Los Angeles Angels

The Los Angeles Dodgers revealed a new bobblehead of star slugger Shohei Ohtani that will surely delight fans.

Per TMZ, the team's second Ohtani bobblehead will also include his adorable dog, Decoy:

Dodgers Reveal Second Shohei Ohtani Bobblehead With Dog, Decoy! | Click to read more 👇 https://t.co/geeNqXSQTV

— TMZ Sports (@TMZ_Sports) June 18, 2024

Ohtani debuted Decoy in public when he received the 2023 American League MVP award. He didn't reveal the pup's name until after he signed with the Dodgers.

What's the name of Shohei Ohtani's dog and does it correlate with his free agent destination? 🤔#MLBTonight will submit their guesses later in the show, let's hear yours ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/US0ioj6HNl

— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) December 6, 2023

The team unveiled the bobblehead in an email sent out to fans on Tuesday. It will be available for giveaway on Aug. 28 when the team hosts the Baltimore Orioles.

TMZ noted that the first Ohtani bobblehead giveaway last month drew a whopping 50,000-plus fans to Dodger Stadium, the team's largest home attendance since September 2019. A select few even featured Ohtani in the team's road uniforms and were sold online for big bucks.

Fans will surely be excited for another opportunity to add a collectible of Ohtani later this summer.

The Los Angeles Angels are one of the American League's worst teams, but manager Ron Washington is determined to turn things around.

"I ain't no damn failure," Washington told Bob Nightengale of USA Today. "I've never been a failure in my damn life. I might be failing, but I ain't no failure. There's a difference.

"I'm going to do what it takes to not fail. I'm not going to let it just keep happening to me and say I'm a failure. [Expletive] that. I'm going to do what I have to do to come out of it. Sometimes you can snap out of it, and sometimes it can take a minute."

The Angels are 28-42 heading into Sunday's game against the San Francisco Giants. Washington took the Angels job in November knowing it was going to be a long process returning the franchise to contention, but he said the 10-year gap between managerial jobs was too much for him to pass on the rebuild.

"People kept saying how bad the Angels are, and why would you want to go there?" Washington said. "Come on, it's a big-league job. There are only 30 of these [expletives]. I waited 10 damn years to get back.

"I told everyone, I wasn't going there because of what they've done in the past. I'm going there to create what they're going to do in the future. I'm telling you, I'm going to turn this [expletive] around. I wouldn't have taken this job if I didn't believe I could make a difference."

The Angels have not made the playoffs since 2014, which coincidentally was Washington's last year as manager of the Texas Rangers. Over the subsequent decade, Angels management bungled having two generational superstars in Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani on the same team, surrounding them with bust prospects and disappointing free-agent signings.

Ohtani left for a megadeal with the crosstown Dodgers during the offseason, and Trout has only appeared in 29 games this season due to injury. That's left Washington on an island dealing with a largely underwhelming roster, which currently has the third-worst record in the American League.

It's clearly going to be a long road for Washington in turning things around, but the 72-year-old appears to have all the energy and determination in the world.

Los Angeles Angels third baseman Miguel Sanó hasn't played since April 26 because of left knee inflammation, and he suffered a minor setback as he works his way back to the major league level.

Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com noted Sunday that Angels manager Ron Washington said Sanó burned his knee by accidentally leaving a heating pad on too long. While it is not a serious setback, it will keep Sanó sidelined for a bit longer.

Sanó had made two rehab appearances with the Arizona Complex League Angels.

Los Angeles placed Sanó on the injured list when he suffered the setback, although he was a regular in the team's lineup prior to the injury even though he didn't play during the 2023 campaign.

The 31-year-old was an All-Star in 2017 with the Minnesota Twins with 28 home runs and 77 RBI. He also reached the 20-homer mark in 2019 and 2021, although he played just 20 games in 2022 before not playing at all in 2023 because of a cartilage issue in his left knee and an injured tibia.

Sanó has played 21 games for the Angels this season with a .262/.352/.361 slash line, one home run and five RBI.

Former Los Angeles Angels infielder David Fletcher bet on sports with the same illegal bookmaker who allegedly accepted wagers from Shohei Ohtani's former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, according to ESPN's Tisha Thompson.

Fletcher spent six seasons playing with Ohtani and the Angels between 2018 and 2023. He was traded in December and is currently playing with the Gwinnett Stripers, the Atlanta Braves' Triple-A affiliate.

