There’s no shortage of superstar position players in the majors this season. With performances from veteran players like Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman, as well as relative newcomers such as Bobby Witt Jr., Gunnar Henderson, and Darren Juran, there are plenty of talented players to follow and root for.

Yet there hasn’t much opportunity to cheer for once-megastar Mike Trout, whose season has been impacted by the injury bug again.

When he was in his prime, I loved watching Trout play, to see how he would beat opposing teams with his bat and his glove. He was the subject of frequent ESPN Top 10 plays. There was a period when he was capturing AL MVP hardware, or finishing as runner-up, practically every year. It seemed like he was reaching major offensive milestones every season. I always viewed him as the “new Mickey Mantle.”  He was the face of major league baseball.

The main difference between Trout and Mantle didn’t involve any aspect of their physical abilities—it was the fact that Trout didn’t have the surrounding cast of Angels teammates that Mantle had with the Yankees. The Angels have had only one playoff team among only four winning teams during Trout’s 14-year tenure. (It reminds me of Hall of Famer Ernie Banks, who played 19 years with some pretty awful Chicago Cubs teams and never appeared in a post-season game.)

But the Angels’ losing ways didn’t affect his own play. When he was healthy, he could single-handedly beat teams with his bat, his glove, and his legs.

However, Trout’s had only one season when he played over 100 games due to a variety of injuries since 2020. He’s been only a shell of the player he had once been. Ohtani came onto the scene in Anaheim in 2018 and took over for Trout as one of the best players in the league, combing hitting and pitching skills. (Ohtani sandwiched a fourth-place finish for the Cy Young Award with two MVP Award seasons, something previously unheard of.)

Despite Trout being 32 years old, I had hoped 2024 would be the beginning of a rejuvenation period, where he would leave behind the injury-filled period and get back on track to his former productive years. Since Ohtani had moved on to the Dodgers, I was ready for Trout to take center stage again with the Angels.

Instead, Trout has played only 29 games this year, with all of them coming at the start of the season. A torn meniscus sustained on April 29 sent him to the surgical table, and he followed with a lengthy rehabilitation period.

He had a rehab assignment with Triple-A Salt Lake on July 23 but left the game early with a sore knee. He ended up tearing his meniscus a second time, which put him back on the injured list for the rest of the season.

Trout could retire right now at age 33 and still get his bronze plaque in Cooperstown. Just his eight seasons between 2012 and 2019 were that impactful to warrant election. The best analogy would be Sandy Koufax, who had six of the most dominating seasons in history for a pitcher. He retired at age 30 because of a permanent arm injury and was still a first-ballot Hall electee.

Baseball is all too often unkind to many of its players, unfortunately including some of the game’s best. Hopefully, Trout will eventually make a successful full-season comeback and return to his greatness. In the meantime, I have no problem pulling for Judge and Soto to finally bring the Yankees their 28th World Championship.