form that led him to three American League MVP titles and eleven All-Star selections. He is 33 years old and was limited by a knee injury to just 29 games in 2024.

Injuries have taken the best of the 33-year-old center fielder of the LA Angels 

It’s a real tragedy to see such a talent get derailed by injury after injury, especially when you consider where Mike Trout could have been by now. He was poised to be in the conversation for the greatest of all time, and now his body keeps getting in the way, one injury after another. It’s the kind of thing you almost never see coming with someone who’s built like Trout—he’s got the physique of a freight train, but unfortunately, injuries are a cruel part of the game.

That 2021 calf strain was the start of the downward spiral. The expectation was that he’d come back within a couple of months, but then the calf just wouldn’t heal, and he missed the rest of the season. In 2022, it was the back injury, and then last year? A broken hamate that knocked him out for all but one game of the second half. Now, in 2024, he tears a meniscus, takes months to come back, and then—bam—he tears it again before he even has a chance to take the field. It’s like his body has become his biggest adversary.

And yet, somehow, the hope never really goes away. His stats over the last few years might not reflect his former dominance, but as long as he’s on the field, you know there’s that sliver of magic he’s capable of delivering. His WAR ranking, sandwiched between Ian Happ and Teoscar Hernández, shows just how far the drop-off has been. But those guys—respectable players, no doubt—don’t belong in the same conversation when we’re talking about the real Mike Trout.