Colby Schultz, a "close friend" of Fletcher who spent the 2018 and 2019 seasons playing for Kansas City Royals affiliates, bet with the same bookmaker on baseball, Thompson reported.

Schultz's bets included Angels games that Fletcher was playing in, according to Thompson.

Thompson further identified Schultz as one of the bookmakers cited by federal authorities in an ongoing investigation into Mizuhara, who has been accused of stealing more than $16 million from Ohtani to pay off gambling debt.

Some of those bets were allegedly placed with Orange County's Mathew Bowyer, per ESPN's Alden Gonzalez and Paula Lavigne.

Bowyer also allegedly accepted Fletcher's bets, Thompson reported.

Federal authorities stated that the first bookmaker, identified by ESPN as Bowyer, shared Mizuhara's wire transfer information with another bookmaker, who was identified in the complaint as "Bookmaker 3."

Thompson reported that sources have identified Schultz as Bookmaker 3.

MLB is now expected to begin an investigation into Fletcher, Thompson reported.

At the time of the report, Fletcher remained active in the minor leagues. He was in the lineup for the Stripers on Friday night as he batted second in a road game against the Memphis Redbirds.

MLB.com's Rhett Bollinger described Ohtani and Fletcher as "particularly close as teammates" during Fletcher's last season with the Angels. An investigation into Fletcher will likely cast further scrutiny on Ohtani, although federal authorities have so far emphasized that the Los Angeles Dodgers star is considered a victim in the ongoing Mizuhara investigation.

Los Angeles Angels centerfielder Mike Trout told reporters he was given the option to postpone surgery on his left knee and assume a designated hitter role for the rest of the 2024 season.

"It was an option they put out there," Trout said, per MLB.com's Rhett Bollinger. "It would have been just maintaining the pain level of it. The day I got the MRI and it showed that, I was in a lot of pain, so it would have been a tough road for the rest of the year to bear that. I felt the best option for me was to get it right and be fully healthy to come back soon."

Trout underwent surgery on the torn meniscus in his left knee Friday. He is expected to return later this season, according to the Associated Press.

"I'm doing everything I can to get back on the field," Trout said, per ESPN. "I want to go as fast as I can, but I don't want to push it."

Trout has played just 81 of his 1,518 career games with the Angels as a designated hitter, per ESPN. He has batted a career .214 as DH.

It was already a slow start to the 2024 campaign for Trout prior to his injury. He had slashed .220/.325/.541 with 10 home runs, six stolen bases and 14 RBI through 29 games.

Trout is unsure when he suffered the injury, which he said he noticed in the third inning of the Angels' April 29 win over the visiting Philadelphia Phillies, per Bollinger.

Heading into the season, Angels manager Ron Washington said the Angels planned to slot Trout into the lineup DH "at least once a week" in the hopes of managing his workload and preventing injury, Bollinger reported.

Unfortunately for the Angels, that plan fell short. Trout is now facing a fourth straight season during which he is going to be sidelined for extended time.

The Angels star has been available for an average of just 79 games over the past three campaigns. Over that span he has missed more than 260 contests with injuries including a broken wrist bone, back inflammation and calf strain.

The club is hopeful Trout's surgery is not season-ending. Operations like his usually have a recovery of around four to eight weeks, ESPN reported, although the Angels have not shared a timeline for his return.

Los Angeles Angels superstar Mike Trout announced that his knee surgery went smoothly and he's now focused on a return before the end of the 2024 season.

"Thank you for all of your support and encouragement," Trout wrote on Saturday in a post on X. "The surgery on my knee went well and I'm now focused on a speedy recovery. Looking forward to getting back out there as soon as possible."

pic.twitter.com/Y48QlkAq7c

— Mike Trout (@MikeTrout) May 4, 2024

ESPN's Alden González and Jeff Passan reported on Tuesday that the three-time MVP would undergo a procedure on his knee, noting the surgery was "not expected to be season-ending."

Trout was off to another hot start to begin the 2024 season before the surgery was announced. While his .220 batting average fell below expectations, his 10 home runs are currently tied with Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson for the most among all MLB players.

Trout also added 14 RBIs, six stolen bases, and 16 walks.

Mike Trout is the first MLB player to 10 HR this season 🔥

(via @MLB)
pic.twitter.com/8VT1JihpdO

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 24, 2024

The 11-time All-Star revealed that the knee issues began during the Angels' 6-5 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on April 29, as he started to experience soreness in the third inning that continued throughout the game.

