The Next Item on Mike Trout’s To-Do List

It’s not that anything more needs to be done. It’s not like Mike Trout desperately needed to fix the hole in his swing, lest he be in danger of suffering a complete collapse. Things were going just fine. That hole in Mike Trout’s swing, the one that kept him from hitting high fastballs, is like the Pablo Honey record in Radiohead’s discography. Would everything be better if it were just gone? I mean, yeah, technically. But the discography, as a whole, is still essentially flawless even with Pablo Honey, so we can all live with it.

Mike Trout went and deleted Pablo Honey anyway. It wasn’t necessary for survival, but everyone knew it was a problem, and everyone knew we’d be better off without it, so Trout went and fixed the hole in his swing. He started hitting those high fastballs, and no one ever had to hear Creep again and the world was a better place. But, listen. Someone’s gotta get in there and wipe out Fake Plastic Trees, too. Not all of The Bends; the rest of the record can stay. But Fake Plastic Trees has gotta go. Maybe I’m getting greedy, asking for even more tweaks after the big one’s already been made, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt.

This next tweak, it doesn’t have to do with Trout’s swing. For all intents and purposes, that’s about perfect. The high fastball was the only real weakness, and that’s been patched. When pitchers stopped throwing him high, they started throwing him outside, but that didn’t really work. Maybe you’d like to see Trout swing at a first-pitch curveball or two, but that’s a very minor thing, and Trout literally never swinging at first-pitch curveballs might actually be a feature, rather than a bug. Point is: the swing, for now, requires no further adjustments, and I’ve already linked to Jeff Sullivan about a hundred times in this piece. When Trout’s swing requires another adjustment, he’ll let you know.

It was exciting last year, knowing that Trout had this weakness, and knowing that Trout knew about this weakness, and knowing that Trout planned to fix the weakness. He’s never been shy about these things. During Spring Training, he came right out and said it:

“Plain and simple, I was chasing the high pitch. Everybody knows that,” Trout said. “The majority of time, they’re balls, and I was chasing them.”

Usually, us writers have to seek out these adjustments. We’ve got to watch with a close eye, and see if the numbers back it up, and then ask the player about it. In this case, Trout came right out and told us. “Hey, everybody. Makin’ an adjustment here. Free blog content.”

The next item on Trout’s to-do list isn’t exactly a secret, but Trout’s done us the favor of letting us know he’s planning on another adjustment:

“[Stealing more bases is] definitely one of the personal goals I want to get back to,” Trout said Wednesday. “Just getting my confidence back. The last couple years my confidence has been down, not getting good jumps, not getting good reads, just getting back to the way I used to be.”

Understanding that Trout has stolen fewer bases is as simple as looking at the back of a baseball card, if those still exist. Trout stole 49 bases, and then 33, and then 16, and then last year, he stole just 11. Getting away from the baseball card and onto the internet, we can look at Trout’s overall baserunning run totals from each season, and see that they’ve gone from 14.1, to 7.8, to 6.5, to 3.3.

The problem isn’t that Trout’s been running less. Could be that Trout just placed less emphasis on baserunning, instead focusing his attention on bulking up and hitting for more power — and that’s a trade most anyone would take. What’s troubling, for Trout the base stealer, isn’t as much the frequency as it is this:

• Trout, pre-2015: 88% stolen base success rate
• Trout, in 2015: 61% stolen base success rate

In 2014, Trout didn’t run very often, but when he did, he was safe. In 18 attempts, he swiped 16 bags, and that means he was among the most efficient base stealers in baseball. For his career, the rate was no different. But last year, the successes turned into outs, and Trout shaved 28% off his stolen base success rate — the most substantial decrease in all of baseball. When Trout entered the league, he was a base stealer who was not only among the most prolific, but among the most efficient. Then he became less prolific, yet remained efficient, and then even less prolific, to the point of no longer being prolific at all, but at least he didn’t make outs. Last year, Trout didn’t much run, and he was bad at it, and that’s where the problem lies.

Trout talks about confidence, and good jumps and reads, and that’s certainly a part of it. Michael Brantley’s been the most efficient base stealer in the game the last couple years, and he’s got average speed, at best. Speed’s helpful for being a good base stealer, but it’s certainly not all that’s needed. Trout’s got the speed, though there’s evidence it’s declined as he’s put on more muscle. The question is: how much of the decrease in base stealing can be attributed to the speed decline (Trout is still incredibly fast, just maybe not the fastest anymore) and how much of it is due to poor jumps and reads? The latter can be fixed. The former isn’t coming back.

Maybe I’ll do a deeper dive into the issue of jumps and reads vs. speed in the coming weeks, but for now, it’s just nice to have something to watch for from Trout in 2016. Y’know, beyond all the greatness. Last year, we knew ahead of time that Trout had something up his sleeve, and it was fascinating to watch him fight back against and eventually conquer the high fastball. Everyone in baseball has things they’re working on, but Trout’s flaws are extra fascinating because of how visible they are, in contrast to his otherwise ubiquitous success. At the time, it seemed hard to imagine Trout would be able to overcome the high heat — that’s just his swing, that’s just who he was. Now, there’s seemingly no telling what Trout can overcome.