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Mike Trout and the Angels Officially Miss the Playoffs Again
By Matt Schultz
Published:
Saw this tweet and it got me thinking about Mike Trout’s career again:
Mike Trout sure is a loser, huh. Not that this is anything new. We’ve known this for a very long time. To refresh your memory:
- 2026 is Mike Trout’s 16th season with the Angels. Of those 16, only four have were winning seasons.
- The Angels’ last winning season was in 2015.
- Mike Trout has played in just three career postseason games (2014 ALDS). He won none of them.
- He’s the only three-time MVP in baseball history to never win a playoff game.
- Mike Trout holds a sub-.500 career record of 865–908 (.488) in regular-season games played.
What else? How else can we frame this level of loserdom? Here’s a few more:
- Mike Trout has more MVPs than playoff wins.
- In his sole playoff series, he had just one hit in 12 at-bats.
- Trout and Hall of Famer Ernie Banks are the only players in MLB history with 400+ career home runs who have never played in a postseason victory.
- The Angels have finished .500 or worse in 11 consecutive seasons (2016–2026), the longest active streak of non-winning seasons in MLB.
- In 10 of his 16 seasons, the Angels finished at least 10 games out of first place in the AL West. They finished 20+ games back in six different seasons.
Again, none of this is new. We all know about Mike Trout’s resume. But still, it’s pretty crazy to step back and really think about just how much he’s squandered his career.
And as the pointless seasons keep on adding up, the less I believe sentiments like this one:
This man’s loyalty to an organization that misses the playoffs every year is so impressive but so sad. He deserves an October run and it doesn’t seem like he will ever get a chance.
— Hoosier Truther (@TrutherHoosier) September 8, 2026
I don’t think loyalty has anything to do with it. I bet Trout would love for people to assume that’s why he’s stayed on the Angels — it makes his losing sound noble and honorable and cool — but I don’t buy it. I just don’t think Mike Trout cares that much about winning baseball games.
I realize it may sound like a WIP-ass opinion, but I don’t mean it that way. I’m not even really judging him. I think Mike Trout is a guy who is exceptionally good at his job, but simply does not care all that much about his legacy as a baseball player. If he did, he’d want to win a World Series, and if he wanted to win a World Series, he would’ve entered free agency or asked for a trade. He’s done neither. He didn’t want to.
From where I’m sitting, Trout seems like a guy who just really likes living in his house with his family in LA and going to work and then going home. To him, the math appears to be: “I can stay comfortable where I am and lose, or I can uproot my life to try to win.” Over and over, he’s chosen the former. He likes being comfortable. He likes his house. He likes to chill.
Actually, I take back what I said before: I guess I am judging him. Now that I’m typing it all out, I can’t help but feel resentful about what his outlook cost us as baseball fans. Imagine how fun the last decade would’ve been if Mike Trout was competing for World Series rings. Imagine if he were as obsessed with winning as Bryce Harper or Kobe Bryant or Tom Brady. Wouldn’t that have been nice? To see an all-time talent do anything and everything he could to win?
It’d be one thing if Trout was just some regular guy and had this attitude. Like if he worked in IT and didn’t really care about being remembered as one of the best IT guys ever. In that context, I’d give him a big thumbs up. Sounds healthy and normal. But Trout is a professional athlete, and healthy/normal professional athletes aren’t all that entertaining. We don’t love The Last Dance because Michael Jordan had a well-balanced relationship with winning. We loved it because he was an absolute lunatic about it.
But alas, we’ll never get anything close to that with Mike Trout. He’s told us who he is and what he cares about for 16 years now. He’ll clock in and perform well when he’s at work — but that’s all he’s willing to do.
At the end of the day, Mike Trout really just loves living in his house. Not moving out of his house is what’s most important. Must be a sick house.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com