"It was just sore," Trout said, per Gonzalez. "I was kind of telling myself maybe I just banged it on something and I didn't realize it. Then after the game, getting treatment, it was really sore."

Injuries have become a common theme for the 32-year-old in recent years, as Trout has appeared in fewer than 100 games in two of the past three seasons. This includes 2023, as he was limited to just 82 appearances due to a fractured bone in his wrist.

The Angels will be hoping that Trout can return quickly, as they've gotten off to a slow start in 2024 following the offseason departure of Shohei Ohtani. Entering Saturday's action, Los Angeles sat at the bottom of the AL West standings with a record of 12-20.

An article about two of the most beloved players in MLB history should be a happy occasion, but this one can be distilled down to two words.

This sucks.

This is simply the truth now that the comparison between Mike Trout and Ken Griffey Jr. has turned from a contentious, yet fun debate into an increasingly depressing reality. Like Griffey so often was after the end of the 1990s, Trout is now in a post-prime era where trips to the injured list feel more common than highlights.

The latest is a torn meniscus that figures to keep Trout out for a while. Probably not the whole season, mind you, but likely for months.

For anyone in the mood for something hard to watch, the Los Angeles Angels star's appearance before the media on Tuesday should do the trick:

"We'll get through it" 😢 @EricaLWeston @Angels l #RepTheHalo pic.twitter.com/2pxLf8JJfn

— FanDuel Sports Network West (@FanDuelSN_West) May 1, 2024

That's not a three-time American League MVP right there. Or an 11-time All-Star. Or even a future Hall of Famer. It's a human man who's found the end of his rope.

It's amazing how context can make bad things feel even worse. The 32-year-old Trout came into 2024 "getting chills" just thinking about playing like an MVP again. And he had been, slamming a league-leading 10 home runs through 29 games.

But now he's out again, and it's not even the only thing that brings that unwelcome tingle of familiarity to the surface.

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Trout vs. Griffey Was Fun...Until It Wasn't

I haven't been around that long in the scheme of things, but apparently long enough to vouch that comparisons of Trout to Griffey have been there from the beginning.

I first played with the idea on July 6, 2012, when Trout was midway through his first full year with the Angels. It was hard not to, honestly. Distilled down to their essences, they were both powerful, speedy, easy-to-root-for center fielders who hit the MLB world like two meteors.

Did comparing Trout to Griffey then run the risk of being premature? Well, yeah. But all's well that ends well. Trout ended 2012 with a rookie-record 10.5 rWAR and then spent the next decade keeping the comparison very much alive.

If anything, whether Trout or Griffey was better through the age of 30 amounts to a taste test. Griffey had the home runs and the Gold Gloves. Trout had the rate stats and the MVPs. There's no wrong choice here. Just a whole lot of [waves hands] fun stuff.

Mike Trout vs. Ken Griffey Jr. through the age of 30 is a lot more fun to ponder than Mike Trout vs. Ken Griffey Jr. after the age of 31. pic.twitter.com/o4vxWT7lds

— Zachary D. Rymer (@zachrymer) May 2, 2024

Of course, baseball fans of a certain age have a certain strategy for dealing with what happened to Griffey after the age of 30. We just don't go there.

Suffice it to say it wasn't a fun time. Injuries limited Griffey to an average of 106 games between 2001 and 2009 with the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago White Sox. His return to the Seattle Mariners in 2010 was fun while it lasted, but it lasted only 33 games before he literally drove off into the sunset.

Ultimately, Griffey's last 10 seasons yielded fewer wins above replacement (7.6) than he'd had in 1993, 1996 and 1997. He also got into the playoffs just once in that span, and it was for three games in 2008 for a White Sox squad nobody remembers.

Albeit for reasons that have nothing to do with what certain unserious people are saying, Trout's career has already taken on a similar trajectory.

His durability first started getting shaky in the late 2010s and is now basically nonexistent. Calf, back and hamate injuries resulted in him missing more than half the Angels' games between 2021 and 2023. Now it's his left knee keeping him out, which is to say nothing of how his OPSes from '23 and this year are his worst since his forgotten arrival in 2011.

As for his playoff resume, Trout will be lucky to so much as match Griffey's late-career playoff exposure.

