JustATroutFan

Some good news: The Angels are only a game under .500 despite the fact that the pitching overall has not been so great and the lineup outside of Trout struggling big time. I am pretty sure that players like Calhoun and Pujols won't keep on hitting at below league average. So the Angels might see their winning percentage increase as the year goes on.

The league average for BABIP, I think is .302. BABIP doesn't count home runs and only counts for balls hit into the field of play. This is funny because Trout usually has a high BABIP and a large part of that is because he's fast. So his .167 BABIP this months means that he's getting really unlucky when he's not hitting home runs.

Calhoun has been a good hitter in two of the last three years prior to this year but has swung the bat poorly to start this year. Yeah, your lead off hitter tonight has a .299 OBP for the season. Bat Trout at leadoff damn it!

I remember saying on here that Maybin might struggle this year since his BABIP last year was very high in the .380 range. On top of that, I also stated that last year was his first good year with the bat in his career. So he had a lot of luck with the bat in 2016. Even if he doesn't hit well, I still think he'll be a solid contributor because he plays good defense and has pretty good speed.

Not easy to make that decision when Cowart's career batting average in the majors is only .176 in 139 plate appearances. I know it's a small sample size but they will take that into account. So far, Cowart has been a big time underachiever in the majors.

He's hitting well with RISP with an OPS over .800. But too bad he can't hit well when there's no one on base, which has dragged his BA, OBP, and SLG down so far in the season.

Some really good names that you just mentioned. If I remember correctly, Jeter went something like 0 for 30 in 2004 before getting a base hit. Yes, the great Derek Jeter did that.

Harper is great...........at being inconsistent. Great players are not inconsistent. To be consider great, you have to be playing at a high level on a consistent basis.

It's still only May. Last year, it was at this time when he started to suck. And people were making excuses on why that was the case.

One fluke year and he thinks he's worth that much money. Harper sucks! Couldn't even carry Trout's jock strap. Trout can say that and I would not have a problem at all. Trout's been great since 2012 and deserves a contract that big.

Owns his favorite team. Now has a career ERA under 1.00 in 5 starts.

Still think he has done a good job despite the 17-20 record. I mean, the starting pitchers have been hurt (Richards and Skaggs) and your other starters are composed of Nolasco, Chavez, and JC Ramirez (he would be good coming out of the bullpen though) and you're just 3 games under .500 close to Mid-May? Not bad at all. And not to mention that the Angels lost the best player in the game (Trout) for 6 games already and we're only in May. Regardless, I think the GM should be held responsible before the manager since he's making all the moves.

Baseball Reference has Trout at a negative 0.2 Defensive WAR currently. That doesn't add up at all!

The whole Angels offense with or without Trout so far this year was the USS Arizona.

Hooray!!! Trout is back but be careful! One wrong move and he might go on the DL.

Still too soon to day. If the Angels starting rotation can improve their performance, the Angels might be in the Wild Card hunt. Don't see them catching the Astros for the AL West division. If the Angels are sitll in the WC race by July, I think they should be buyers. Having Trout gives them a chance to win every game.

Defensive metrics is stupid. I've seen some terrible defensive players post positive defensive WAR in a season. Trout's defense is great. I'm not going to nit pick a few mistakes from Trout that he's made on defense because every great fielders make a few mistakes as well. He usually runs balls down well.

Pujols knows how to drive them in. Too bad he is basically useless when no one is on base.

Not an Angels fan but this team has been good so far (especially the bullpen) and they always battle back it seems.

About $400 million over 10 years. Remember when Pujols got that $250 deal over 10 years back in the winter of 2011? Well, if Pujols had come off of another MVP season, I think he would have gotten close to $300 million in the same amount of the years that he got in reality. 2011 was Pujols' first 'down" year and he was still pretty good that year. I think Trout gets a larger contract because he's younger (big reason) and that he's still on top of his game. He hasn't had a "down" season by his standards yet, although he will one day, unfortunately.

Trout has never had a bad June before in his career. Always been great in June. In July, he's been great 3 of the 5 seasons and last year, a "down" July still saw him post an OBP of over .430! He just wasn't getting as many hits and extra base hits that we're used to seeing. If he can have a great May like in 2013 and last year, he might finnaly post a season in which he has an OPS of at least 1.000.

Funny, Angels season so far is like a roller coaster, like Arch Stanton mentioned. Or as I like to put it, "Like a wave in the ocean, always up and down and up and down!" Pretty sure the pitching is hanging in there since the offense outside of Trout and Simmons has been playing like (bleep!) so far in 2017. But at least Pujols has been waking up lately, so that eases some of the stress. Batting .407 in his last 6 games prior to tonight's game, albeit, with no home runs. But the bombs will come if he keeps on hitting like that. Means he is seeing the ball well.

Steroids

Great player and a great person as well! His parents taught him well and he was great enough to listen. Tip my cap to all three of them. Trout doesn't let success get into his head and always wants to get better every year. One year, it's learning to improve on hitting the high fastball, the next year, it's about stealing bases again, etc.

Simmons is the best defensive shortstop that I have ever seen in my years of watching MLB..