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The Angels Won't Be Good Again Any Time Soon

If a team's success could be measured in MVP winners and dollars spent, then the Angels of the last decade would have to be on some kind of Mt. Rushmore.

Between Trout's three and Shohei Ohtani's two, the Angels collected half of the AL MVPs handed out between 2014 and 2023. They also had top-10 payrolls annually.

Yet for all that, they were almost smack in the middle (17th, to be exact) in wins and made only one playoff appearance. That was in 2014, and it lasted all of three games.

At 11-20, the Angels are on a track this year that will likely result in a ninth straight losing season and a 10th straight year without playoff baseball.

And it's not just Trout whose age and mileage are consistently manifesting in injuries. Anthony Rendon is in the same boat. The two of them will eat up over $75 million in payroll space this year and again in 2025 and 2026.

The farm system, meanwhile, is kaput. Per B/R's Joel Reuter, it's the worst in MLB and it has zero top-100 prospects. Call it par for the course, as the Angels have recently been better known for rushing talent than for developing it.

The only conceivable avenues for Trout to achieve playoff success at this stage involves either new leadership in Anaheim or a trade out of there for the Millville, New Jersey native. And make no mistake: both are "fat chance" propositions.

Arte Moreno thought about selling the Angels, but ultimately reverted to his usual stubbornness and decided to stick around. And even if Trout himself were to reverse course on his own stubbornness vis-à-vis a trade escape hatch, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic summarized his apparent untradeability better than I ever could.

As such, it's not too soon to reckon with what may never be for Trout as he plays out the final 6.5 years of his 12-year deal.

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How Will We Remember Trout?

By the time Griffey was done playing, his career simultaneously felt like an experience that should have been better and a wildly fun time anyway.

For the regular season, he played in 1,286 wins against 1,383 losses. And while he did get into 18 playoff games, he ended his career with as many at-bats in the World Series as me, you and any other rando out there: zero.

That he nonetheless fell only three votes shy of unanimous induction into the Hall of Fame is telling. The 630 home runs surely helped Griffey's cause, but I'd also say he was a vibes inductee.

To think of Griffey was to think of backwards hats, impossible catches, awe-inspiring homers and, above all, the mad dash home in Game 5 of the 1995 American League Division Series.

Indeed, Griffey's entire run through the '95 playoffs is a good case of absence of evidence not being absence of evidence. He hit five home runs in the ALDS alone, plus another in a Championship Series in which he also had a 1.011 OPS.

In other words, it was not because Griffey was incapable of producing one that he ended his career without an impressive playoff resume.

By all rights, the same should be true of Trout. A team with a lineup full of Trouts would hypothetically be the 13th-best team in history. And since 2012, no hitter has done as much to boost his team's win probability as Trout has.

But when it comes down to his actual playoff resume, all we have are those three games from 2014 in which he homered (good!) but also went 1-for-12 (bad...). Barring a miracle of some kind, that may be what we're still left holding when his career is over.

It'll be some consolation that Trout will always have his own impossible catches and awe-inspiring home runs to tide over anyone who follows his name down a YouTube rabbit hole. It's not overly flattering, however, that his top-viewed highlight is him whiffing against Ohtani to end last year's World Baseball Classic.

Like Griffey, Trout is going to get into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. And he'll deserve it. Heck, he already has more career WAR than Griffey.

But even more so than Griffey, what won't be on Trout's plaque will be just as notable as what's there. It won't be his fault, but it'll be his story all the same.

And that sucks.

---

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.

The Los Angeles Angels will be without star Mike Trout for the immediate future.

Angels general manager Perry Minasian announced Tuesday that Trout will undergo knee surgery. He is not expected to miss the remainder of the campaign, although the exact time frame is unclear at this point.

Mike Trout has a meniscus tear. He’ll have surgery. There is no specific timetable for his return.

— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) April 30, 2024

ESPN's Alden González and Jeff Passan first reported the news.

Trout was emotional about the news:

Mike Trout was fighting back tears as he spoke to the press today. Very emotional. Was at a loss for words in describing the disappointment.

Said he felt it a bit in the third inning yesterday. But no serious pain until postgame.

Will have surgery ASAP, he said.

— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) April 30, 2024

Mike Trout was emotional, as you might expect, but somehow composed. … pic.twitter.com/ZlEOULxRh2

— Alden González (@Alden_Gonzalez) April 30, 2024

This is yet another setback for the future Hall of Famer, who played just 82 games last season and hasn't appeared in more than 119 contests since the 2019 campaign. There was a time during the 2022 season when Trout had to clarify that a back injury wasn't going to force him into retirement.

The health concerns have prevented him from further adding to a resume that places him in elite company as one of the best players in baseball history. He is a three-time American League MVP, nine-time Silver Slugger and 11-time All-Star with 378 career home runs.

Trout is slashing .220/.325/.541 with a league-best 10 home runs, 14 RBI and six stolen bases in 29 games this season.

Los Angeles already lost Shohei Ohtani to free agency this past offseason and will now be without its primary star as it attempts to climb out of an early hole in the standings.

The Angels are 11-18 and in fourth place in the American League West. They are just five games behind the first-place Seattle Mariners but will now have to make up ground without the face of the franchise.

It is fair to at least be somewhat concerned with Trout's long-term future from the Angels' perspective seeing how he will turn 33 years old this season and has dealt with various physical setbacks of late. He is also signed through the 2030 campaign with a full no-trade clause on his contract.

There is no questioning his status as one of the best players in the league when he is healthy, but he is once again sidelined following this latest setback.

Los Angeles Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon has missed the team's last five games due to a hamstring injury and won't be back anytime soon.

Speaking to reporters before Friday's game against the Minnesota Twins, Rendon revealed he was diagnosed with a high-grade partial tear in his left hamstring that will keep him out for an extended period:

"I'm definitely not going to be back in the 10-day window. It's been four years running now. So I was angry for a few days, frustrated, mad, everything you could imagine because the game keeps getting taken away from me, right? I want to win, and I want to be out there. I do everything in my power to stay out there, and it seems like nothing is working."

The injury occurred when Rendon was running out an infield single to lead off the game in the Angels' 7-5 loss to the Cincinnati Reds on April 20. He pulled up after stretching his leg to reach the base and was replaced by Zach Neto.

Rendon was placed on the injured list the following day, but Angels manager Ron Washington said an official diagnosis wouldn't be known until he got examined. The examination took place on Monday, with Rendon revealing the results on Friday.

This is the latest in a long line of injury issues Rendon has had throughout his career, but especially since signing a seven-year, $245 million deal with the Angels as a free agent in December 2019.

Rendon has played in 167 out of a possible 493 games since the start of 2021, including the seven games he has already missed this season.

Among the injuries Rendon has dealt with during that span are a strained groin, strained hamstring, knee contusion, hip impingement, wrist surgery and a leg issue.

The leg injury Rendon dealt with last season was the source of debate between him and the team. He said it was diagnosed as a fracture, but the Angels described it as a deep bone bruise.

Rendon didn't specify how long the recovery timeline would be for the hamstring injury. He was hitting .267/.325/.307 with no homers and three RBI in 83 plate appearances to start this season.

After a solid 6-4 start through their first 10 games, the Angels have lost 12 of their last 16 games. They are currently in fourth place in the AL West, three games ahead of the Houston Astros (7-19).

The Los Angeles Angels surely have a sour taste in their mouth following Wednesday's 6-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles that ended with Jo Adell being controversially called out on a stolen-base attempt.

"I was in there," Adell said, per ESPN's Alden Gonzalez. "That call goes our way, we have [Luis] Rengifo up with a runner on second and we're ready to tie the game.

"... We're all looking at the picture, we're watching the video. Where my foot hit and where I got tagged were two totally different spots."

No words.@Angels pic.twitter.com/a3e8WKTIsW

— FanDuel Sports Network West (@FanDuelSN_West) April 24, 2024

Baltimore jumped out to a 6-0 lead and appeared to be cruising to a straightforward victory, but Mike Trout's solo homer in the bottom of the sixth jumpstarted Los Angeles' comeback attempt. It closed the gap to 6-5 with a run in the ninth inning when Adell attempted to steal second and get himself into scoring position.

He was called out on the field, and Major League Baseball's headquarters in New York said the call "stands" upon replay review. The "stands" call was notable because it meant there wasn't enough evidence to overturn the call on the field.

"I thought he was safe," Trout said. "But obviously New York didn't think so."

The Angels fell to 10-15 overall and an ugly 1-6 in their last seven games thanks to their latest defeat. The questionable call made it all the more difficult to accept, and they will attempt to turn around their recent fortunes with a home series against the Minnesota Twins starting Friday.